Scott Benson

Ethanol Will Become a Fad Without Government Intervention

The argument about corn ethanol as a fuel is not a food issue. There are just not enough BTUs in corn ethanol (in America) to displace any meaningful quantities of gasoline or diesel -- maybe 15% at best. Corn ethanol cannot do anything for us, unless we were to grow 6-8 times more corn, which is fantasy.

Corn Ethanol Can Never Replace Meaningful Quantities of Motor Fuel

As I said above, Brazil has proven nothing, except that they can exploit a workforce as well as any country. :)

Corn Ethanol Can Never Replace Meaningful Quantities of Motor Fuel

All the future predictions are all well and good, but as for today, dreams of grandeur aren't going to help us in a world of constrained cheap oil production for which we are running out of time to find substitutions. So far, no one has corrected any of the 1 for 1 BTU calculations that I lay out (gasoline/diesel versus corn). Corn just can't carry the team right now.

Corn Ethanol Can Never Replace Meaningful Quantities of Motor Fuel

I have considered sugarcane/sugarbeet ethanol, which is almost all sugarcane ethanol, which is made primarily in Brazil and is prevented from coming here by a high tariff. Brazil only produces 4 billion gallons of ethanol per year, so even if we imported all of it, it still comes nowhere close to our transportation needs. Brazil being independent of oil is also a fallacy. 90% of their transportation needs are supplied by oil; 10% by ethanol. Cellulosic ethanol is another component of the argument, but no one has figured out how to make a dime off of it yet (make it at a profit). I hope they do figure it out, cause the 36 billion gallon Federal ethanol law in 2007 can't be accomplished without cellulosic. Corn just doesn't have enough energy per acre.