In case you think big oil is no more or less evil than any other industry, consider this: though its profits for the last three years have been the highest in human history, it currently collects $3.5 billion in taxpayer subsidies for mixing small amounts of ethanol with gas (E10). Those subsidies will double in three years. And yet the industry is doing everything it can--covert and overt--to kill off ethanol. "Business Week's" David Kiley explores how it is funding academic studies that bash ethanol for driving up the price of corn and other foods. Failing that, oil companies refuse to support E85 gas pumps at stations. Oddly, automakers are usually the handmaidens for Big Oil's wishes. Yet the Big Three have pledged that one-half of all vehicle sales should be flex-fuel by 2012. "Big Oil is at the top of the list for blocking ethanol acceptance by consumers and the marketplace," according to Loren Beard, senior manager for energy planning at Chrysler.
Big Oil Wages War on Ethanol
In case you think big oil is no more or less evil than any other industry, consider this: though its profits for the last three years have been the highest in human history, it currently collects $3.5 billion in taxpayer subsidies for mixing small amounts of ethanol with gas (E10). Those subsidies will double in […]
