Global Warming Today: Paul Krugman Demonizes Ethanol

No, really, he does. Snort Worthy!

I’m almost never censored at the Times. However, I was told that I couldn’t use the lede I originally wrote for my column following the 2007 State of the Union address, in which Bush made ethanol the centerpiece of his energy strategy: “Before the State of the Union address, there had been hints and hopes that President Bush would offer a serious plan to reduce our dependence on imported oil. Instead, however, he took refuge in alcohol.”

Well, anyway — the news on ethanol just keeps getting worse. Bad for the economy, bad for consumers, bad for the planet — what’s not to love?

I’m going to ignore the “blame Bush” portion, I have already left my opinion about that in the comments section at the Times. I guess it doesn’t matter to Paul that the majority of Climahysterics believe we should use ethanol instead of oil.

Moving on, I do agree with Paul’s central point, that we need to look for other means of fuel and energy. Ethanol is a bad, bad choice. As he wrote, bad for the economy, consumers, and the planet. See the link from Bloomberg in the second paragraph of the excerpt.

What do we need? Just like we have been saying for a long time. Oil exploration in ANWAR and the Gulf of Mexico, among others. Nuclear power plants. Oil shale. Whale oil. OK, kidding on the whale oil. Liberal oil combusts better.

Solar, and more research in to making solar panels more efficient. Wind power. A great idea would be to have personal windmills for homes. Just a small one on the top of a roof to offset some that comes from the power companies.

Build more refineries to process the oil.

Personally, I think the CAFE standards should be high. At one point, all the car commercials discussed what great milage the vehicle was capable of. Now, the commercials focus on what cool crap a vehicle can do, if you totally trick it out, of course. When I see a commercial talking about how great 30 mpg is, I laugh. It is not great, and our technology can certainly do better without having to drive a sardine can.

I’m not a fan of coal. Too dirty. But, there are still other ideas out there, and those who are doing research, such as the oil companies, should not be demonized and threatened.

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