I’ve written in favor of ethanol several times, here and elsewhere. Recently our own Senate voted to cut 6 billion dollars in subsidies and protective tariffs for the ethanol industry because according to Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK):
- We are too poor to afford to subsidize anything.
- The ethanol industry doesn’t need it.
- Ethanol is a ‘lousy idea’ anyway.
On the other hand, Brazil recently announced a government program worth 67 billion dollars to support their ethanol industry. See that story here.
I remain in favor of ethanol, I think it is a path we must follow if we intend to survive. We have built a country that depends on an inexhaustible supply of cheap energy. Yet we clearly know fossil fuels are exhaustible and are going to run out. Not in our lifetimes, but our children or grandchildren?
Nuclear energy? Seriously? If you consider this an option I suggest you re-read the news stories from Japan this year, and then reflect on the meaning of the word ‘hubris.”
To paraphrase Wendell Berry who was speaking about coal in his speech “Compromise, Hell!”, if we know that oil is an exhaustible resource, whereas the crops we can grow over it are with proper use inexhaustible, how can we not support bio-fuels?
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