Submitted by Anne Landman on
Just as Congress is set to begin debating ethanol-related subsidies, Growth Energy, a lobbying group for the ethanol industry, is starting a $2.5 million, 6-month national television ad campaign aimed at defending ethanol, and portraying it a way to break the country's addiction to foreign oil. Grown Energy is headed by Jim Nussle, a former Republican congressman from Iowa and former member of George W. Bush's cabinet who is now president and CEO of a Virginia-based PR and lobbying firm called the Nussle Group. The corn/ethanol industry has been in decline for the last two years due to the economic downturn, which reduced the demand for both gasoline and ethanol. The ad campaign seeks to put a positive spin on ethanol, increase the market for ethanol, and counteract the idea that growing corn and other crops for fuel displaces food crops and causes higher food prices. Ethanol is blended into gasoline, but hasn't caught on because it's less widely available and can be more expensive to use on a per-mile basis. While it is cheaper than gas, ethanol contains a third less energy than gas, and gets 30 to 40 percent less mileage.
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Gregory Lynn Kruse replied on Permalink
Old rusty cans
A few years ago I predicted that ethanol plants would be rusting hulks in ten years. I refuse to use it in my car for reasons stated in the article. I believe certain persons saw ethanol as a way to induce a flow of money from everyone's pocket into their bank accounts offshore. It is a familiar ploy nowdays where investors band together, get federal funding and subsidies, spend lavishly on a project that is doomed to fail, siphon off as much wealth as possible and abandon the whole thing when it crashes. If you don't get out in time, the federal government will make it all better anyway. It's a no-lose situation that's happening everywhere in our economy. What it will take to stop this abuse? A prison term for Don Blankenship would be a step in the right direction.