WILLisms.com: Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 407 -- More Ethanol Facts.

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Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 407 -- More Ethanol Facts.

Terrible, This Ethanol-

More on ethanol:

...federal and state subsidies for ethanol ran to about $6 billion last year, equivalent to roughly half its wholesale market price. Ethanol gets a 51-cent a gallon domestic subsidy, and there's another 54-cent a gallon tariff applied at the border against imported ethanol. Without those subsidies, hardly anyone would make the stuff, much less buy it--despite recent high oil prices.
That's also why the percentage of the U.S. corn crop devoted to ethanol has risen to 20% from 3% in just five years, or about 8.6 million acres of farmland. Reaching the President's target of 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuels by 2017 would, at present corn yields, require the entire U.S. corn harvest.

No wonder, then, that the price of corn rose nearly 80% in 2006 alone.

A graphic of that drastic spike in corn prices:

Ethanol: total bunk.

Previous ethanol facts trivia tidbit of the day.

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Posted by Will Franklin · 29 January 2007 11:28 AM

Comments

It's the maze craze...

Posted by: zsa zsa at January 29, 2007 02:27 PM

Just for clarification, the $.51/gallon, also known as the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC), is a blender's credit. The entity that blends ethanol with gasoline receives this and is typically the petroleum marketer, not anyone in the ethanol industry.

Furthermore, for every $1 the ethanol industry receives, the petroleum industry receives at least $14, according to the GAO. They also received a lump sum of $7B after Hurricanes Rita and Katrina...

Posted by: Robert at January 30, 2007 09:22 AM

The petroleum industry does not receive subsidies, unless you consider "not paying 100% tax rates" a subsidy.

Posted by: Will Franklin at January 30, 2007 12:19 PM