Reports from 2009 suggest that ethanol and ethanol production continue to become a major economic strength for the U.S. Besides the health drug industry and that colon cleansing pill you just bought, there aren't a heck of a lot of bright spots in the current economy. Ethanol seems to be one of them, however.
“The Economic Contribution of the Ethanol Industry to the Economy of the United States,” according to economist John Urbanchuk is doing just fine. Below he deatils some of the major findings of his research into the industry fro 2009. (A PDF document contains the entire study here. Obviously you will need a PDF reader like Adobe.)
• The increase in economic activity resulting from ongoing production, construction of new capacity, and R&D supported nearly 400,000 jobs in all sectors of the economy during 2009.
• The economic activities of the ethanol industry put an additional $16 billion into the pockets of American consumers in 2009.
• The full impact of the spending for annual operations, ethanol transportation, capital spending for new plants under construction, and R&D spending added $53.3 billion to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2009.
• The production of 10.6 billion gallons of ethanol means that the U.S. needed to import 364 million fewer barrels of oil in 2009 to manufacture gasoline, or roughly the equivalent of five percent of total U.S. crude oil imports. The value of the crude oil displaced by ethanol amounted to $21.3 billion in 2009.
“Despite the well documented economic concerns of the ethanol industry in 2009, producers across the nation remain a critical economic engine in rural America,” said Renewable Fuels Association President Bob Dinneen. “Unlike other sectors of the economy, this industry added production, helped Americans keep their jobs, and continued to provide an unparalleled value-added market for farmers across the country.”
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