Cruz’s Victory Against Ethanol Cartel
Most presidential candidates in the past would go to Iowa, the first state to cast a ballot for President of the United States, and proudly, boldly support ethanol and the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) ‒ even if they talked badly about it everywhere else in the nation.
However, Senator Ted Cruz set himself apart from all the others. Cruz voted to repeal the Renewable Fuel Standard. He stood up to the ethanol cartel, while he was campaigning very hard in Iowa. In response, the cartel mobilized an army to fight him, and they were defeated Monday night when he took first place in the Iowa Caucus.
The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is a law requiring traditional fuel to have increasing blends of ethanol and later, other biofuels. However, the RFS plan has already failed.
RFS was created in fear of the depletion of petroleum reserves. There’s so much of it now it’s being made at break-even price. Here are a few points against RFS. I’m sure there is a faction that can produce arguments in favor of it – I’d look forward to reading them. Campaining in favor of it would appear to be an overall negative. I suspect there are at least some Iowa voters who profit very little from ethanol production.
• A 2008 study published in Science magazine found that corn-based ethanol increases greenhouse gas emissions instead of reducing them. A 2009 study concluded that plowing fields to grow corn for ethanol could release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than ethanol offsets.
• Corn is a nutrient depleting crop. Nitrate fertilizers encourage algae blooms and deplete oxygen in rivers and lakes.
• Some 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop goes into gas tanks, not stomachs. As demand for corn has risen, so have food prices. As the cost of feed has risen, so have beef prices.
• Ethanol gets fewer miles to the gallon than gasoline.
• Ethanol contains oxygen. It is corrosive and damages motors, fuel systems.
• Ethanol mix fuel deteriorates rapidly.
• The RFS was initiated to slow the consumption of petroleum at a time when we were believed to be in fear of depletion. We now have a surplus with a predicted six hundred year potential supply, so the reason for RFS no longer exists.
• It is draining water from the aquifers in the mid west. On a BTU per gallon basis, ethanol consumes 27,000 times as much water as fracking does.
• 131,000 Btu are needed to make 1 gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 Btu. About 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in ethanol. Every time you make 1 gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 Btu.
• Given the above negative energy advantage, if all the energy required to produce ethanol were, by law, required to be derived from ethanol the RFS would be dead and gone.
• Advantage to the refiners: Ethanol is the cheapest octane booster available AND given the significantly lower energy efficiency, the consumer must buy MORE ethanol mix fuel to travel the same distance.
• A new NOAA study found that ethanol refineries emit up to 30 times more VOCs than originally assumed – and 170 times more than when ethanol is burned in cars.
• Environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Clean Air Task Force now oppose its use.
Although the taxpayers and consumers are burdened at this time, in the end, our nation’s farmers are going to experience the worst impact conceivable as a result of this disastrous program.
Those benefiting now, the so-called “investors”, will simply walk away. Much of the investment funds come from federal programs (think Solyndra and Abengoa). It is the farmers who have hard earned, family funds invested into the ethanol debacle. When they take the economic hit, we will all see the impact of food prices, even more than we do now.
Consumers will feel the financial squeeze, but many farmers will be irreparably damaged. Many will not be able to survive and recover.