Posted on 04/23/2008 10:25:32 PM PDT by 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...
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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.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
:’) While the Kennedy family opposes those windmills, recently Teddy dumped oil from his yacht into the pristine waters. :’D There are a bunch of FR topics, because so many fail to check and/or the search engine fails to turn ‘em up. :’)
IMV, the approach to use is to get rid of retail gasoline taxes, and put on a $10 (for example) a barrel tax on petroleum imports *and* exports. That would make US production uncompetitive on world markets, keeping it here, and build in a $10 a barrel cushion (or subsidy, as some would say) for domestic production. This (with other gov’t obstacles to production removed) would result in much more domestic production. It would also build in a cushion (or subsidy) for alt-fuels, since oil would be $10 a barrel more expensive than market.
As the OPEC nations would find out, gradual removal of the US from the petroleum market would more than offset the rise in demand among industrializing countries, including China and India.
The Bum Rap on Biofuels
American Thinker | 5-13-08 | Herbert Meyer
Posted on 05/14/2008 3:59:06 AM PDT by Renfield
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2015711/posts
Campaign to vilify ethanol revealed
ethanol producer Magazine | May 16, 2008 | By Kris Bevill
Posted on 05/17/2008 9:22:13 AM PDT by Kevin J waldroup
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2017389/posts
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