Stossel Sacrifices Solid Reporting in "Corn God..." report

The rebuttal of Keith Sanderson, President and Co-Founder U.S.A. Energy Independence to John Stossel of ABC's recent piece "Sacrificing our Children to the Corn God."

John,

I am usually quite impressed by your objectivity and in-depth research regarding "Myths and Lies and Downright Stupidity". . However this time you and your team showed about as little in-depth knowledge about ethanol as you accuse many of your colleagues about having about science or economics.

Here are four reasons you are wrong regarding your piece "Sacrificing our Children to the Corn God,"

1. Those who are in the hunt for ethanol such as Andy Karsner, Undersecretary of State, Vinod Khosla cited as one of the most influential venture captiaists by both Forbes and Fortune magazines, Admiral Woolsey, VP Booz & Allen and former head of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Dr. Chu of of the Livermore research center who just received a $500,000,000 research grant from BP will all agree that corn ethanol is only a tranistional fuel source. They would likely agree that the U.S could not depend upon corn or row crop ethanol as the primary source for ethanol. The future of ethanol is in cellulosic ethanol. And had your team done its job they would have known that. You and your team failed to either understand the transitional nature of corn ethanol or chose not to include the whole story about ethanol in your report.

2. Luddite-like you chose to report on ethanol as if all things will remain the same as far as energy. Here are the facts. According to the U.S. department of energy the U.S. imported more than 60% of its petroleum needs in 2007. Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Nigeria each provide us more than 10% of our oil. These nations are either unstable politically or located in unstable parts of the world. Imagine what would happen if something occurred to interrupt their oil to us. To help you imagine just think of the oil crisis in 1973. At that time the United States was importing far less oil as a percentage of its needs than the 60% of its consumption that it imports today. Gasoline rose in price from $.30 a gallon to $1.20. Today, a similar curtailment of oil supply could raise gasoline pump prices from $3.20 a gallon to almost $12.00 a gallon. Without both corn and cellulosic ethanol development a curtailment in oil imports to the U.S. will be crippling to your economy and have a much greater negative impact on our children than your claims of danger from ethanol development will ever have..

3. Transport. Yes corn or cellulosic ethanol are more corrosive than gasoline. However, there is not the need to transport ethanol the great distances one must transport gasoline. Why? Because ethanol refineries are not scalable as are gasoline refineries. The nature of ethanol refineries (corn or celluolsic) scatter them across the country. Yes some modifications will have to be made to transport ethanol, but there will not be a need to secure pipelines in unstable areas such as Nigeria, and the Middle East, or secure ports and shipping lanes from those nations. In addition, Louisiana, Texas,California refine 45% of the nation's gasoline. We luckily escaped severe damage on Louisiana refineries by Hurricane Katrina. Experts such as Admiral Woolsey suggest that having our gasoline refining assets concentrated leaves this country open to supply interruptions due to both natural disasters and terrorism. The very nature of ethanol scatters our refining assets across the country.

4. Technology moves on despite the fact your reporting doesn't recognize it. The automakers tell us they will have hybrid vehicles within the next ten years that will get more than 100 miles per gallon. The average commuter (40 miles per day) will not consume a drop of gasoline with new lithium battery technology. The increased gasoline mileage coupled with the production of corn ethanol and increased production of cellulosic ethanol can and will seriously decrease our dependence on foreign oil.

Mr. Stossel, I invite you to unlike most of your peers, admit that you made an error in reporting and set the record straight by busting the unfair myth you have created about ethanol by concentrating on corn ethanol and not on the total ethanol story.

Keith W. Sanderson
President and Cofounder