In support of ethanol

I enjoyed reading your comments in “The Heck With Ethanol Critics” [December 2007, page 4]. Your acceptability rationale is refreshing. The water efficiency data is also useful.

In addition to those rebuttals, I would point out that the energy efficiency ratio for ethanol is wrong. Since ethanol is a co-product with DDG, and corn must be grown for livestock anyway, it is not appropriate to assign ALL the energy needed for corn production to just the ethanol.

Another point to consider regarding the fuel vs. food argument is the tons of food we Americans waste every day. Our county landfill reports that 22% of the waste they receive is food waste. Until we get a better handle on scraping our plates into the trash can, the food vs. fuel debate is nothing more than blathering!

The point of this letter is to encourage you to find and print more articles supporting ethanol — articles that we producers can use to persuade the uninformed.
Thanks again!
Curt Zingula
Marion, IA