If something’s desirable it ought not to be necessary to force people to buy it.
Chipotle, for instance, doesn’t need to spend millions in de-facto bribes (“campaign contributions”) to wheedle Congress into passing burrito subsidies. Nor are you forced to eat at Chipotle if burritos and bowls are not your thing.
Why doesn’t the same apply to “renewable” fuels, specifically – ethanol and biodiesel? If they are viable alternatives to gasoline – if they are better than conventional fuels – why must people be forced to subsidize them?
Required to buy them?
It’s a question that ought to be asked more often – which might result in crony capitalist hog-troughs (this time dressed in “green” livery) shoving their hands in our pockets less often.
But that’s probably just why it’s not asked.
Neither ethanol nor biodiesel can make it on the merits. Hence the need for government muscle.
You probably know all about the oceans of money ($6 billion annually; see here) diverted from taxpayers to a handful of massive agribusiness cartels – not mom and pop family farms – to “encourage” the production of ethanol (corn alcohol) which is then mixed in with the supply of what used to be gasoline – but which is now 10 percent ethanol (E10).
The agribusiness cartels get rich. American drivers get adulterated fuel that has less energy content per gallon, is corrosive to the fuel systems of older cars and power equipment such as lawn mowers – and causes newer cars to be less fuel-efficient than they’d be if they were fed pure gasoline. The diversion of cropland to the production of ethanol feed stock has also made food more expensive.
Corn that ordinarily might have fed cattle – which would then feed us – instead goes to feed the ethanol stills.
Beef costs more – and costs more to ship.
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