Posted on 05/17/2008 9:22:13 AM PDT by Kevin J waldroup
The “food versus fuel” debate being waged in the United States has been nothing more than a cleverly planned public relations campaign. A request for a public relations proposal put forth by the Grocery Manufacturers Association and the media campaign response by the Glover Park Group prove that there has been a concerted effort to attack the ethanol industry. Both documents were recently made public by long-time ethanol advocate, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
The GMA represents more than 300 food, beverage and consumer household goods companies in the United States. The association released a request for a public relations campaign to combat the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The request states: “GMA has concluded that rising food prices, global shortages of basic commodities, and new studies on the environmental impacts of corn ethanol create a window to change perceptions about the benefits of bio-fuels and the mandate and, ultimately, to build a groundswell in support of freezing or reversing some provisions of the 2007 Energy Bill…”
The response to the GMA’s request by the Glover Park Group lays out a strategy to undermine the ethanol industry: “First, we must obliterate whatever intellectual justification might still exist for corn-based ethanol among policy elites.”
(Excerpt) Read more at ethanolproducer.com ...
They must be a really effective propaganga campaign the anti-ethanol people have hatched, considering I’ve been railing against it for at least five years. Apparently, the propaganda is so persuasive, it can actually reach back in time.
Uh huh.
By the way, most of the "subsidies" ethanol producers receive come in the form of tax relief. That is to say, taxes those companies and growers DON'T pay.
Substitute "not been allowed" for your "refused"! It is nearly impossible to build a refinery in the US!
Fuel prices will continue to climb as hundreds of millions of Chinese and Indians upgrade from bicycles to motorbikes to small autos!
Meanwhile..., demagogues will rave on throughout this country's "leadership" while SOLVING NOTHING!!!
Big Oil Firms Aren’t the Bandits Here
reportonbusiness.com | May 16, 2008 | Neil Reynolds
Posted on 05/17/2008 3:07:39 PM PDT by kellynla
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2017465/posts
Gasoline: Higher taxes, not lower taxes, is the answer
Israpundit | May 17/08 | Ted Belman
Posted on 05/17/2008 12:21:30 PM PDT by tedbel
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-gop/2017424/posts
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
my 10% blend gas is $3.90 and without ethanol
at a market price of about $2.50, wall street analysts
say that my price would be $4.40.
That saves the US about a billion
dollars at the pump every 6 days, figuring 50 cents a gal
lower times 350 million gals of gas/gas blend every day that Dept of energy says is sold. That’s is over 50 billion a year saved. So seems decent return on a pissy
3 billion a year tax credit that dummies are having a hairy about,which is getting reduced anyway. It seems the idiotic naysayers want that extra expense that the hell raising may lead to instead of
getting congress to rein in the speculators.
Who are the main problem, and they affect oil
also.
Folks we got to get common sense going, The wild speculation is going to cause a crash in the farm sector and you know huge amounts of land will
get retired as many farmers will be done in.
Some will be forced out.....Do you know that the
30 million acres in CRP only cost taxpayers less than 5 billion to landowners.Most of whom don’t farm.
This makes greenies so happy they pee their pants.
If it gets really bad, maybe five times as much
will be taken out of production by 25 billion dollars spent, if we have a crash. Greens are
happy as hell to see it coming.Farmers figure it is coming.
Maybe a third of farmland gone when things
crash. Then we will have actual big shortages where there are non now....Now where farmers have increased corn
production a third for food and feed, plus the amount
used for ethanol, and the ethanol plants put out
huge amounts of high protein feed enough to make
15 billion lbs of meat this year...If the GMA want to help
us and themselves, get after Congress to rein in
speculators, by forcing them to risk more. But of
course they won’t as most of them are big businesses
are owned by speculators....
Is that interesting or what....Ed
Well said. But the speculators are going to be adequately punished when their little trading bubble bursts.
No, it doesn’t.
Properly aged, in beechwood casks, ethanol can be lovely, especially on the rocks. . .
Ah yes, now we're talkin'. If it is used as God intended, sippin' stuff, I'll be the first to sing it's praises.
Check out Butanol, it is much more efficient than ethanol, and can be made of a lot more different plant wastes. DuPont and another large company are looking into it. The BTUs on ethanol are 85,000, on butanol 110,000, and on gasoline 115,000, so you can see it is a lot more energetic than ethanol. Also it can be shipped through pipelines, is less volatile thus safer. The only problem is that it doesn’t smell so good. It may be marketable before cellulosic ethanol, or algae biodiesel, something to watch.
EFUEL/ethanol ping
REfineries not allowed to build new ones.
I don’t know if it is true, but I heard recently that while new refineries are not being built, existing refineries have been expanded in size, and thus in capacity.
That is true. Unfortunately, the refineries we have are very old and there is only so much that maintenance can accomplish (thus our ever increasing importation of refined products).
To the extent that domestic refining capacity declines..., so does our security and balance of trade (for petroleum products). A day is coming (in not too many years) when first Mexico and then Canada will restrict their exports of energy in order to provide ensure their domestic needs. Obviously, this will leave us ever more dependent upon less stable countries for our energy needs!
“I’m beginning to believe what we need to do is start a shadow party which funnels donations only to candidates who are conservative and believe in the founding principles.”
First, without reading the rest of the article, or any posts, I am in complete agreement with the following statement, “First, we must obliterate whatever intellectual justification might still exist for corn-based ethanol among policy elites.” which is intellectually far more honest than anything I’m going to see in the ethanol industry’s response.
As with global warming, there is evidence piled upon evidence, that this industry cannot stand on its own, and the negatives outweigh the mythical positives by a significant factor. What else do I need to know?
First, I would need to know what bizarre hype we are talking about,
The statement, “This would make the efficiency of E85 95.5% that of gasoline” looks like bad math to me, when mileage figures indicate otherwise. IOW how does a 15 to 40% reduction in the distance one is able to travel, on ethanol vs gasoline, translate into only a 4.5% reduction in efficiency? Depending of course on the level of ethanol/water in your tank, from 10% to 25% added to gasoline if our pump stickers are correct.
We should punish politicians who have not given us more refineries and who have refused to let us drill the oil on the coast and in the ANWR.
This statement alone in context with the position this places the United States of America versus our national security. Should pretty much spell out in glaring and certain terms, the type punishment needed in this case. Remaining comments self censored, but BOHICA was mentioned.
(which means they win and we give in) then we are going to face an even darker generation dominated even more by judicial oligarchy and legislative disregard for the constitution.
This statement does not begin to address our position vis-a-vis our enemies, nor the punishment that would be consistent for those in government who would give aid and comfort, to such.
I’m afraid the only solution available, will be unpleasant in the extreme. Remaining comments self censored.
I admire some of the oil companies that are beginning to diversity their energy portfolio and are doing heavy research into alternative fuels..
I don’t have much admiration for an OIL company that funds their attempted destruction by trying to be something else.
If they are an energy company, and would like to do research into expanding the energy base, fine, but let’s not get sucked into doing it because ya gotta go green or were going to bleed you dry after we vilify your industry for all the worlds ills.
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