Ethanol gets skewered by recent CBO assessment | Grist
In its calm and measured way, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just delivered a blistering assessment of the environmental value of corn-based ethanol.Al Gore Saved The Ethanol
The CBO had been charged by Congress to calculate just what the public is getting for its investment in ethanol production: specifically, the $0.45/gallon tax credit that gasoline blenders get for mixing ethanol into the fuel supply. In 2009, 10.8 billion gallons of corn ethanol got used in such a manner, costing the federal Treasury $5.16 billion in reduced tax revenue.
What did we get for that fat wad of cash, in environmental terms?
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1. Subsidizing corn-based ethanol is an mind-numbingly expensive way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Using the friendliest assumptions possible (note that some prominent researchers argue that ethanol actually generates more GHG emissions than gasoline), CBO reckons that by supporting ethanol through the tax break, taxpayers are shelling out about $750 for every metric ton (2,205 pounds) of carbon kept out of the atmosphere by ethanol.
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2. Corn-based ethanol is really just a clever way to convert natural gas and coal into car fuel.
The CBO report states the case bluntly: "Because the production of ethanol draws so much energy from coal and natural gas, it can be thought of as a method for converting natural gas or coal to a liquid fuel that can be used for transportation."
The CBO is referring to the fact that it requires lots of energy to convert a bushel of corn into engine fuel, and most ethanol plants are powered by natural gas; the rest by coal. And that doesn't account for the vast amount of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer needed to grow the corn in the first place. Synthesizing nitrogen, too, requires huge amounts of natural gas.
[Gore] "I was also proud to stand up for the ethanol tax exemption when it was under attack in the Congress -- at one point, supplying a tie-breaking vote in the Senate to save it. The more we can make this home-grown fuel a successful, widely-used product, the better-off our farmers and our environment will be."YouTube - Survival Stories from the Front Lines as Journalism Migrates from the Front Page to the Home Page
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Joanne Nova (http://joannenova.com.au/ ), an experienced science communicator, will be the principal script writer and the anchor person. The documentary will feature Lord Monckton, Prof. Ian Plimer, Prof. Peter Ridd, numerous other Australian and overseas experts as well as some teenagers and older “young” people. We will use animated graphics and humour to keep young viewers interested.
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