The Barrel, in its early days, finds itself writing about ethanol a lot. We did so yesterday. Ethanol as a topic here at The Barrel is way out of whack with its percentage of consumption.
But why not write about ethanol? It's got plenty of things that make it fascinating. It has the full backing of the US government. It has a logistics system that had to be developed almost from scratch, since it doesn't get "married" to petroleum until the end of the chain. It has an increasingly active spot market. We could go on.
It also has two other things: unbelievably bad press in the mainstream media; and the widespread support of the American public. If you can find a mainstream media outlet writing a glowing, positive report on ethanol, hang on to it; it's a rarity. Even the stories that focus on how new ethanol plants are reviving some rural economies inevitably have a few paragraphs talking about the economic illogic surrounding corn-based ethanol.
And the US public couldn't care less. For example, just last week, a poll of Pennsylvanians showed strong support for ethanol.
Our friends at Slate have written a pretty nasty rebuke to ethanol, and they forwarded it our way. Its controlled anger treads on ground that has been trod on before. And it will make zero impact on an American public that badly wants to see "corn as high as an elephant's eye" become a major fuel source. It's this vs. this (even though he wasn't a refiner, just an independent producer).
No contest.
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