Does Obama Plan to Soak Taxpayers in Ethanol?

Earlier today, I highlighted the fact that, despite new advertising claims made by General Motors, taxpayers were still on the hook for the bailout money the automaker received. Now, I can report that the Obama Administration appears to be preparing to "soak" taxpayers again -- this time by touting cellulosic ethanol as a viable alternative fuel that will generate tens of thousands of jobs during a stop in Macon, Mo., next week.

In an article published late yesterday, The Hannibal Courier-Post reported President Barack Obama is likely to visit a POET Energy ethanol plant near Macon Wednesday as part of his "White House to Main Street" tour.

The visit to the POET plant is hardly coincidental, especially when one considers the fact that, on Tuesday, the company announced at a National Press Club event that it had applied for a loan guarantee from the Department of Energy.

Why does POET, a company that bills itself as "the world's largest ethanol producer," need a loan guarantee? Because it plans to build the first plant for commercial production of cellulosic ethanol, a product manufactured from corn cobs.

Make no mistake, cellulosic ethanol is a new twist on an old game. And I hope it works. But what if it isn't really any better than the corn-base variety described in the video below as, among other things, "bad for taxpayers, bad for consumers, bad for the environment, and horrible for the world's poor."

Is it worth it to risk millions -- or billions, perhaps -- of taxpayer dollars to help POET achieve its published goal to "have a hand in producing 3.5 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol per year by 2022"? Should we ignore what Lester Brown at National Review’s The Corner said four years ago about corn ethanol:

“Corn ethanol is a boondoggle of gigantic proportions, foisted on the American public by an uncompetitive corn ethanol industry that sees the global warming scare as its lifeline. And this boondoggle harms the world’s poor, not just working Americans who have to pay more for gas. A responsible Congress would cut the ethanol mandate and subsidy to nothing.”

Should we ignore what the Financial Times reported Oct. 24, 2008, under the headline, Investors suffer as US ethanol boom dries up:

Six of the biggest publicly traded US ethanol producers have lost more than $8.7bn in market value since the peak of the boom in mid-2006 and the beginning of this month, according to an analysis by the Financial Times. The boom followed a 2005 law requiring refiners to mix billions of gallons of the biofuel with petrol.

I think we should not. Borrowing a variant of some now-famous words Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart used to craft his opinion about a landmark 1964 case, I say, “I know it when I see it!” and what I see is this: “Corn ethanol is Cornography!”

Cellulosic ethanol is one of the stupidest ideas ever. No one would propose it if there were not opportunities to get taxpayer subsidies and government guaranteed profits.

It take far more than one btu of energy to produce one btu of cellular ethane. The ratio is actually over 2 to 1. The cost of producing, transporting etc is far more than the cost of gasoline. We are heading towards economic insanity.

I feel like a villager in a twisted version of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" with this administration.

They post signs about some great play we can all go see real cheap. Everyone shows up and gets screwed. So, the villagers that went to the play come back and tell the rest of us it's real great so we can share the misery. Well when we all show up on the third day (think Tea Party) to get our revenge, the "actors" throw tomatoes and rotten eggs at us.

a couple from the archives regarding cellulosic ethanol:

and the usual