Eugene Guilford Jr., president of the Independent Connecticut Petroleum Association and its education foundation, explains why he is convinced that ethanol is not only an energy waster, but leads to starvation. He was the guest on the Ct Watchdog News Hour on www.OnTheHORN.com, discussing gasoline pricing.
He is correct, but it is counter intuitive and doesn’t make us “feel good”, so the subsidizes will not end.
It will be a bad source of energy as long as petroleum is a bad source of taco shells. And to think that is counter intuitive these days… 🙂
It’s about time. Environmental groups have been fighting our wasteful corn ethanol subsidies for years. Contact Sen. Lieberman and Blumenthal and demand an end to the VTEEC ethanol tax credit.
I read through you column in the Sunday New Haven Register. When I got to the Ethanol part that was related to Eugene Guilford’s information I was amazed at the inaccuracy of the information. The ethanol energy content part was possibly accurate
20 years ago, but it is not today. I have attached an Argonne Lab. (US Dept. of Energy) that addresses the issue of percentage of energy required to make ethanol. Please note that it actually takes more energy to make gasoline then it produces. The attachment also talk about all the various research that has been out the last few years and how each author ranks in this questioning of the “Energy Balance” of biofuels.
In addition back around 2008 when gasoline prices spiked the blame game was played by the Groceries Association to the tune of $250 million they spent to blame ethanol and biodiesel for the increased cost of food. However when the price of corn and soy beans came down, the price of food stayed up. Research has shown that the price of food is and was tied to marketing, packaging, distribution and transportation more than feed stock costs. The USDA found that during the 2008 food spike period the price of food went up about 3% due to corn and soy bean costs and the rest was what I mentioned.
Please look up RFS2 when you get a chance, because biofuels are not going away. The laws and regulations are in place for biofuels to replace foreign petroleum on an ever increasing quota system in gasoline and diesel usage in the US.
Lee Grannis
Coordinator
Greater New Haven Clean Cities, Inc