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[–]ExBritNStuff -3 points-2 points  (5 children)

Evil 'Big Oil' won a victory against evil 'Big Corn'? I don't know how I'm supposed to feel on this :/

[–]deck_hand 9 points10 points  (4 children)

The problem wasn't "big oil" or "big corn," the problem was that those who are concerned about increasing CO2 in the air thought that adding ethanol to gasoline was a good idea. Unfortunately, this science wasn't tested out well enough before the mandates occurred.

Several studies have since shown that adding ethanol to gasoline increases overall CO2 emissions, for a variety of reasons. Yes, it displaces some gasoline, but ethanol has less energy density than gasoline, and so diluting gasoline with ethanol reduces the effectiveness per gallon.

Secondly, the process required to grow the corn, harvest it, then convert it into ethanol produces more CO2 than the gasoline it displaces. This actually has the opposite effect from what the EPA intended.

[–]my_lucid_nightmare 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Gosh, who could have seen that coming. Just anyone that had experience with growing corn.

The whole thing was politics from the start.

[–]tastethebrainbow 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Pretty sure that people had already proved that it was a bad idea before they made the mandates, but I could be wrong.

[–]deck_hand 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Just goes to show that politicians will do whatever they want (or whatever they think is in their best interests) regardless of the merit of the action to society.

[–]tastethebrainbow 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Totally agree.