Every day, it seems, corn ethanol gets a little less attractive. In fact, if the information in this article from the latest print edition of The Economist catches on, then ethanol advocates are going to have two more easy-to-remember absurditiies to defend: 1.) biofuels will use a third of the maize grown in the U.S. this year and 2.) filling "up an SUV's fuel tank with ethanol [uses] enough maize to feed a person for a year."I'm not saying I want to eat corn for a year, but there is a lot of corn in many of the prepared foods sold in America (high fructose corn syrun, corn meal, etc.). Shifting so much of the grain from food to fuel - and the resulting effect on food prices - gave The Economist the idea to title the article "The end of cheap food." Welcome to the era of the ethanol-guzzlers driving to buy $10 boxes of corn flakes?
I recommend checking out the full article for the details, but before you go, let's just wonder out loud what type of ethanol the writer is talking about with that gas tank comment. Is it E85 going into the tank? That's most likely, because that the fuel that is commonly sold as "ethanol" in the U.S., but perhaps the dramatic number requires us to calculate using E100. It's an important distinction, but the general message stands whatever percentage we're talking about.
[Source: Ethanol, thanks to Nick B.]
