Cause... Effect?

.

An Associated Press investigation that was reported out on earlier this week absolutely hammers the practice of corn-based ethanol (aka the worst alternative energy idea ever) as fuel for being environmentally counterproductive and not the return on investment financially the those in Big Corn say it is.


How bad is it for Big Corn? Here’s the lese from the AP’s expose’:

The hills of southern Iowa bear the scars of America's push for green energy: The brown gashes where rain has washed away the soil. The polluted streams that dump fertilizer into the water supply.

Even the cemetery that disappeared like an apparition into a cornfield.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore their names are Death, Destruction, Pestilence, and Famine.

Naaah. We made up that last part but couldn’t resist the similar apocalyptic yet myth-making prose of Grantland Rice.



So, consider our surprise then when the administration that is absolutely addicted to horrible alternative energy implementation ideas said that via the EPA, they were scaling back ethanol production mandates.


Also from the AP:

The Obama administration on Friday proposed to reduce the amount of ethanol in the nation's fuel supply for the first time, acknowledging that the biofuel law championed by both parties in 2007 is not working as well as expected.

While the proposal highlights the government's struggle to ramp up production of homegrown biofuel s that are cleaner-burning than gasoline, it is unlikely to mean much for consumers at the pump.

The change would reduce by almost 3 billion gallons the amounts of ethanol and other biofuels blended into gasoline in 2014 than the law requires.

The 2007 law tried to address global warming, reduce dependence on foreign oil and prop up the rural economy by requiring oil companies to blend billions of gallons of biofuels into their gasoline each year. But politicians who wrote the law didn't anticipate fuel economy to improve as much as it has in recent years, which reduced demand for gasoline.

How bad is it for Big Corn that this administration may be finally acknowledging reality? That reality being even without ethanol we have become increasingly less dependent upon foreign oil. (We need to find the link but a widely reported study has this country being energy independent by 2025. In case you were wondering, this is a good thing.)

Reality being that many oil and natural gas reserves we are now tapping into in the Dakotas, western Pennsylvania and upstate New York are in the very rural areas ethanol purports to help. Reality being that, prima facie, burning food to run your Prius makes absolutely zero sense.


We applaud the administration for acknowledging these realities that we have been hammering away on for years.