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April 13, 2008
Even Boston Globe Can See through Biofuel Boondoggle
Time to get my eyes checked; I thought I saw something reasonable in the Boston Globe:
Corn should be used for food, not motor fuel, and yet the United States is committed to a policy that encourages farmers to turn an increasing amount of their crop into ethanol. This may save the nation a bit of the cost of imported oil, but it increases global-warming gases and contributes to higher food prices […] Ethanol consumes almost a quarter of US corn production. The energy self-sufficiency that all the candidates seek should not come at the expense of the environment or the food supply.
Even liberals gullible enough to believe in the phantom menace of "greenhouse gases" can see through the biofuel charade. But that won't make it go away:
Candidates for president need to tell Americans the truth about ethanol, but they are falling over themselves in pursuit of the farm belt vote. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton want more ethanol factories built than even President Bush envisaged when he called for 15 percent of US gasoline consumption to be replaced by alternative fuels by 2017. John McCain, who correctly called the ethanol push a boondoggle in 2000, now says that it is "a very important way to achieve energy independence."
If anyone in Washington were interested in energy independence, they would be remove the senseless restrictions that prevent us from drilling for our own oil, and building new refineries and nuclear plants. Like most everything promoted by the clowns running for president, biofuel is a dumb idea backed for unscrupulous motives.
There's a thin line between cynical and evil; senselessly taking food off the market in a time of shortages crosses it.
On a tip from Wiggins.
Posted by Van Helsing at April 13, 2008 9:53 AM
Comments
I have wondered why the powers-that-be seem bent on using grain, which is valuable in itself, to make fuel. Gasoline was originally a waste product from the refining of kerosene, until someone found a way to harness its volatility and inflamability. What someons should be looking into is converting cellulose to methane. Termites seem to be doing this well.
Posted by: James F McEnanly at April 13, 2008 5:37 PM
Done. There are several commercial processes for cellulose to methane conversion. One process for using agricultural waste to methane patented by a friend of mine, returns the sludge to the soil at the end of the process. The problem is that these processes carry limited upside because the net energy gained is marginal. Meanwhile the financial risk and environmental liability runs beyond the moon. No one with their right mind would touch a small profit subject to a windfall tax balanced by nearly infinite liability. Only engineers are dumb enough to think anyone cares.
Posted by: Brooks at April 15, 2008 7:11 AM
How else do you ensure that we have the starving masses that the alarmists tell us we must have if we don't reduce world population? Now, thanks to biofuels, we can increase the number of deaths from starvation from 32,000 per day to much more acceptible (to the greens) levels. Hell, we should be able to ramp up the rate to 50,000 or more per day.
Food should not be used for making fuel. Its a dumb idea. Perhaps that's why its so appealing to the greens.
Posted by: John Nicklin at April 15, 2008 2:17 PM
