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Urging Congress to Cancel the Ethanol Tariff
reporter writes "The Wall Street Journal is urging Washington to discard the 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol. This tariff is effectively a subsidy for corn-based ethanol produced in the USA. Yet, producing ethanol from corn is highly inefficient and consumes 1 unit of energy for each 1.3 units of energy that burning ethanol provides. By contrast, ethanol derived from sugarcane (which is the sole source of ethanol in Brazil) yields 8.3 units of energy. Sugercane is about 7 times more efficient than corn. Some studies even show that corn yields only 0.8 unit of energy, resulting in a net loss of energy."
More tariffs mean more of our manufacturing stays at home and isn't lost to cheap overseas replacements. Steel is a good example of something that needs tariffed.
God spoke to me.
Notice that "+" by the 20 in the grandparent? That means that it will be more than 20, not necessarily in the 20-30 range. If you actually read the post involved, you'll note that he took the figure from the previous post, because it was a counterargument and that was the logical thing to do.
Now, you've been hiring cars (which, firstly, implies you don't own one and thus really don't have the experience to comment, but I'll leave off that, i guess). Rental companies tend to buy fuel efficient cars, because renters tend to get upset if they end up paying significantly more than that little number on their rental contract. Thus you saw things like hybrid vehicles in rental stations years before anyone in their right mind would have actually bought one for private use. Secondly, you're talking about a car, which, depending on the specific vehicles involved, is anywhere from 1/2 to 1/8 the mass of a loaded van and similar in profile (air resistance). As those of us familiar with the advanced mathematical concept known as 'multiplication' will know, an object of double the mass requiring double the work to move it the same distance is not entirely beyond comprehension. So a fuel-efficient van will tend to have higher gas consumption than a similarly efficient car.
Welcome to the world of primary-school math and elementary logic. May your stay be long and pleasurable.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~