Ethanol is best hope for energy independence

Re: “Ethanol is a disaster,” May 6

Practically every conclusion about ethanol in this article is wrong. Ethanol production uses water, but it is largely recycled. Ethanol is slightly corrosive, but the EPA has required non-corrosive underground tanks for years. And it’s biodegradable, so an ethanol leak is less damaging than a petroleum leak any day.

We all know that corn will have a limited input in an ethanol economy, but modern corn-fed plants like Panda Ethanol have reduced their fossil energy consumption by more than 50 percent and greatly increased the nation’s net energy. New cellulosic plants now under construction will have a 100 percent net gain.

Ethanol has a lower heat density, but so what? The Environmental Protection Agency has demonstrated that an engine optimized to run on ethanol is 50 percent more efficient than one running on gasoline. A recent study by the University of North Dakota and the Minnesota State University at Mankato has demonstrated that optimum blends of E20-E30 can increase mileage by up to 15 percent and decrease carbon dioxide emissions almost 20 percent.

I run my 2001 Chrysler on E25, and although my mileage has dropped 1.5 percent, my thermal efficiency has gone up 3.8 percent, my fuel costs have gone down, and my CO2 emissions have decreased 10 percent. Where is the disaster? Ethanol critics see things through the rear-view mirror. For the next 50 years, ethanol is our best hope to reduce CO2 emissions and become more energy independent.

Bill Brandon

Alexandria

Moral relativism has made us cowards, hypocrites

Re: “The delicate dance of the seven evasions,” May 1

Meghan Cox Gurdon makes cogent observations about dishonesty in our society. The evasiveness she speaks of is the result of America’s embrace of moral relativism and political correctness, which has made us hypocrites and moral cowards.

By believing that rejecting absolute truth makes us “progressive,” we fool ourselves. We are only outwardly civil, as Gurdon rightly stated, and pervasive dishonesty has made us so obtuse we hardly recognize error when it’s staring us in the face.

So we participate in our own destruction by electing leaders on the basis of charisma rather than guiding moral principles; letting illegal immigrants set our immigration policies; recognizing alternatives to traditional marriage, which studies have shown children need to thrive; tolerating the free expression of any religion except the one — Christianity — which gave us our freedoms; accepting racism from anybody except whites; and becoming morally outraged at the death of anybody, except innocent babies.

Angela McIntosh

Frederick

Where does the buck stop?

Federal, state and local governments want more money, so they pick my pockets at will. Skyrocketing food prices take food from my mouth as Big Agra makes monumental profits. The cost of fuel is off the charts while Big Business and the Middle East stuff their bank accounts with obscene profits carved out of my hide.

I’m sick and finding it more difficult to afford health insurance, doctors or prescriptions while Big Pharma and the medical and insurance industries just keep jacking up the prices and pumping out more expensive TV and magazine ads and lavish perks to doctors and Congress — all at the expense of my well-being.

This hard-working, honest, taxpaying legal resident is beaten down and drained of almost everything. Now where are these crooks going to find more money?

Joe Schramm

Alexandria

Schools try to do parents’ job, then neglect their own work

In Montgomery County, it costs $12,722 to educate a child, but not a week passes that some special request for money, time or something for this cause or that event is sent home with the kids. Isn’t $12,722 enough to cover everything?

There is a distinct trend in public schools — including Greenwood Elementary, which our daughter attends — to skim over the 3 R’s and then ask parents to do the real work of teaching their kids the basics at home. Meanwhile, the school day is infested with Earth Day assemblies, Al Gore movies, sex ed and other detritus that crowds out the real instruction our kids need.

Greenwood’s radical militarized drop-off procedures were shoved down parents’ throats with no request for input. The directive asked that we “cooperate for the safety of the children,” but provided no evidence whatsoever they were ever at risk. Wasting tax dollars by bringing police officers to an elementary school for no valid reason is totally inappropriate. The process approaches criminal when, as I witnessed, children were forcibly prevented from entering their own parents’ cars after school hours.

Of course, a school system full of busybodies doesn’t “get “ inappropriate. A Greenwood employee actually yelled across the field at me recently to “lower the seat” on my daughter’s bike while I was teaching her how to ride behind the school. I’m not kidding.

Quit asking us to do your job at home because you’re too busy trying to do our job at school.

Tom & Christine deSabla

Brookeville