SLUH Review 1.9

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ET COGNOSCETIS VERITATEM ET VERITAS LIBERABIT VOS

SLUH REVIEW Vol. 1 Issue 9

A journal of Faith, thought, and civics

Corn’s Problem and Sugar’s Solution: America’s Problem with Ethanol By Joe Esswein, Sophomore Editor

April 26, 2010

Brazil seems to have ethanol figured out though. Instead of using corn for fuel, they use sugar. Using just 1 percent of its arable land they produced half the amount of oil produced by Iran, according to Justin Rohrlich with the Mises Institute. The Brazilian ethanol accounts for 50 percent of Brazilian auto travel. Brazil’s sugar ethanol gives them 80 units of energy for each unit invested, while American corn yields 1.5 units per unit invested. Sugar ethanol is also much cheaper than corn ethanol.

Corn is in an incredible amount of food, from pancakes, to potato chips, to Cheerios. Corn is also in oil. The fuel that runs our cars has a very expensive form of oil in it. Ethanol, a form of oil made from corn, is cutting into American’s pocketbook at the supermarket and at the pump. In fact, corn based ethanol is causing prices at supermarkets around the country to go up by 10 to 15%. These prices for our food staple, corn, hurts Americans, but it causes death in poor African countries where an increase in food prices causes people to be unable to eat for long periods of time. The World Bank announced that world food prices had jumped 83 percent over the last three years. As much as one-third of this inflation can be blamed on ethanol production, according to Chris Peterson, professor of agribusiness at Michigan State University.

What is preventing the US from digging into this great resource? The unfortunate answer lies in tariffs. The United States government opts out of using the world-wide free market and instead supports environmental lobbies and American oil companies at the expense of the American consumer by placing a 54 cent tariff on corn ethanol and a 51 cent break for corn ethanol produced by farmers. The US government makes it fiscally irresponsible to buy the more efficient form of oil and the one that’s better for the environment. Because of the US’s irresponsibility in the field of alternative fuel, food prices around the world are up, the environment is harmed, and you take a toll at the pump.

Ethanol doesn’t help gas prices either. If the price for gasoline is at 47 cents per gallon before government taxes and shipping costs, then ethanol is between 47 and 95 cents, depending on the percentage of corn in the oil. More ethanol in the oil means higher prices. By 2022 environmentalists want to have oil with 85% ethanol. The high demand for corn throughout the market has driven the price of corn up from two to four dollars per bushel in the past year.

-This article references information from Mises.org, BusinessWeek.com, and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

The journal Science has proven that ethanol hurts the environment. Science says that the conversion from forests to corn fields increases the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. After learning that it would take 167 years of ethanol use to offset the effect on the environment, some environmental groups have stopped supporting ethanol.

Taxed Enough Already By Luke Chellis, Writer The TEA Party movement represents an arousal of a too-long dormant constitutional awakening, reminding us that the United States began with a tax revolt. Tea partiers, like John Jay, worry that “all the fruits of [Americans’] labor and industry may be taken from [them] whenever an avaricious -1-


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