Ethanol Is For Idiots
February 13th, 2008 by joe
Kevin Drum, who runs the excellent Washington Monthly blog, is one of those invaluable liberal individuals who by virtue of his intellectual honesty helps to bridge the ideological divide between “liberals” and “conservatives” - much as the General and Kevin, and occasionally others, do here. Much as I humbly suggest I do from the other side of the aisle, a point to which my good buddy Zimzo will undoubtedly attest.
Drum observes that
…corn ethanol subsidies, which looked merely stupid in the past, now look catastrophically idiotic.
The fact that caught my attention in the entire ethanol discussion is that the fuel expenditure (whether “fossil” or other) required to CREATE the crops harvested for ethanol - fueling the machines used for tilling and harvesting - exceeds the supposed savings offered by ethanol. You have to burn a ton of fuel to create that fuel. The other fact is that turning crops into fuel means the land and crops cannot create other things, like food, that we arguably need.
The final fact is that the push for ethanol appears to rely on a romantic quasi-agrarian notion that “plants are good, machines are bad” intended to trump all other arguments. Romantic notions, as a rule, don’t pass the smell test.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 at 12:58 am and is filed under Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
February 13th, 2008 at 4:33 am
there was supposedly some study released recently that the impact from corn exceeded the benefit and all the bio people got pissed because they’ve known this for a while and have already been looking for and working on alternatives that are more efficient, like switchgrass?
Ah well Newton.
February 13th, 2008 at 7:48 am
Never mind subsidies, the new Energy Bill requires that 36 billion gallons of “renewable fuel” and 21 billion gallons of “advanced biofuel” be sold in 2022.
Is this the Soviet Union, that we have a planned economy? How the Hell is this constitutional? We need some politicians who understand the word “regulate” means “to make regular,” not “we can do whatever we damn well please in regard to interstate commerce.”
February 13th, 2008 at 10:38 am
It is corn based ethanol that is for idiots. Sugar based ethanol has proven quite successful in Brazil. Corn based ethanol is more about mid-west votes than rationale.
Forget ethanol, forget hydrids, BMW has is right with their new internal combustion dual fuel (hydrogen/gas) technology. Diesel also, newer diesel cars not currently available here blow the doors off hybrids in fuel efficiency.
February 13th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Dan,
The question is where do you get the hydrogen? Biodiesel is better than ethanol as you can still recover the protein from the crop but it will drive up the cost of vegatable oil. I am going to look hard at diesels for my next car.