Reader comments
Biofuels bust — Fuel plants hit economic roadblock

Paulo Nevesm Orem, UT | 4:37 a.m. Oct. 12, 2008

Certainly one good measure would be to elimante subsidies wchichto US ethanol producers enjoy by allowing the import of this fuel from Brazil which in turn would cost at least 50% less.

dr dio | 4:51 a.m. Oct. 12, 2008

Two years ago I bought a biodeisel Toyota truck - it now sits parked. I wonder why in Brazil they can use green waste to make ethanol and in our superior culture we cannot and have never even tried.

Dave | 8:00 a.m. Oct. 12, 2008

Fortunatly for us we have ' big Oil' that has billions in profits that they can now use to insure the gasoline will continue to flow.

Comments continue below

Anonymous | 8:22 a.m. Oct. 12, 2008

If you like what the Feds. did to ethanol, you will love what they are doing to housing.

MetricWrench | 9:12 a.m. Oct. 12, 2008

Ethanol is a joke! The "flexfuel" vehicles that the "big three" put out are a marketing stunt. Ethanol is not practical because amount of energy contained in a gollon of E85 cannot compare to the amount of energy contained in a gallon of gasoline, or one GGE of compressed natural gas. With some simple research one will learn that a flexfuel V6 chevy sedan running on gasoline gets about 25 mpg and the same vehicle running on E85 gets only 15 mpg. The amount saved on the E85 isn't worth the poor fuel economy. Ethanol is good as a fuel oxyginate only, not as a fuel. Anything above 10% ethanol is useless. The federal government needs to provide more incentives for companies to develop CNG vehicles. It's clean, abundant, requires very little processing, and your car runs the same on CNG as it does on gasoline except with lower emissions. It's not just a good alternative to gasoline, it's a better fuel.

Cats | 9:27 a.m. Oct. 12, 2008

This is what happens when government gets into the business of picking winners and losers. It creates distortions in the market and things get really out of kilter.

The market should determine these things and the market is signaling that biofuels are NOT economically feasable. No matter how well intentioned, this seems to be have been somewhat of a disaster.

Ethanol not a Joke | 12:19 p.m. Oct. 12, 2008

Ethanol is not a joke, but using corn to make it is a joke.

Using corn, it takes nearly as much energy to make ethanol as the ethanol provides. Brazil is able to make ethanol where the ethanol produces 9 times as much energy as it costs to make it.

Rather than try to do this in our own country inefficiently, we would be better off, importing ethanol from countries that can make it efficiently. This would diversify our sources of energy making us not so dependent on one energy source.

Hurray | 1:30 p.m. Oct. 12, 2008

Only fools burn their food.

awh | 3:41 p.m. Oct. 12, 2008

I am disheartened that foods from corn have escalated in price, while folks have been pushing making ethanol to fuel vehicles. I agree with "Hurray."

Amazed & Amused | 7:20 p.m. Oct. 12, 2008

To Hurray & AWH -- I live in the cornbelt and am mildly amused by your comments about food & fuel. Perhaps you should be told that the corn processed for ethanol is known as "feed corn". It's great for beef, pork, chicken, turkey & catfish production AND ethanol --- but not as a human food, unless of course you are thinking of white corn used in making 'corn chips'. As it turns out the fools are NOT burning their own food.

boblog | 7:50 p.m. Oct. 12, 2008

Ethanol has long enjoyed unfair tax advantages - subsidies - in the federal tax code. But the mandate of three years ago or so to use ethanol was a poor policy decision. It drove up the price of corn for everyone.

I don't like to see farmers and their communities suffer. Maybe we can get back to using corn for food(people and cattle) and oil and gas for transportation.

Anonymous | 9:22 p.m. Oct. 12, 2008

To Amazed and Amused,
Good luck finding a Turkey soon. The Utah turkey business has shut it's doors because the cornbelt has been feeding low yield ethanol plants, not animals that provide food.

It's government subsidies that have kept those cornbelt ethanol plants alive, not a superior product.

In fact, some day the truth will come out that politicians and their buddies skimmed the cash off the top of the ethanol fiasco.

Thinkin' Man | 11:44 a.m. Oct. 13, 2008

Hooray! The less food we burn, the better.

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