Amazing new diets, intriguing self-help books, a daily dose of St. John’s Wort – we are a country obsessed with quick fixes. Now, as Time points out in this cover story titled The Clean Energy Myth, we can add ethanol to our national wish list.
Consider this: If every kernel of corn and if every single soy bean produced by American farmers were converted into ethanol, it would account for just 20 percent of the country’s on-road fuel consumption. That’s one of many eye-opening conclusions in Michael Grunwald’s lucid account. Ethanol is not the answer to our national woes. It is one of many answers on a long list of energy sources that are presently underutilized, including natural gas, coal-to-liquids, wind power, solar power, and nuclear power.
Parting Thought? It’s all about the land, isn’t it?
[…] bushel. More land was being pulled from farming and expiring CRP contracts to produce ethanol. Now our love affair with this wonder fuel that doesn’t work– has sent our food prices shooting […]