ETHANOL

Are you worried about your taxes and the National Debt?

COSTS

$23 Billion	**	Amount spent on ethanol subsidies since 2005 (source: Congressional Budget Office)
$12 Million	**	Amount spent in the first quarter of  2011 for lobbying the ethanol subsidy issue in D.C. (source: First Street by CQ Press and OpenSecrets.org)
$2 Billion	**	Estimated amount of money it will cost to install separate E15 "blender pumps" at gas stations to avoid mis-fueling. (source: American Coalition for Ethanol)
$168 Billion	**	Amount of additional federal appropriations for infrastructure investment needed to meet the current ethanol production mandates under federal law. (source: U.S. Department of Agriculture and Scientific American article, July 28, 2011)
$untold Billion	**	Because 0 Number of current pipelines are capable of safely transporting ethanol-blended fuel.  (source: ethanoltoday.com)

THE BIG LIE   

For all of you who think that ethanol will lower our dependence on foreign oil:       

Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion to ethanol, 131,000 Btu are needed to make 1 gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 Btu. "Put another way, about 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in ethanol. Every time you make 1 gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 Btu."

"The growers and processors can't afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol. U.S. drivers couldn't afford it either, if it weren't for government subsidies to artificially lower the price."  

"Ethanol from corn costs about $1.74 per gallon to produce, compared with about 95 cents to produce a gallon of gasoline. "That helps explain why fossil fuels (foreign oil) -- not ethanol -- are used to produce ethanol,"  emphasis and "foreign oil" added by author.

"If all the automobiles in the United States were fueled with 100 percent ethanol, a total of about 97 percent of U.S. land area would be needed to grow the corn feedstock. Corn would cover nearly the total land area of the United States."  (source: Professor David Pimentel, Cornell University, Cornell Chronicle, March 6, 2009)

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