Hi, I'm Denise, and this is your civic minute.
Every gallon of gas you buy is already 10% ethanol, alcohol made from corn.
You've been burning corn in your car for years.
Here's what you may not know.
A third of the entire U.S. corn crop goes into making ethanol, not food, not animal feed,
fuel.
Ethanol was created as energy policy, a way to reduce dependence on foreign oil.
Environmentally, it's roughly a wash, modestly less carbon out of the tailpipe, but more
fertilizer running off into rivers and streams.
Over time, it becomes something else, a guaranteed market for a third of America's corn.
That supports corn prices, land values, and rural economies.
It's an agricultural support program that happens to flow through your gas pump instead
of through your taxes.
As electric vehicles grow and gasoline demand declines, that market is shrinking.
What replaces it is a question Wisconsin's farm economy will have to answer.
Watch your civic minute.
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