Dude; Where's My Bailout?

With other hogs at the trough, could the food-to-fuel industry be far behind?

Ethanol producers are jockeying for a seat on the increasingly crowded bailout bandwagon. Just last Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer addressed the plight of those poor, poor businessmen who got locked into the cost of corn this summer. Just like oil and natural gas, the current price is half of what it was at its peak.

Schafer claims that “the ethanol industry is too important to the nation to allow it to go into more financial difficulty.”

Oh, please. How long will this jive play out? There's other really fun news about the food-based fuel scam:

The Des Moines Register reported the other day that Iowa’s ethanol plants contribute 15 Percent of greenhouse-gas emissions found in the state’s new inventory of major manufacturers, businesses and power plants.

Iowa’s Department of Natural Resources found that the largest portion of the state’s overall emissions came from fermenting grain at the plants and not from burning natural gas or coal. In addition, burning biomass such as switchgrass at various
industrial plants added another 0.13 million metric tons.

Ethanol - smells better every day!