printBad things happen when production is driven by ignorant special interests (the gangreens) in cahoots with government, instead of the free market.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported tonight that food shortages were already being felt in Europe because one of the biggest wheat growers in the world, the USA, was incentivizing its farmer to grow corn for ethanol instead of the wheat staple. The prices of food have been rising steadily as a result of this ill-fated intervention.
Oil is efficient. “It requires only a narrow hole in the earth,” explains the WSJ, “and is extracted as a highly concentrated form of energy”—it “is up to 1,000 times more efficient than solar energy, which requires large panels collecting a less-concentrated form of energy known as the midday sun. But even solar power is roughly 10 times as efficient as biomass-derived fuels like ethanol.”
The other eco-awful consequence of mandating via legislation the incremental replacement of oil with “absurdly inefficient, corn-based ethanol” is a “giant slurping sound, as Midwest water supplies are siphoned off to slake Big Ethanol”:
“[O]ne gallon of ethanol requires a staggering 1,700 gallons of H2O.”
“Writing in Science magazine, Renton Righelato and Dominick Spracklen estimate that in order to replace just 10% of gasoline and diesel consumption, the U.S. would need to convert a full 43% of its cropland to ethanol production. The alternative approach—clearing wilderness—would mean more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere than simply sticking with gasoline, because the CO2-munching trees cut down to make way for King Ethanol absorb more emissions than ethanol saves.”
“Slowly but surely, these problems are beginning to alert public opinion to the huge costs of force-feeding corn ethanol as an energy savior.”
Update (March 26): About the sentiments expressed in the Comments Section whereby more expensive, unviable energy sources are favored: I understand that this is not a policy prescription but a personal preference, rooted in perceived morality. Good intentions, and all that stuff. I would argue, however, that this too is misguided.
Look, noble sentiments notwithstanding, inefficient energy sources pollute more and waste resources. Drilling for oil, if I am not mistaken, is the second most efficient, cheapest—and hence cleanest—source of energy. Nuclear is the first. Think of the totality of the production process (minus the eco-idiots’ romantic catchphrases). If you expend fewer resources on bringing a fuel to market, then the process is also CLEANER.
I’m for solar, wind, and water-based energy, but only through private industry, of course. Why not use whatever renewable sources available to gradually supplement our main, non-renewable source, oil, which so often drives our march to unjust war?
The entire ethanol scam has one purpose only: to enrich agri-business cronies of those in power in return for campaign cash. If food prices rise and the environment suffers as a result, it’s okay with those whose pockets are being lined.
If the average American was independent thinking and ambitious enough to spend ten minutes informing himself on the issue, he’d conclude that he’s being taken for a ride. But he doesn’t, because he’s been “educated” in government schools. When one’s head has been filled with nothing but state propaganda, getting duped about biofuels becomes mere child’s play.
I’ve already noticed the prices of foodstuffs rising… a lot of people are going to be hurting when even chicken and eggs become too expensive.
I do agree with the March 26 update, Ilana. Nuclear power all the way.
More efficient is always cleaner!
Low density energy sources are bad for the environment and bad for humans. For proof, try living as humans did 1,000 years ago. You will have a hard time making metals and chemicals, let alone just pumping water with solar-derived power in any form (wind, ethanol, wood, animal power).
One of the best things about automobiles besides the lower cost and convenience, was a cleaner environment gotten by the elimination of horse poop all over everything.
There is no alternative energy. There is energy, and there are fuel sources. “Alternative Energy” is a code phrase for a stock and tax swindle. And the only reason anyone can afford to fiddle with them now is because we have a source of cheap, abundant energy to produce them with. Take that away, and it’s cheaper to just forget it than to try to make anything with the power generated by the end product. (Try making aluminum with wind power and see how far you get. You need lots and lots of electricity.)
Energy, and access to it, are literally our standard of living, because energy makes everything that is worth having. The end result of these idiotic policies is a further collapse of our standard of living. Which means, economic suicide.
Every rent-seeking ‘researcher’ taking money in the field presumably had to take a thermodynamics class at least once. That means they are liars, and deserve to be treated as the treasonous scoundrels that they are.