The ethanol industry "is growing much more rapidly than anybody expected," says Dan Basse, president of AgResource, an agricultural research and forecasting firm in Chicago. "It's a gold rush mentality."Growing more rapidly than anybody expected? I remember during the farm crisis of the Reagan era farmers sitting around small town cafes wondering why it was taking so long for ethanol to take off as a fuel. It was to be their savior from the falling prices of their commodities and liberate Americans from foreign oil dependence bringing it home to the bread basket states. Instead ethanol was the subject of faked scientific scandals showing how it wasn't really that great, would make your car explode, and cause your testicles to shrivel up and fall off. Then when the family farms were devastated and swallowed up by giant agri-corps, ethanol infrastructure was established, every family had a gas guzzling SUV in the drive, and Americans were starting to scream bloody-freakin-murder-the-oil-exec about fuel prices, the auto industry smiles and pretends ethanol was their idea all along.
Glad to see two decades of farmers trying to cram the benefits of ethanol down people's throats is finally paying off. Just don't call it a gold rush.
3 comments:
What a coincidence that ethanol is all the rage now that corporate agribusiness has cornered the commodities market.
If I didn't know better, I'd almost suspect that the government was in cahoots with ADM et al to artificially supress prices for several decades to drive out the little guys.
But that would be crazy talk. We all know that corporations firmly believe in free market capitalism, and would never attempt to use government policy to manipulate competition.
What never?
No never.
What never?
Hardly ever!
(Wow! I just quoted Gilbert & Sulivan.)
the ethanol industry has been pretty much a boom industry since the first person added yeast to sweet water...
but, that's the chemist coming out.
Post a Comment