Posted 2/20/2006 05:29:00 PM by Douglas

It's been a while since the blog has railed against ethanol as a fuel, I thought it was time to update based on Bush's remarks today.

Bush said he envisioned a future in which a plug-in hybrid car could drive 40 miles on a lithium-ion battery, then stop at a filling station for ethanol, a fuel usually made from corn.

"We're close to having this vision realized in America," Bush said. The trip could be conducted without consuming a drop of oil, he said.

Let's start with the "plug-in" aspect of that statement. Where does that electricity come from (and please don't say "the wall"). It comes, most likely, from a coal or gas fired boiler spinning a steam turbine. Sooo, instead of the exhaust coming out the tailpipe, it's coming out a huge stack in a power plant many miles away. Except there's probably a third more of it, since the inherent losses when the energy changes form and is transferred down the wire.

Now moving on to ethanol. While it has been quite successful in powering the blog in the past years (thanks go to Mr. Beam, Mr. Smirnoff, and Mr. Seagram) it has proven a dismal approach to renewable energy. I thought I was done ranting about this, but it looks like this topic is never going to go away. One more time: Distilling ethanol uses more energy than it creates. The only reason this is even an option is because the Fed pays corn farmers to grow it whether there's a market for it or not. If the ethanol crowd actually had to pay for the corn they distill, they'd see any profits go up through their condensing stacks along with any practical feasibility.

You can't get something out of nothing, whether it's on the Arabian Peninsula or in an ear of corn.