Congress passes Energy Bill – Ethanol is not about saving oil

Congress passes the Energy Bill for 2008. It defines many things. Most importantly it dedicates money to develop energy supply. This bill continues to give subsidies to American Oil producers even though oil remains at record high prices. The most important thing the bill does is that it encourages, through funding, alternative sources of energy. Ethanol an important part of the bill with a mandate to create ethanol from non food based raw materials. Many people continue to criticize the production of ethanol.

There are many discutable financial reasons why ethanol is not a good idea. First it will take a tremendous amount of corn to produce a significant amount of ethanol. If oil were abundant in the US and not in bad places it would cost less to produce gasoline than ethanol. Ethanol requires investments in infrastructures that will reduce corporate earnings.

There is one reason to develop ethanol that outweighs the financial costs of using alternative fuels. That reason is that we do not have to have an army to protect ethanol supplies. No American will die to defend “US interests”, better known as international oil reserves. We will no longer have any reason to fight with the Arabs. We will no longer fund their regimes. We will not have to worry about their nuclear intentions.

As a popular television advertisement would say: “Priceless!”