Letter Of The Day

With recent talk of an ethanol mandate at Iowa gas pumps, it's time one of our elected officials had the courage to question the wisdom of the ethanol-energy bender the state has been on. The thermodynamics of the process whereby corn is converted to fuel just doesn't add up economically or environmentally.

Because the average person doesn't understand thermodynamics, but very clearly understands a 10-cent difference at the pump, legislators of both parties have shamelessly misrepresented the benefits of ethanol energy so they can be portrayed as a friend of the farmer, environment and Iowa economy.

It takes far more energy and money to produce one BTU of ethanol energy than it does to produce one BTU of gasoline energy. Why do it? Subsidies, straight from the taxpayer's pocket. Subsidies can bear fruit if there is a future for the technology. This is not the case for ethanol.

Ethanol lowers gas mileage. The physics of ethanol combustion are unavoidable. There is less energy in a gallon of ethanol than a gallon of gasoline. All things being equal, a 10-percent ethanol blend will lower gas mileage by at least 5 percent, eerily similar to the price difference between it and regular unleaded.

Ethanol-gasoline blends burn cleaner. But corn grown for ethanol reduces water quality by creating nitrogen pollution and soil erosion that otherwise could have been avoided had the land been cultivated for something else, or not at all.

Surely we can find ways to enhance the Iowa farm economy that are not fraudulent and are more environmentally friendly. It makes no sense to flush some of the world's best soil down the drain so we can fuel our cars with a less-efficient product. A generation from now, subsidization of the ethanol energy industry will be viewed as nothing short of criminal.

-Chris Jones, Ankeny.

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