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Once-Darling Ethanol Losing Friends In High Places
theodp writes "It's now conceivable, says BusinessWeek's Ed Wallace, that the myth of ethanol as the salvation for America's energy problem is coming to an end. Curiously, the alternative fuel may be done in by an unlikely collection of foes. Fervidly pro-ethanol in the last decade of his political career, former VP Al Gore reversed course in late November and apologized for supporting ethanol, which apparently was more about ingratiating himself to farmers. A week later, Energy Secretary Steven Chu piled on, saying: 'The future of transportation fuels shouldn't involve ethanol.' And in December, a group of small-engine manufacturers, automakers, and boat manufacturers filed suit in the US Court of Appeals to vacate the EPA's October ruling that using a 15% blend of ethanol in fuel supplies would not harm 2007 and newer vehicles. Despite all of this, the newly-elected Congress has extended the 45 cent-per-gallon ethanol blending tax credit that was due to expire, a move that is expected to reduce revenue by $6.25 billion in 2011. 'The ethanol insanity,' longtime-critic Wallace laments, 'will continue until so many cars and motors are damaged by this fuel additive that the public outcry can no longer be ignored.'"
...and so it ends up everywhere, from our stomachs to our gas tanks. High-fructose corn syrup anyone?
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
I'm not exactly sure, but I don't think they've actually done anything yet. Everything so far is the lame duck congress.
http://CryoLANparty.com/ A lan I'm staff on!
Corn-derived ethanol has always been either of culinary/recreational interest(which is a fine and salubrious use of corn...) or an artefact of the fact that you will run into serious issues getting anything done in the senate without throwing Senator Cornfed, R/D, Flyover Country a bone... The fact that there are some relatively early presidential primaries in corn country doesn't help either.
Yeah. We use Ethanol in Brazil since the early 80s, making them from sugar cane and it is great. Now corn ethanol is ridiculous inefficient.
--- "When you gotta do something wrong. You gotta do it right. (Fighter)"
Pollution shift allows pollution control and avoids depending on the owners of autos to maintain them. Central powerplant upgrades cost less than dispersed vehicle fleet replacement.
"Smaller (lighter) cars are the only solution."
Their is no "only solution", there are a vast number of partial, complementary solutions. The "central solution" idea is both stupid and a distraction from intelligent comprehension of the systems that need changing.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Lucky you. You don't have a sugar cartel controlling supply and jacking up prices like we do.
Have gnu, will travel.
If ETOH were actually worth anything (i.e., didn't harm engines, was *really* energy balance positive, didn't put aldehydes into the atmosphere, cause food prices to go up, could be produced from cellulose, etc.) it could survive without a government subsidy. The only reason it's still lurching along, taking up 40% of the corn produced in the USA, is because the lobbyists, farmers and ETOH producers can continue to suck $$ from the US gummint.
Corn ethanol diverts field corn from the already-mammoth agribusiness industry that pumps field corn into just about every foodstuff in the country-- everything from livestock to all processed foods and fast foods (corn oil, high fructose corn syrup). It thus encourages the expansion of that industry, which uses vast amounts of fossil fuel and its derivatives to grow corn-- that's why many experts say that you don't get nearly as much bang for the buck as you do when you process sugar cane into ethanol. And that doesn't even account for the fertilizer and pesticides/herbicides that end up in the Gulf of Mexico due to runoff (not that it will matter much for the foreseeable future).
It would be a lot more worthwhile for the government to reduce corn subsidies and use that savings to either cut the deficit or invest in things like renewable energy infrastructure or non-corn biofuel research or even tax breaks for efficiency upgrades. Alas, ADM and Monsanto contribute hugely to PACs of Congressmen who vote to continue the subsidies (and no doubt hire them as lobbyists when they retire), therefore we do not see any change in this regard.
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
National Corn Growers Association.
Now there wouldn't be anything self serving on that site would there?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Almost: In American political discourse, only unpopular subsidies, especially those that present some risk of giving money to poor people(some of the brown persuasion, even!), are referred to as "welfare".
The correct terms for subsidies given to favored corporations, Real Americans($100,000/year+ preferred), professional sports teams in need of new stadiums, or politically vital constituencies, are (depending on the exact structure of the subsidy) "Price Supports", "Providing Market Stability", "Job Creation", or simply polite silence backed by an impenetrable wall of densely legal technicalities.
Alright, who's in charge of deciding who gets to live and who gets to die? Population explosions are usually a survival mechanism. Past a certain level of prosperity and education, you have bigger problems with population decline. If you want to 'control populations', give them liberty and education. There are more than enough resources left on earth to reach that goal but our great civilized cultures would rather see the starving masses die off than elevated to our own level if one is to believe people like you.
Mind the frickin' laser...
This dumb argument comes up each and every time. Less reproduction is the answer, not culling of the current population.
You see, you lefties are all alike... no sense of humor. If I poked fun Sarah Palin or W you or somebody like you would have modded me up.
but now your feeble attempts to say something relevant are easily and deservedly ignored
Except you don't seem to be ignoring them...
Enjoy your lonely troll hole
Oh, it's not so lonely. I've got you to talk to.
The USD should be losing value, it's the natural evolution of a currency from a country with a trade deficit. America is uncompetetive with low infrastructure investment precisely because the USD has not been allowed to fall by it's trading partners (which have printed money and buying up dollars to make sure that doesn't happen). In the short term the Chinese rather have US factories through outsourcing than factory output, and is selling it's citizens into slavery to make it happen.
Of course the US should never have gone along with that scam, since at some point the Chinese will decide they have enough factories ... and divert factory output to internal consumption, at which point the US will neither have the cheap goods nor the factories and will be properly double fucked
Empirical fact remains that all in all, from one generation to the next, our individual quality of life has been improving since as far as our capacity to understand what historical conditions where like and there is no basis of fact to suggest that imminent change is looming in the next couple of generations. In fact there are plenty of signs to the contrary: world fertility is stabilizing, our relationship with the environment is steadily improving on a number of fronts over the past 30 years; etc etc.
Yes innovations frequently provide unwanted and unintended consequences; anti-biotics has spawned us the problem of super-viruses, but we are still overall better off. You say "get us out of the mess that the intelligence and resourcefulness of mankind got us into.". So does this mean you shun all technology and innovation (including your computer and your Internet); if so that is your personal wish but it is in my view a sub-optimal position.
In additional to this, our capacity to weather calamities has improved too. Inspite of this, as far back as our history allows us to perceive, there has never ceased to be a parade of people who insist that the worst is just around the corner, or an appreciable audience for such doom-sayers.
Yes - the big one may come; an asteroid impact, a zombie virus apocalypse, or some other biblical end-time event. The closest credible threat in living memory, and what I consider to be a real threat was the threat of nuclear annihilation that pervaded from the 60s to the 90s
I minimize 'alarmists', such as what you admit to be, and with respect, because I once perceived the world as I believe you now currently perceived it. I minimize them because although the alarm bells they ring resonates deep in all of us and trigger deep seated fears, including myself, their position has no empirical support and as such their instance that their concerns require broader community mindshare without basis; and as such are deservedly minimalised. Should an issue materialize where there is no reasonable, rational doubt that it is a real and significant problem, we may indeed find ourselves in a position we cannot do anything about it, but you can be personally assured that everyone around you, including myself, all 7 billion of us, will be thinking very very hard about the problem. Of course, to this I can always count on people with your mindset to point out - too little! too late! You need to starting thinking about these things now! This is what this meme demands of us in order for the meme to continue to thrive and propagate.