By Bonner Cohen, Ph.D. ~
During his long – and not always illustrious – political career, Bob Dole was fond of telling crowds on the campaign trail: “I’m the senator from ethanol.”
Dole, still with us at 98, is from Kansas, which along with Iowa, Illinois, South Dakota, Missouri, and Minnesota is part of the Great American Corn Belt. Because ethanol sold in the U.S. as a transportation fuel is derived from corn, ethanol and corn have become inseparable. Roughly 40% of the U.S. corn crop is refined into ethanol at 210 ethanol plants scattered across 27 states.
Friends in High Places
Coddled by politicians in the Midwest and Washington, D.C., ethanol was subsidized by American taxpayers for decades and protected by tariffs from foreign competition. Thanks to a 2005 law, the subsidies and tariffs finally went away, but they were replaced by a mandate requiring that a certain percentage of ethanol be blended into gasoline. Almost all gasoline currently sold in the U.S. is blended with 10% ethanol. Higher amounts are not recommended because of the potential damage ethanol (alcohol) could do to engines.
Ethanol is a low-BTU (British thermal unit) fuel, meaning that when it’s blended into gasoline, it actually lowers the energy content of the fuel. For the driving public, this has been a colossal rip-off. But it’s been a bonanza for the ethanol industry, and the corn lobby remains one of the most potent groups in Washington.
Thus, it came as a real surprise when Iowa lawmakers recently rebuffed an effort by the ethanol industry and its powerful political allies to raise the percentage of ethanol blended into gasoline at service stations in Iowa to 15%. Yes, that happened in Iowa, the nation’s top corn and corn-ethanol producer. The 15% mandate was backed by Gov. Kim Reynolds (R), House Speaker Pat Grassley (R) (Sen. Chuck Grassley’s grandson), and such groups as Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, Growth Energy, Archer Daniels Midland, Iowa Corn Growers, Bayer, Cargill, and POET.
The industry clearly wasn’t lacking in muscle. Yet it couldn’t get Hawkeye State lawmakers to go along with their 15% ethanol scheme. Service stations objected because they were going to have to shell out $500,000 each to retrofit their equipment by the 2026 deadline. Consumers, some of whom are employed by the ethanol industry or are farmers growing corn for ethanol, also said no, because they don’t want government, backed by a self-interested industry, mandating what they put into their fuel tanks.
“Think about what it says about a product when the government has to require its use under penalty of law,” notes Michael McKenna, a columnist for the Washington Times (June 17). McKenna is president of MWR Strategies and was deputy director of the Office of Legislative Affairs under President Trump.
The setback in Iowa was a long-overdue setback for a sprawling industry that has contributed absolutely nothing to the U.S. energy pool.
Bonner R. Cohen, Ph. D. is a senior policy analyst with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) where he focuses on natural resources, energy, property rights, and geopolitical developments.
Read more excellent articles at CFACT http://www.cfact.org/
gds44
Sun 06/27/2021
Reblogged this on Gds44's Blog.
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HiFast
Thu 06/24/2021
Reblogged this on Climate Collections.
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whatyareckon
Wed 06/23/2021
Reblogged this on whatyareckon and commented:
I’m originally from Iowa and glad there are still some who are standing up to this nonsense.
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nickreality65
Tue 06/22/2021
1) By reflecting away 30% of ISR the albedo, which would not exist w/o the atmosphere/GHGs, makes the earth cooler than it would be without that atmosphere like that reflective panel set behind the windshield. Remove the atmosphere/GHGs and the earth would become much like the Moon and Mercury, a barren rock with a 0.1 albedo, 20% more kJ/h, hot^3 on the lit side, cold^3 on the dark. Nikolov, Kramm (U of AK) and UCLA Diviner mission all tacitly agree.
2) the GHG up/down welling, “trapping”/”back” radiating/delaying/intercepting, 100 % efficient, perpetual warming loop requires “extra” energy which according to RGHE theory comes from
3) the terrestrial surface radiating that “extra” energy as a LWIR ideal black body which
4) cannot happen because of the non-radiative heat transfer processes of the contiguous atmospheric molecules and as demonstrated by experiment, the gold standard of classical science:
https://principia-scientific.org/debunking-the-greenhouse-gas-theory-with-a-boiling-water-pot/
1+2+3+4 = 0 Greenhouse Effect + 0 Greenhouse gas warming + 0 man caused climate change.
Version 1.0 062221
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