Bring on the Right Biofuels

NY Times ^ | April 24, 2008 | ROGER COHEN

[neverdem]

Fads come fast and furious in our viral age, and the reactions to them can be equally ferocious. That’s what we’re seeing right now with biofuels, which everyone loved until everyone decided they were the worst thing since the Black Death.

Where fuel distilled from plant matter was once hailed as an answer to everything from global warming to the geo-strategic power shift favoring repressive one-pipeline oil states, its now a “scam” and “part of the problem,” according to Time magazine. Ethanol has turned awful.

The supposed crimes of biofuels are manifold. They’re behind soaring global commodity prices, the destruction of the Amazon rain forest, increased rather than diminished greenhouse gases, food riots in Haiti, Indonesian deforestation and, no doubt, your mother-in-law’s toothache.

Most of this, to borrow a farm image, is hogwash and bilge.

I’ll grant that the fashion for biofuels led to excess, and that some...

--snip--

What sense does it make to have a surplus of environmentally friendly Brazilian sugar-based ethanol with a yield eight times higher than U.S. corn ethanol and zero impact on food prices being kept from an American market by a tariff of 54 cents on a gallon while Iowan corn ethanol gets a subsidy?

“It would make a lot more sense to drop the tariff, drop the subsidy, and allow Brazilian ethanol into the United States,” said Philippe Reichstul, the chief executive of a biofuel company in São Paulo. “Pressure on U.S. land will be slashed.”

The United States and Europe should maintain their biofuel targets. Pressure to scrap a European plan for renewable fuels to supply a tenth of all vehicle fuel by 2020 must be resisted while rethinking the policies that favor the wrong biofuels.

The real scam lies in developed world protectionism and skewed subsidies, not the biofuel idea.

[Nathan Zachary]

"the moronic drive to burn corn is a very significant factor in higher food prices worldwide, and now, deaths worldwide."

Thats nothing but pure BS. If you think everyone lives on animal feed corn, you are truely one of the fooled.

There is no food shortage.

Even in turd world countries, their food problems are political, not because the world can't produce enough.

Food price increases are NOT a result of bio fuels production.

Human grade food isn't even used in bio fuel production.

The cost of food is driven up by the price of oil, which effects production costs, transportation costs, labor costs, and delivery costs to the grocer. Fertilizer costs which have tripled for farmers this crop year, not to mention there being a severe shortage, as have machinery and other costs.

[Nathan Zachary]

Good to see someone else besides me trying to correct the myth that bio fuel production is somehow causing food shortages.

It’s just incredible the amount of Bio fuel/ ethanol BS out there. Ethanol used to be the main fuel before oil came to be plentiful. Every farmer had it in their tractor, (and cupboard too)

[jslade]

(heck, even the Red Chinese are drilling in the Gulf of Mexico - from what I heard)

Yup! In partnership with Cuba. Heck, I live in Florida and love our beaches, but the butt-headed pols say that oil rigs would spoil the view. And, a remote oil spill would spoil our beaches and scare tourist away. Well, duh, if the tourist can't afford gas they won't be coming to the beach anyway!

[Polybius]

Except that, as usual, no one can get it through their thick heads that the corn used to make ethanol is processed to remove starch, and then is fed to cattle; losing little of its feed value.

It is true that corn grown for ethanol production loses little of its feed value ..... if you are a cow.

If you are a human, more and more farm acreage is being diverted from producing crops, such as soybeans and wheat, that you can consume directly to producing a corn crop that only automobiles and cattle consume directly.

X number of bushels of grain can support Y number of people that consume it directly.

X number of bushels of grain fed to one steer can feed (Y-Z) number of people while Z number of people starve.

With a decrease in the supply of crops that you, as a human, can eat directly, the prices of those crops increases in accordance with the laws of supply and demand.

Ethanol demand: Growth and implications for grain producers ..... Midwest agriculture is in the midst of a rapid shift from primarily a food producer to being a major source of energy as well. ..... In Iowa, combined corn processing capacity for ethanol and other corn products will soon be equivalent to more than half of the 2006 Iowa corn crop. .... If all planned plants are built, processing capacity would be equivalent to 133 percent of last year's crop--within three to five years. .... Until the economics of converting corn to ethanol deteriorate through higher corn prices and lower ethanol prices, the expansion is almost certain to continue. Because of limited crop acreage, U.S. processing of corn for ethanol appears likely to reach an upper limit of about 5.5 billion bushels by the end of this decade. ... With rapidly expanding ethanol demand, the main job of the corn market through spring will be to keep corn prices high enough to encourage at least a 12 to 14 percent increase in 2007 U.S. plantings. .... Acreage of grain, soybeans, and cotton nationally has declined by about 15 million acres in the last 10 years. Declining total acreage tells us that most of the extra corn acres will have to come from other crops. That means shifting soybean acres to corn, although a few extra corn acres may come from oats, hay, and pasture, as well as wheat in the eastern and extreme western parts of the Corn Belt.

[Polybius]

Human grade food isn't even used in bio fuel production.

And where does that food not fit for human consupmptiuon come from to make ethanol?

Does it fall from the sky like manna?

No. It comes from growing it on limited farm acreage that would otherwise be used to grow food that IS fit for human consumption.

See Post 24.

The reason the Bible says that God sent manna floating down on the Israelites during their travels in the desert is precisely because of the fact that, in the desert, the Israelites were not growing any crops fit for human consumption.

There is no food shortage.

..... if you are a cow.

[steelyourfaith]

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[The_Reader_David]

You’re not accounting for the shift in acreage. The biofuel subsidy program induced farmers to plant acreage that used to be planted in wheat to be planted in corn, because it made growing a low yield of non-food-quality corn more profitable than growing a moderate yield of wheat.

[clodkicker]

What do you think gasoline prices would do if you eliminated the additional refining capacity of the ethanol plants? Be careful what you wish for. We are not going to run out of food. We may run out of $2.50 wheat but we haven’t run out of $8.00 wheat. By the way anyone noticed the price of wheat lately? I assume bread has fallen in half also.

[Grampa Dave]

Amen Brother: "IF we still need more oil - then sure, go after squeezing some plant matter to produce bio-fuels. But not until we use up the dead stuff that God has gifted us...!"

[eclecticEel]

Oh and another thing, co2 is not a pollutant, Bio fuels are very clean burning

Can we be a little more obtuse? The reason ethanol increases the output of CO2 is that it leads directly to deforestation, whereas burning the stuff only releases the carbon that went into growing the ethanol in the first place.

Not that I care in the least for the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, I just mention it for the ironic value.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[SunkenCiv]

"It would make a lot more sense to drop the tariff, drop the subsidy, and allow Brazilian ethanol into the United States," said Philippe Reichstul, the chief executive of a biofuel company in Sao Paulo. "Pressure on U.S. land will be slashed."

s/b

"It would make a lot more sense to drop the tariff, drop the subsidy, and allow Brazilian ethanol into the United States," said Philippe Reichstul, the chief executive of a biofuel company in Sao Paulo. "Pressure on my portfolio will be trashed."

Why not buy ethanol from Brazil? Since we're unwilling to put any more petroleum production online due to concerns over ducks, polar bears, and caribou, it seems like a good time to take 40 to 50 per cent of agricultural acreage for corn and literally ship it overseas. What do we care where our food comes from? Hell, if Mexicans would grow corn for our market, they wouldn't be swarming across the border. Having another 2 per cent of the US population unemployed will be good for the economy, much better than tolerating some nakedly socialist scheme to insure a stable US food supply.

/sarc

[curiosity]

For all his faults, McCain is really good about fighting wasteful spending. The ethanol boondoggle is just one of the many pork programs he has fought.

He's got a pretty good idea about what to do about healthcare reform. He makes a lot of sense when talking about tax reform. He's a reliable fiscal conservative on spending, as he voted against the prescription drug giveaway to geezers. I generally like his ideas about domestic policy.

There are only two things that make me really dislike the man: his position on immigration, and his propensity to support military interventions that have nothing to do with US interests. The man wanted us to send ground troops into Kosovo, for crying out loud! I'm very concerned that with him as commander in cheif, he'll be wasting money and lives by sending troops into places like Darfur.

But for these two issues, I could enthusiastically support his candidacy.

[curiosity]

Why not buy ethanol from Brazil?

Great. Let's encourage even more destruction of the Amazon jungle.

[BOBTHENAILER]

another Amen from this hyar brother.

[thackney]

Why not buy ethanol from Brazil?

We do buy ethanol from Brazil. They are the largest supplier of imported ethanol into the US. 2/3 of the ethanol we do import comes from them.

U.S. Fuel Ethanol Imports by Country
http://www.ethanolrfa.org/industry/statistics/#F

The tariff is offset by the blender's subsidy making it about neutral for pricing of imported ethanol.

Note: I'm not in favor of the subsidy. I would like to see the tariff applied to all imported energy sources and more encouragement for domestic production of ALL energy sources, not just the ones with the best Congressional Lobby.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks for that good info.

Tariff = subsidy. Seems that a lot of people who piss and moan about subsidies are still 100 per cent gung ho in favor of tariffs and blame subsidies (which aren’t globalist) and globalism (which is anti-subsidy and anti-tariff, and pro-laissez-faire) for economic ills.

[SunkenCiv]

The supposed annihilation of the Amazon rain forest is a load of greenie BS. But regardless, you may want to re-read my post.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2006150/posts?page=32#32

[thackney]

Tariff = subsidy

I agree, they are the same. I believe we have real economic and security reasons to encourage domestic production of energy. I favor them as long as they treat energy sources equally and let the market work out the most economic method of providing that energy. The government's job should be to get out of the way of that production regardless if it means oil platforms off California and Florida or Windmills in Ted Kennedy's view.

[SunkenCiv]

BioFuels Failing Bigtime in Germany
NPR | 04/23/2008 | Kyle James
Posted on 04/23/2008 4:47:55 PM PDT by raygunfan
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2006029/posts