Helter Shelter
Lately, I’ve learned that people are plotting and scheming to turn corn into car fuel. General Motors has launched plans to manufacture—and presumably sell—400,000 corn-burning flexible-fuel vehicles (FFVs) this year. To promote the notion of corn-fed cars, GM has launched a “live green, go yellow” advertising campaign. You can look at it here: www.gm.com/company/onlygm/livegreengoyellow/index.html
While you’re at the GM website, be sure to try their online Cornulator. It’ll tell you how much corn it’ll take to run your car and how much fossil fuel you’ll save. I learned that if I drove a 2006 Tahoe 10,000 miles, I’d burn up 14,615 corncobs, and I’d leave eight barrels of oil under the sands of Saudi Arabia.
I’ve got to tell you, I just can’t get over the word “Cornulator.” It’s full of irony, an innocent-sounding but subliminally naughty word that will surely end up in a porn movie title. Something like Cornulator Does Des Moines. But I digress.
As I recall, there was interest in corn-based ethanol fuel back during the “energy crisis” of the ’70s. But the interest faded, mostly because there were plenty of gas stations around the country, but few corn gas stations. Today, about one gas station in 300 sells corn gas.
I’m no environmental scientist, and I’m surely not an expert on cars, fuel and fuel distribution. But I do know one sure thing about corn: it’s good eating.
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I love corn like Bubba Gump loved shrimp. If people start harvesting corn just so they can burn it up in car motors, I could find myself without cornbread. That’s a serious problem, because I have got to have a certain amount of cornbread. If people start pumping massive amounts of corn into their gas tanks, I could end up missing out on more than just cornbread—I could end up short on corn pudding, corn meal, popcorn and pecan pie, which, except for the pecans on top, is mostly made out of corn syrup.
There’s no way I’m going to give up corn, especially high-quality Midwestern sweet corn. I don’t want to sound harsh, but if I find out people are burning up sweet corn, there’s a fair chance of me going vigilante.
Maybe it’s just me, but I think it’s crazy to use fossil fuel to make fertilizer to grow corn, then cut that corn down with gas-guzzling farm equipment, all so we can turn the corn into a weak-ass version of gasoline. It reminds me of the time I made a water wheel and stuck it in the creek beside my house to generate some free electricity. The creek was slow, so the water wheel didn’t make much electricity. So I rigged up a pump to shoot the creek water at the water wheel and spin it faster. Problem was, the pump used more electricity than the water wheel made. Soon after, I wised up and made some minor but meaningful modifications to my electric meter, and I got my free electricity that way.
I discussed my thoughts on cornalized gas with wife Brenda, who offered, “Maybe they can just use mule corn.” For those of you who don’t know, mule corn is the sorry, atrophied tasteless corn that nobody enjoys eating, not even the mules.
The next day, while I was at the beauty shop, Haircut Kathy had this excellent suggestion: “How about they make gas out of kudzu! We’ve got plenty of kudzu, and nobody eats it.”
“Goats eat it,” I said. “And some old folks dip it in buttermilk, dredge it in corn meal, fry it up and eat it.”
“Well,” Kathy responded, “if they make gas out of kudzu, those old people won’t be wasting corn meal on kudzu anymore.”
I know, I know. Some of you people are thinking, “Jowers is against the environment. He loves global warming. He thinks his cornbread is more important than the planet.” Well, there’s some truth in the part about global warming, because it might make the family land in South Carolina into beachfront someday. And I do value my cornbread more than I value, say, Washington D.C., and Las Vegas put together.
Before you environmentalists get too mad at me, understand that the corn gas known as E85 is one sorry substitute for gasoline. A car that now gets 30 miles per gallon on regular gasoline would only get 20 miles per gallon burning corn gas. GM isn’t pushing corn gas because they love all things green; they’re pushing corn gas because government standards will allow them to “make two more gas-guzzlers for every FFV they put out,” says Dan Becker, the director of Sierra Club’s Global Warming Program.
If my daddy, Jabo Jowers, were alive today, I know what he’d do. He’d distill his own ethanol, make his own E85 home brew, and sell it out of a shack behind the house. Given that he wouldn’t be collecting taxes for the government, he would not be undersold. Given that he wouldn’t be paying taxes, he would make a tidy profit. And if the Feds came calling, there would be an accidental fire, which would destroy all the evidence.
But don’t go by Jabo. Alcohol and high-risk behavior are the main reasons he’s not alive today.