Posted on 04/22/2006 3:27:41 AM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
Growing crops to burn for fuel? Even if it were economical without subsidies, it would take half our farmland. So instead of being dependent on foreign countries for crude oil, we will be dependent on foreign counties for food.
The most efficient current source of bio material for BioDiesel is the oil palm (which only grows in the tropics). It's more than ten times more energy and land efficient than BioDiesel from soybeans or rapeseed. In the long run, algae farming looks like the way to go. It's very land efficient. Note that coal does seem to come from plants and that quite a few Americans burn wood as at least a partial home heating fuel.
That's fine, and if it is truly economical they should be able to develop it without taxpayer subsidies. Get Bill Gates to sign on, he spent billions trying to create a vaccine for malaria.
But if I hear any congresscritters making noises about using taxpayer funds for this, expect live fire from my direction.
I'm well past the age when I believe every magazine article or press release about some new technology. No one ever, EVER, checks the math on this stuff before they publish.
Maybe priced at that level but it doesn't mean they were making a profit. Could be they were taking a loss so they could brag about how competitive it was in their press releases.
I'd suggest that you take some action to improve the energy situation in the US by your personal actions rather than being one who runs in circles, screams and shouts "DO SOMETHING MY GOVERNMENT OR SOMEBODY ELSE, DO SOMETHING!, I'M BEING SCREWED HERE".
well = sell
Also note that there are potential reductions in societal costs (**cough** military costs **cough**) if the US were to become a net exporter of energy rather than a net importer. It might be worth more than $1/gal.
AMEN!!
Read the comments here and then google "exxon profits". They ARE in fact making tremendous profits, biggest profits ever made by any company for several quarters. I don't think it's "bush's fault" but I do think an investigation of price gauging is in order. If all turns out well and these record profits are normal and standard, then all is fine but I'd like to see it investigated. I will read more but it appears no company has ever had these kinds of record profits, not even Bill Gates who gave all of us what we are communicating with.
Good idea. Send it to your Congress critter's and Ms. Rice. Then advise me of the timing. (Even the US doesn't keep all the terms of its treaties - think about the enforcement issues alone).
Let me know when they plan to accomplish that and how many years they expect it to last. I'd also guess that all of the net exports of oil from Iraq would not meet our net import "needs".
It seems that the last time around it took increased production spurred on by the high crude prices to eventually drop the market price. This time it may take a boycott or usage slowdown to create a glut on the market and get the price more in line with the actual costs of production. Note that through equipment investment a year ago, I've dropped my usage to 50% of the previous level, but not enough others have done similarly to create any measurable impact.
When you find something it is usually from a press release or from information taken from a press release. Here's an example of a government press release:
http://www.boi.go.th/english/how/press_releases_detail.asp?id=1005
Third world governments in the tropics would like to promote promote palm oil, tragically, third world taxpayers will have to subsidize it.
The problem with doing the accounting on this stuff is that there are so many hidden subsidies. The government of Thailand may run the company that grows the trees and subsidize the oil which is in turned subsidized by another government to make into biodiesel which will get a "carbon credit" subsidy etc.
Pretty soon you have a Soviet style economy. Before the Soviet Union collapsed, they had government-supplied bread that was so cheap, farmers fed it to hogs. But even they weren't burning food for fuel.
I'd suggest that you take some action to improve the energy situation in the US by your personal actions
I am. I'm pointing a big red arrow at the fallacies of bogus alternative energy schemes that can only make the problem worse. I'm also going to speak out against harassment and demonization of the people who are actually providing us with fuel that is not government subsidized.
That's how we got dependent on Arab oil in the first place. They started selling it at prices so low they put a lot of the other producers out of business.
I think Saudi oil costs them about five bucks a barrel to pump out.
Given the complexity of governments in the US and their myriad law and tax and regulation codes, I'd guess that without too much trouble I could find either explicit or implicit government subsidies for oil, gas and coal production in the US (starting with government leases, oil depletion allowances and followed up with road damage caused disproportionately caused by loaded trucks (including those making deliveries to local gas stations and trucking additives/components from ND to WY) compared with their fuel tax rates, etc.). Economic activities these days are quite complex,, especially when figuring "full" costs vs. marginal costs for policy decision making.
The biggest problem I see with being dependent of Arab oil is that it gives them a direct lever on our elections and our politicians. If they can affect the price of gasoline, and the price of gasoline can torpedo an economy, all they have to do is reduce output.
If we want to remove that lever, it would be better to directly restrict petroleum imports rather than to subsidize uneconomic fuel schemes. At least the Constitution provides for that option -- subsidizing fuel is not mentioned.
I'd suggest that petroleum refineries are effectively being subsidized by having additional domestic competition limited by a web of current government regulations.
If you want to wade into any other government sudsidies more power to you.
A depletion allowance isn't a subsidy, it just allows oil companies to not pay taxes on something they no longer have -- the oil they've already sold. But one subsidy doesn't justify another, especially if you are trying to say that "road damage" is an indirect subsidy that justifies someone else's direct subsidy. Cars and trucks both pay disproportionately excess taxes per ton-mile and they pay for the highways with fuel taxes. That's bogus accounting. That kind of logic is how they are trying to justify the carbon tax.
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