Ethanol Insanity

Energy Tribune

Barack Obama doesn’t want to talk about corn ethanol. And it’s no wonder. In early August, his campaign Web site purged several sections of his energy plan that talked about corn ethanol. Before the purge, Obama was touting corn ethanol as a pivotal element in his push for “energy independence.” His site declared that Obama “will require 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels to be included in the fuel supply by 2022 and will increase that to at least 60 billion gallons of advanced biofuels like cellulosic ethanol by 2030.” The site also claims that less than 10 percent of new corn ethanol production is coming from farmerowned distilleries. To address this, “Obama will create a number of incentives for local communities to invest in their biofuels refineries.”

In early August, Obama released a new set of talking points on energy called “New Energy for America” that supplanted his old energy stance. All mentions of corn ethanol were removed. The word “ethanol” only appears once, in reference to the fact that “advances in biofuels, including cellulosic ethanol…offer tremendous potential to break our addiction to oil.”