[okie01]

HOWEVER, if car manufacturers would boost compression, and use something that the ethanol would not attack in seals and hoses and such, ethanol might be good for us.

If ethanol as a fuel were "good" for us, it would not require any subsidies or mandates.

As it is, it reduces mileage, raises costs and does not improve air quality (which was the original rationale for its use). Nor is there any shortage of gasoline that justifies using ethanol as an "extender".

Ergo, there is no legitimate free market rationale for maintaining ethanol as a fuel.

[Blennos]

If ethanol as a fuel were "good" for us, it would not require any subsidies or mandates. As it is, it reduces mileage, raises costs and does not improve air quality (which was the original rationale for its use). Nor is there any shortage of gasoline that justifies using ethanol as an "extender". Ergo, there is no legitimate free market rationale for maintaining ethanol as a fuel.

You've got it exactly. Well stated.

[9YearLurker]

Yep—and ethanol isn’t the worst of what the ag lobby has done to us.

Just look at what the food pyramid and decades of pushing low-fat, high-carb diets at us. They’ve bought off various medical and disease associations, too, such that the vast majority of doctors in the country continue to push unhealthy diets, and drugs to counteract those unhealthy diets, on their increasingly obese patients.

[weezel]

I agree, IF we are allowed to get the oil and natural gas out of the ground! Personally, I think natural gas should be our main motor fuel.