Ethanol Blended Gas Bad For The Environment
Check out Robert Rapier’s post Refining 101: Summer Gasoline. In the US, pollution standards were relaxed to allow ethanol to be blended into gasoline.
It appears artificially increasing the demand for corn by legislating ethanol into gasoline trumps the environment:
“This reduction in the use of ethanol would undermine the potential benefits vis a vis energy security and support for rural and agricultural economy that Congress expected”
A well intended policy to have a more environmentally fuel has somehow switched into a farm subsidy program. A good example of the Bootleggers and Baptists model at work, and the negative effects of legislating a technical standard (ethanol blended gasoline) rather than a results standard (emissions and smog standards). There is not much incentive for private enterprise to develop better technologies to reduce emissions, because ethanol content in gasoline in many regions is mandated.
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