What a corny title for a post...

... about ethanol. Yes, I'm from the town that may well be ground zero for ethanol. ADM (Archers Daniel Midland) is one of the world's largest agricultural processors, and they are based here in Decatur, near where I live. The best man from my wedding drives tanker trucks full of ethanol to area refineries to be blended in with gasoline products. My brother-in-law works there doing various bits of the hard work required to get stuff done, which sometimes involved him getting into bins and tanks filled with rotten grain (not good for human consumption, but I suppose OK for alcohol). Much of my subdivision is surrounded by corn (or bio-diesel soybeans), friends work for ADM, customers from ADM stop by the store -- I can't escape it.



Amusingly enough, ADM was originally planning on getting into the Vodka market. I had a college instructor who was a big wig businessman in town who was invited to an ADM Vodka tasting party. It was only the fact that they get so much more by making ethanol that steered them into fuel instead of folly. Although one has to wonder, if the federal ethanol subsidies ever get repealed, will it become more economically advantageous to switch back to Vodka? Only time will tell of course.

Now people are telling how are new-found infatuation with ethanol is going to kill our economy. Less food for starving people, more pollution as we plant more corn, still not switching to alternative sources -- all that kind of stuff. Well, it's hard to argue with the first one -- a lot of corn get used to feed people and the animals they eat. If a lot of that corn is suddenly getting put into gas tanks, it's not getting into stomachs. More pollution as we plant more corn -- this implies that we weren't planting a lot of corn before. Truth is (especially around here), there is less energy being spent on planting corn, because there is less area being planted with corn -- former cornfields now are sprouting houses and yards. Alternative energy sources? We can't do more hydroelectric power because it disrupts fish. We can't do more nuclear because it's byproducts are too dangerous for too long. We can't do more wind because it would mess up the view from a Kennedy's back yard, and maybe disrupt birds. We could do solar, but the biggest advance in solar power in the past 20 years are the little LED solar yard lights. Let's face it, there isn't any real huge breakthrough technology coming anytime soon -- nuclear fusion is still a dream, battery technology for electric cars (which still need electricity from someplace) is stagnating. Fuel Cells offer the most promise, except for that annoying problem of dealing with super cold liquid hydrogen (which given certain modification could actually run in an internal combustion engine as well).

Which brings me -- I don't know, back to Illinois anyway. Illinois has 2 big fuel sources, coal (omigosh, never even whisper 'coal' around an environmentalist) and ethanol. We're not allowed to try to make our coal cleaner burning, so we're stuck with the corn -- which we grow in abundance (heck some years in the past you couldn't even give it away). I know it's just a band aid on the problem, but sometimes band aids help.