Corn Ethanol: A Growing Disaster

I have long said that corn ethanol is not smart policy, not even as a stopgap and increasing the amount of corn ethanol is gasoline is not a smart move. The United States has an abundance of corn, but that does not mean that we should turn it into ethanol. Sugarcane ethanol is cheaper and more efficient to produce. Unlike sugarcane, the process of growing corn for ethanol and converting it uses more energy than the finished product will give in the fuel tank of a car. Further, the change in the demand curve for corn raises the prices of corn as a commodity. Even worse, tile cropping of annual crops such as corn poses terrible environmental consequences and the model of farming in the United States is far from being sustainable. I applaud the New York Times for pointing this out. The influential farm lobby, the reason we use corn for ethanol, is much more powerful than a mere newspaper, but the dialogue is important and I am glad to see it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/opinion/28harding.html?_r=1