The ethanol-from-corn farce

Huge economic dislocations in the food industry, and particularly in livestock production, have come from the fiction that America's energy crisis could be solved--or even be improved--by making ethanol from corn to replace gasoline.

Ethanol from corn is a net energy loser, as it takes more energy to raise and process the corn for ethanol, than the resulting ethanol returns to the gas tank. Now comes word that ethanol from corn produces even worse air pollution from cars than gasoline does. The only reason ethanol from corn is profitable is massive federal subsidies, handed out by politicians seeking the farm vote.

This sordid tale is bad enough by itself, but doesn't even begin to describe the damage done to livestock feed prices, livestock producer profit margins, and the cost of food at the supermarket. All because corn has been diverted from its highest and best use--feeding cattle, pigs and chickens--to make ethanol. Even the sop thrown to the livestock industry, the leftovers from ethanol production called brewer's mash-- when fed to cattle, appears to cause greater E. coli contamination in raw meat, in addition to being a less efficient and nutritious animal feed than the corn itself.

Ethanol can be a net energy producer, if made from sugar cane or switchgrass, but takes more energy, water and fertilizer made from petroleum, to grow the corn, than it returns in fuel.

It's time for Congress to cut out the subsidies for this farce, and return economic sense to both agriculture and energy production.