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New USDA Study Confirms That Ethanol Is Much Cleaner Than Gasoline - SO THERE!


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Big Oil Gets Another Well-Deserved Beat Down

By Marc J. Rauch
Exec. Vice President/Co-Publisher
THE AUTO CHANNEL


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Marc J. Rauch
The recent spate of oil industry sponsored news stories and editorials are again trying to claim that ethanol contributes more harmful emissions to the atmosphere than gasoline. On the face of it alone, the claim should be dismissed as casually as one might dismiss any assertion that the moon is made of green cheese. It's just as preposterous. But maybe the sheer silliness of the claim is so simple that its simplicity makes it easy for nitwits and Big Oil shills to glom onto - that's the only way I can explain why they think they can get away with it.

In just the past three weeks, I responded to three published articles (written by people who really should know better) and one public EPA Hearing in which numerous oil industry lackeys reiterated this myth and other anti-ethanol lies.


In any event, on Tuesday morning, April 2, 2019; the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) released a new study that confirms greenhouse gas emissions from corn-based ethanol are about 39 percent lower than gasoline. The study also states that when ethanol is refined at natural gas-powered refineries, the greenhouse gas emissions are even lower, around 43 percent below gasoline. The complete study can be accessed by CLICKING HERE.

This study follows other government related studies made public over the years that also conclude that ethanol produces far fewer harmful emissions, including the following reports:


What I especially like about this new study is that they specifically address the 2008 study presented by Tim Searchinger and his associates, which added in extraneous items and conditions to conclude negative emissions results for ethanol. In my opinion, this is similar to how David Pimentel and Tad Patzek created their discredited studies against ethanol.

Mr. Searchinger went back to attack ethanol in 2011, with an article in the Washington Post, when he tried to resurrect the food vs. fuel hysteria that API instigated three or four years earlier because of an erroneous report from The World Bank. I published a rebuttal to this on TheAutoChannel.com titled:
"An Open Letter to Tim Searchinger and all the other Gasoline Whores.".

Then, in 2015, Tim Searchinger teamed with Ralph Heimlich to write a new anti-ethanol paper for World Resources Institute. This paper was rebuked by the Renewable Fuels Association with their report "Debunking Searchinger’s Doomsday Theories…Again.".

At the beginning of this article I wrote that the claim stating that ethanol fuel related emissions are as bad or worse than gasoline related emission should be dismissed without further thought. Certainly the studies and papers I offer above should make this obvious to anyone who does not have an oil industry ulterior motive. But, to me, the best and easiest way to refute damaging emissions claims made against ethanol is a video like the one below. Unless and until an internal combustion engine can be designed that burns gasoline as efficiently as ethanol, and a catalytic converter is able to eliminate all traces of greenhouse gases and particulates, ethanol will always be a cleaner fuel than gasoline.

SO THERE!

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