Saturday, April 28, 2012

Liberate the American Ethanol Market

My latest post at The Objective Standard Blog is up. Here is the opening paragraph:


Texas chemical maker Celanese has developed a technology to make ethanol from natural gas and coal, both plentiful in America, and is building plants in Texas and China to manufacture it. “If it works,” notes Forbes columnist Christopher Helman, it “will revolutionize the fuel industry.”
Read Repeal, Don’t Amend, the “Renewable Fuel Standard” Law in full!


Note: In Helman's article, he says that corn-based ethanol "arguably cuts pollution coming out of U.S. tailpipes, but at a huge cost. Since 2005, when Congress required that ethanol be added to your gas tank, U.S. corn prices have tripled."


China, by contrast, "sees ethanol as a vital fuel, but with so many mouths to feed it can’t waste farmland growing it."


The key point, however, is that all types of ethanol should be freely competing in the market. The cumulative voluntary choices of market participants will determine the best product at the best price. Even more important, market participants--manufacturers, farmers, gas drillers, coal miners, "consumers"--all have an inalienable right to make those choices, not have them imposed by politicians.

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