Spurious Claims
by Ron Kotrba (Biorefining Magazine) …I told him I’m the editor of two monthly magazines centered on renewable fuels and chemicals. He sort of scoffed, and I knew we were going to get into “the discussion.”
He led into our talk about biofuels with ethanol, citing the usual arguments: Why do we as citizens put up with mandatory use of ethanol, a fuel that costs more per gallon and decreases mileage, he asked. I knew right from the beginning this was going to be a tough sell.
When I told him ethanol blending in most cases lowers the cost of gasoline per gallon, he asked if that were still the case without government subsidies.
I knew then he was not going to be convinced easily, but his point of view, unfortunately, is not uncommon. The mainstream population has been fed this anti-biofuels propaganda for years by the oil and gas lobby and, more discouragingly, by those who do the lobby’s work without pay or benefit: the average rank-and-file Joe, who is misinformed about the merits of biofuels and spreads that misinformation as truth.
I asked him if he knew about oil and gas subsidies he as a taxpayer is funding, to which he responded no. I asked him if, instead of sending untold billions, even trillions, of dollars to foreign governments whose agendas include collapsing western culture, would he support retaining at least some of that money within our own borders where it creates jobs, fuel, tax money and investment in the future; and his response was that we can produce enough of our own oil if the government would ease drilling restrictions.
When I asked him if he realized oil was a finite material and when it’s gone, it’s gone, he shifted the argument to food crop displacement. My visitor had never heard of distillers grains and its role in the food vs. fuel debate, or how corn oil is being extracted from distillers grains to make biodiesel—our next topic. READ MORE
