For the first time, I saw a “flexfuel” Sedan in my area. It was a pretty, brand-new Chevy Impala. It’s shiny white paint glistened in the sun. It’s been a year and a half since I first wrote “Ethanol..Made to Fail?” , and 2 years since oil companies and car dealers in my area began pushing for local adoption. At the time, I was complaining that everyone was hailing Ethanol as our next energy savior, but no one would sell vehicles that ran on it. All except, of course, for full-size gas-guzzling SUV’s. No cars, no trucks, nothing. I saw a ethanol truck a few months ago, but it was from out of town. Hooray…dealers and car manufacturers are finally living up to their word. Why am I not celebrating? Too little, too late.
Ethanol needs to fail. You see, I believe we’ve all discovered in the last year that our worst fears about Ethanol are real.
1. BTU efficiency for corn is terrible, especially compared to Sugar cane.
2. We already had a pre-existing market for all our corn- We need the corn for, well…FOOD. Yes, corn is a food staple. I remember all those old ADM commercials showing landscapes of the great American countryside while saying “..supermarket to the world”. It’s silly, but it demonstrates what the US economy was built on, and what other countries have become dependent on us for. Food. Simple, necessary, basic food. Has raising our food prices to make fuel lowered our fuel costs by increasing our fuel supply? No. Now both are outrageously expensive. Just for an ear of corn. Stupid.
3. All that development money spent of corn conversion could have been spent on cellulose (grass) conversion technology, and thereby use up a resource that we didn’t want anyway. Hell, we have to pay street departments just to mow this stuff down as it is. Imagine using it for something.
I admit, I wanted an alternative fuel too. But, I’ve realized the race for the next consumer fuel source is silly. We have a technique for running motors that isn’t dependent on which fuel is used. We should be striving for electric systems on all consumer products. We have the technology, we just need the political will to implement it. This takes the energy production decision away from the consumer, and places it in the hands of electricity producers. Let them debate the efficacy of one fuel or another. This takes the problem from front page dilemma to the back pages of some electricity-industry magazine; A matter for corporate bean-counters, not politician’s stump speeches. In that way, the market will work itself out. The best fuel, whether it be Hydrogen, Nuclear, Propane, or even swamp grass, will be allowed to win.
