Ethanol: Expensive, wasteful, stupid, and doesn't prevent bad weather

Is it Time to End Ethanol Vehicle Fuel Mandates? | Somewhat Reasonable

Ethanol fuel is no bargain. For example, when gasoline is priced at $3.40 per gallon, the 85 percent ethanol blend (E85) is priced at about $3.00 per gallon. But since the energy content of ethanol is only 66 percent that of gasoline, a tank of E85 gets only about 71 percent of the mileage of a tank of pure gasoline. E85 fuel should be priced at $2.41 per gallon for the driver to break even. According to the US Department of Agriculture, ethanol fuel remains about 25 percent more expensive than gasoline.
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Mandates for ethanol vehicle fuel are also boosting food prices. Forty percent of the US corn crop is diverted to produce about ten percent of US vehicle fuel. Global corn and soybean prices have doubled over the last ten years in concert with the growth in ethanol and biodiesel production. Anyone who drives a car or eats food is paying higher prices due to ethanol mandates.

But isn’t ethanol fuel sustainable? Not in terms of water consumption. Studies by the Argonne National Laboratory and the Netherlands University of Twente found that ethanol production consumes twice to dozens of times more water than gasoline produced from petroleum, even from Canadian oil sands.

2008:  Berkshire Hathaway Charlie Munger on Ethanol

When asked by a shareholder about ethanol, Charlie Munger made the following statement:

"Running cars on corn is about the stupidest thing I ever heard of. Our government is under tremendous political pressure [to keep pushing and supporting corn ethanol] even though it makes no sense." He goes on to state an unpopular view in Nebraska, "More energy is used producing ethanol than it creates and that's without considering the damage to the topsoil producing fuel when we could be producing food." Munger further states that it's silly to drive up the price of food in order to provide an uneconomic fuel, as well as a dumb government policy.