Local Journalist Displays Ethanol Ignorance

Quoting local “journalist” Tom Ross
(emphasis mine):

“Routt County’s uber guru of alternative fuels vehicles, Fred Robinson, reports from Henderson Park that he has come up with a mix of gasoline and E85 ethanol he said his lawn mowers run well on, thus reducing his carbon footprint every time he does yard chores.”

Click the image & read the rest:

I expect so-called “journalists” to be ignorant. But, I expect them to at least be well versed in the reporting done by their peers. It would appear that Mr. Ross didn’t do his homework.

Newsweek reports that:

“When you tote up the carbon emissions caused by clearing land to grow corn, fertilizing it and transporting it, corn ethanol leaves twice the carbon footprint as gasoline.”

Time magazine admits:

“the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended”

Hell, even Al Gore has admitted he only backed Ethanol for the bribes it could bring him and that Ethanol is a giant failure which wasted immeasurable amounts of tax payer money. Both the Libertarians at Reason.com and the Green fanatics at Friends of the Earth agree it is time to end the utterly wasteful Ethanol subsidies.

Click here for more on the Ethanol Debacle.

Mr. Ross blathers on about Peak Oil and gives a nod to the miserably dishonest T. Boone Pickens. IMO, Pickens (a man I have NO respect for) is simply looking to make his NEXT billion by sticking his hands into the wallets of American taxpayers. Pickens and all the rest of the “Peak Oil” charlatans can ONLY arrive at their hysteria mongering conclusions by ignoring the FACT that the USA has hydrocarbon resources probably amounting to at LEAST 6 to 7 times the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia!

Yes, the world is probably headed back to $100 per barrel of oil. The reason for that is simply because our moronic “Green” politicians will not ALLOW us to develop our own damn resources! We need to get government the HELL out of the way and let market forces work to develop our hydrocarbon resources as well as take us into the next era of power generation. Right now, government mandates and subsidies are nothing more than a MASSIVE criminal enterprise which ONLY serves to subsidize utterly counterproductive FAILURE and CORRUPTION!

Come on Tom! Do your freaking home work! I’m sick and tired of doing it FOR YOU!

Let Ethanol Subsidies Die

Update:
FOE apparently deleted the link cited by Reason.com.
Now you see it, now you don’t.
Click here to read the now missing article.

Quoting Ronald Bailey
at Reason.com:

“It’s a very rare occasion when a free marketeer like me agrees with the green fanatics over at Friends of the Earth, but they are right about one thing: It's time to let ethanol subsidies die…

The good news is that unless Congress acts, the $5 billion in annual subsidies to corn ethanol will expire at the end of the year.”

Click the image & read the rest:

Even Time Magazine and Al Gore know Ethanol is a farce.
If Congress renews this crap, there WILL be hell to pay!

Click here for more on the Ethanol debacle.

The Lessons of The Ethanol Debacle

Anybody who thinks it is a good idea for politicians and ignorant political activists to decide, via subsidies, tariffs, taxes, etc. what our next generation energy solutions will be should take a lesson from the Ethanol debacle.

When even the extremely Liberal Time Magazine understands what a disaster Ethanol (both Corn AND Cellulosic) has been (and will be), you have got to know that this was yet ANOTHER colossal example of why politicians should NOT decide which energy solutions will win and lose!

Disclaimer:
Time magazine, as this article demonstrates, is (for now) still in the alarmist camp on Climate Change. However, peer reviewed science proves that the alarm over man made CO2 is an even bigger hoax than Ethanol and 32,000 of America’s leading scientists agree.

Quoting Time Magazine (via Reason.com):

“several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it's dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it. Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous. Even cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass, which has been promoted by eco-activists and eco-investors as well as by President Bush as the fuel of the future, looks less green than oil-derived gasoline.

Meanwhile, by diverting grain and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks, biofuels are jacking up world food prices and endangering the hungry. The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year. Harvests are being plucked to fuel our cars instead of ourselves. The U.N.'s World Food Program says it needs $500 million in additional funding and supplies, calling the rising costs for food nothing less than a global emergency. Soaring corn prices have sparked tortilla riots in Mexico City, and skyrocketing flour prices have destabilized Pakistan, which wasn't exactly tranquil when flour was affordable.”

Click the image & read the rest:

Click here for page 1 of the Time Magazine article.

Click here for the primary post on this topic.

Ethanol - The Stupidity Just Keeps on Flowing!

The Stupidity Just Keeps on Flowing:

“Earlier this month, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rejected a request from the State of Texas to reduce the amount of biofuels that must be blended into gasoline over the next year. By rejecting the waiver request, the EPA has missed a golden opportunity to alleviate high global food prices.”

Click the image & read the rest:

My suggestion?
Eliminate all the subsidies and all the mandates.
Any energy source that makes economic sense will not need either one.
Subsidies and mandates are an open invitation for graft, corruption,
inefficiencies, market distortions, price increases and other undesirable outcomes.

Click here for more on Ethanol.

Silly Senator, Corn is for Food!

Click the image & view the video:

Hat tip to Carpe Diem.

Those who cleave to a certain “totalitarian political religion”
will tell you that this was an isolated example of their foolishness
and that NEXT TIME they will get it right.

Anyone who believes that, is naïve (to put it politely).

Click here for a related post.

Click here for another commentary.

Click here to learn more.

The Ethanol Debacle

Let’s review the Ethanol debacle (finally getting some attention in the so-called “Mainstream Media”):

1) Government, under pressure from environmental extremists, mandates Ethanol use:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/energyandenvironment/wm1879.cfm

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ethanol+mandate

2) But:

A) Even the “true believers” in Man Made Global Warming report that:

“When you tote up the carbon emissions caused by clearing land to grow corn, fertilizing it and transporting it, corn ethanol leaves twice the carbon footprint as gasoline.”

B) And, peer reviewed science says double the carbon footprint may be on the low end of the estimates:

“last September, an article in the prestigious journal Science demonstrated that global ethanol production emits two to nine times the greenhouse gas emissions ‘saved’ by substituting it for gasoline”

Another peer reviewed study finds:

“corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years. Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%. This result raises concerns about large biofuel mandates”

C) Besides having two to nine times the carbon footprint (as if that mattered), Ethanol also directly results in a real impact on Global Warming which far exceeds any impact which fossil fuels ever have had or ever will have (tropical rainforest destruction):

http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0516-ethanol_amazon.html

http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/01/30/the-forest-for-the-trees-ethanol-and-deforestation/

3) Worse still:

New demand for corn to produce Ethanol results in skyrocketing prices for corn. That, in turn, results in skyrocketing prices for gasoline, beef, pork, chicken, milk etc. and creates inflationary pressures driving the economy down (meaning less money available for real private sector entrepreneurs to find real solutions):

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ethanol+corn+price

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ethanol+corn+price+beef+OR+pork+OR+chicken+OR+milk

http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/cooke/2007/0202.html

But, those “unintended consequences” associated with Ethanol would have been obvious to anybody with even a basic understanding of science, economics and markets.