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RLA Essay - Corn Ethanol

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556 views

RLA Essay - Corn Ethanol

Uploaded by

f8hf4rvwwr
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Fuel or Foolish

Introduction

In United State, bioethanol has been used 10% of fuels for cars and light trucks.

Currently, corn makes up of 90% of US bioethanol; therefore, it has been discussed “Is corn a
good source of bioethanol?”

Argument 1: Affirmative - Miriam Garber (a member of Association)

1. Corn ethanol is beneficial to economy and environment.

2. Corn is a tired and true source of energy; it has been used for more than 30 years. In
contrast to straw and sawdust which are in the experimental stage, they require a great deal of
investments while there are no guarantees if they will be as dependable as corns.

3. Corn is cleaning energy compared to both gasoline and diesel fuels. The corn ethanol
causes less CO2 which results to Global Warming but produces more water vapors.

4. Recently, US government has authorized federal tax credits to support corn-based ethanol
industries.

Argument 2: Negative - Kristin Weller (a chairperson of Save Our Crops: the non-profit
organization)

1. Corn and food crops are not the best fuel source.

2. High demands of corn will result in higher prices and food shortages. For instance, Mexico
in2007 suffered a higher price of corn causing a spike increase in tortillas’ prices.

3. Corn is not actually clean: the estimates of amount of fuels used to produce ethanol per
gallon range from 0.7 gallon to 1.5 gallon. Hence, if we count every drop of fuels from the first to
last ethanol producing processes, the energy bargain seems unreal.

4. The government subsidy does not directly benefit the farmer but the company who
blends the corn ethanol with gasoline. Thankfully, Congress realized, expired the federal tax credits,
and levied tariffs of the imported biofuels.

5. Although the corn ethanol sounds convincing, we need to consider its short and long term
effects.

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