"Everyone hates ethanol"...

...and why not?

Chicago, Tuesday AM, 24 March 2009

Editors, The Wall Street Journal

Gentlepeople:

A letter in the Monday, March 23 WSJ "Break the Addiction to Foreign Oil" is not a particularly coherent response to your Monday, March 15 editorial "Everyone Hates Ethanol" ("Researchers... recently found that ethanol... reduces carbon emissions by up to 59%." Doesn't "up to 59%" include everything from zero thru 58%?) The letter's closing line goes completely over the edge: "The benefits of ethanol are irrefutable -- greater energy independence, cleaner air and enhanced economic growth." Has the writer and his 'Growth Energy' associate, Retired Army General Wesley Clark, considered that ethanol comes from a 2-dimensional space, the surface of the earth, and only 1/3 of that not covered by salt water, further limited by its inability to grow just anywhere, such as nearly uncrossable, let alone untillable, mountains, vast deserts, thousand-foot thick ice caps - all sorts of corn-unfriendly places.

Oil on the other hand comes from a 3-dimensional space, all that's under the surface of the earth, and the entire surface, covered by water or not. The depth of this space is ultimately limited to 4,000 miles, but so far we've only tried the first eight miles, and that in only a very few locations.

The WSJ editorial board is accused of having an "addiction to foreign oil" preventing it from looking at "homegrown alternatives." Aren't some of those 'alternatives' ANWR and the continental shelf, currently in the death grip of the environmentalist wackos?

Arnold H. Nelson 5056 North Marine Drive Chicago IL 60640