Biofuels, including ethanol, might be workable in the future. Heck, using sugar as fuel seems to be working well in Brazil. But, what’s being done in America, and much of the developed world, where it is mostly food being used to develop fuels, is an unmitigated disaster (article is behind the paywall. You can see the full thing here)
A strong candidate for the most expensive policy blunder of recent years would have to be the mandate to blend corn ethanol and other biofuels into the nation’s gasoline supply. This month even the Environmental Protection Agency essentially acknowledged that the program is increasingly unworkable and costly to consumers. The EPA just won’t do much to fix it.
When these mandates were enacted in 2007 under George W. Bush, biofuels were sold as the wonder-fuel of the future: a cheap and plentiful domestic energy source to compete with OPEC oil and reduce global warming. Six years later none of those predictions have panned out.
One of the biggest debacles has been the law’s requirement that the oil and gas industry mix cellulosic ethanol—made from the likes of switch grass and wood chips—into gasoline. The original law mandated the use of one billion gallons of cellulosic fuel in 2013, with even higher levels through 2022. This may have been the worst government forecast in history, which is saying something. Even with taxpayer subsidies, total cellulosic volume in 2012 was about 20,000 gallons. The government was off by a mere 99.9%.
The WSJ goes on to describe many of the issues revolving around cellulosic fuels, including that the fossil fuels industry has to pass on costs of fines for not using fuels that do not exist. Then into the silliness of the corn based ethanol mandates, and ends with
Maybe, but the biofuels program is a failure that can’t be fixed with tweaks. If ethanol is the miracle fuel its defenders say it is, why must its use be mandated? The effect of the quotas has been to raise gas prices and make food more expensive as corn goes to fuel rather than food. A rash of studies also shows no net reduction or even an increase in greenhouse gas emissions from corn ethanol.
But no matter how indefensible the program, no one in the White House and few in Congress want to take on Big Corn. Americans should remember whom to thank the next time they pay $4 a gallon at the pump.
We should also remember that ethanol fuels provide less MPG than standard fuels. Oh, and that the cost increases raise the price of everything that requires delivery by autos and planes.
And lest the typical Warmist starts caterwauling about the WSJ being a supposed “far right” news source, even the NY Times noticed a few years ago that using food for fuel is a Bad Idea.
Biofuels are great for the economy. They increase the cost of food and, heck, I really enjoy buying a new weed eater every two years because the tubing is rotted away. Can continue to go on about how great it is but there is not enough space and my blood pressure is going up.
Yes the cost of livestock feed DOUBLED in just one year and then there were the 2008 food riots in 60 countries.
The sheepskin over the Fabian Socialist wolves (City of London Banksters) is starting to wear a bit thin but since the bankster/corporate elite OWN the news media you will Never hear about it.
Teach you should display this 1911 cartoon by American Communist party member Robert Minor. It shows the truth the Democratic party is so anxious to hide. There ARE no real capitalists except for the Mom & Pop entrepreneurs under attack by the Corporate/Banker run US government. And as Dick Durbin Said the Bankers OWN CONGRESS.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/2b/Robert-Minor-Dee-Lighted-1911.png/339px-Robert-Minor-Dee-Lighted-1911.png
“Minor’s cartoon portrays a bearded, beaming Karl Marx standing in Wall Street with Socialism tucked under his arm and accepting the congratulations of financial luminaries J.P. Morgan, Morgan partner George W. Perkins, a smug John D. Rockefeller, John D. Ryan of National City Bank, and Teddy Roosevelt – prominently identified by his famous teeth – in the background. Wall Street is decorated by Red flags. The cheering crowd and the airborne hats suggest that Karl Marx must have been a fairly popular sort of fellow in the New York financial district.”
Thursday morning links…
I don’t know what was wrong with Dr. Phil’s tweet. A funeral home owner confesses If A $15 An Hour Minimum Wage Is Good, Why Not Make It $200? A cheerful item: Homeowner shoots, kills escaped prisoner in Iowa WSJ: Even The EPA Admits Biofuel…
An interesting discussion is worth comment. I believe that you should create more on this particular topic, may possibly not be a taboo subject but usually people are not enough to speak about such matters. To the next. All the best
Hello non-personal non-real jayden. If you were to peruse the archives of this here blimey blargh, you’d find more of this fine writing.
Teach, many people have forgotten and many people were born later and were not told, but the US went through an ethanol trial back in the 70s. It was voluntary for the most part. And it was a huge disaster then too. NO CARS were able to handle the water-loving fuel. small motors had to be overhauld or just replaced. But, it was pushed as the answer to our oil problems back then.
How does anyone in their right mind think that repeating that bit of our history but now with government forces and mandates and penalties behind it, will have any greater chance at succeeding.
Ok, so you may save 3-5 cents per gallon at fill up. But you lose that in loss of mileage. And you definitely will lose it in the cost of repairs and maintenance to the vehicle due to the damage ethanol does.
Government funded insanity. You need to ask youselves why would a gov’t fund and mandate such a terrible idea? It increases food prices and water usage, reduces fuel mileage, while increasing repair costs. For all of their hype, it’s doing exactly opposite what they claim. So, why do it?
It’s all a matter of corporate welfare that leads back to political pockets.
Poor starving people be damned.