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east central ND | Maybe I am missing your point. But I think you should take one or two steps back in history and look at what the ethanol mandate is replacing. The government many, many years ago mandated that the oil companies put something in the gas to replace the evil lead, and to oxygenate gas to lower emissions. The most common used chemical they came up with was MTBE. Unfortunately MTBE was a very nasty carcinogen that also very readily polluted ground water. It did raise the octane level of gas. I think it also was made from fossil fuels (butane and natural gas), and not considered "renewable".
So we supposedly have a "greener" product now that is supposed to be way more environmentally friendly. And one of the big things the oil companies will never publicly proclaim is how they are using the cheap corn ethanol to really bring up octane so they can sell the public some very, very crappy base stock gasoline.
So if the government is going to mandate cleaner burning fuels for the driving public, why not have the farmers get some benefit from a "renewable" source, rather than just the giant chemical conglomerates? I suppose you could debate the total environmental impact of producing ethanol VS a chemical plant making some sort of replacement for MTBE, but that is way beyond me.
Edited by D6Joe 2/7/2016 12:56
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It's not the market
