Monday, June 27, 2011

Economics of corn ethanol subsidies

The Senate just voted last week to get rid of a huge corn ethanol subsidy, which is surprising & the right thing to do. The Economist has a great story on this here. Like many things, we'll never be sure of the individual motivations for support/disapproval of a particular project, but for environmental and economic reasons--corn ethanol was clearly not a good solution to reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. Ideally, there will now be greater support for more promising forms of renewable cellulosic biofuel crops.