By Jack Kelly
From the standpoint of science and economics, ethanol is a terrible substitute for gasoline. It is a net consumer of energy. (More is used to produce it than ethanol generates when it is burned.) Ethanol is highly corrosive. It damages engines and can’t be transported in pipelines. Ethanol has a lower octane rating than gasoline, so it lowers vehicle mileage.
The government “subsidized a product that didn’t exist, mandated its purchase though it still didn’t exist, is punishing oil companies for not buying the product that doesn’t exist, and is now doubling down on the subsidies on the hope that someday it might exist,” said the Wall Street Journal in an editorial. “We’d call this the march of folly, but that’s unfair to fools.”