Expect the venture capitalists who started this pyramid scheme to quietly jump ship, leaving those who came in last holding the steaming bag. This article is behind the Wall Street Journal subscription wall and I can't post the whole article, though I would certainly like to. Several excerpts follow:
Earlier this year, Mr. Chambliss introduced a bill calling for even greater ethanol use, though with one striking difference: The bill caps the amount of that fuel that can come from corn. Turns out Georgia's chicken farmers hate corn-based ethanol; Georgia's pork producers hate corn-based ethanol; Georgia's dairy industry hates corn-based ethanol; Georgia's food producers hate corn-based ethanol; Georgia's hunters hate corn-based ethanol. And all that means Mr. Chambliss has had to find a new biofuels religion.
(Thanks again, KO!)
The shine is off corn ethanol, and oh, what a comedown it has been. It was only in January that President Bush was calling for a yet a bijillion more gallons of the wonder-stuff in his State of the Union address, and Iowa's Chuck Grassley was practically doing the Macarena in his seat. And why shouldn't Mr. Grassley and fellow ethanol handmaidens have boogied? They'd forced their first mandate through Congress, corn farmers were rolling in dough, billions in taxpayer dollars were spurring dozens of new ethanol plants -- and here was the commander-in-chief calling for yet more yellow dollars. All in the name of national security, too!
Just as the smart people warned, the government's decision to play energy market God and forcibly divert huge amounts of corn stocks into ethanol has played havoc with key sectors of the economy. Corn prices have nearly doubled ...
It's taken politicians a while to catch on to these anti-ethanol vibes, but they've now got the picture. At an agriculture conference in Indianapolis last fall, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns and EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson spoke, delivering their usual fare about how ethanol was the greatest thing since sliced corn bread. They expected warm applause; in the past the entire ag community united around helping their brother corn farmers make a buck. But now that ethanol is literally taking food from their beasts' mouths, much of that community has grown less friendly. According to one attendee, Messrs. Daniels, Johanns and Johnson were later slammed with snippy ethanol questions from angry livestock owners, much to their dazed surprise. Word is that even the presidential candidates -- who usually can say no wrong about ethanol while touring the Midwest -- are having to be more selective about where they make their remarks.
Call it a case study in how a powerful lobby can overplay its hand. While many members are still publicly touting corn ethanol, privately they are quietly backing away from another round of corn-mania. The most extraordinary sign was the Senate Energy Committee's recent ethanol bill, hailed by Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Pete Domenici as "bipartisan" legislation for more "homegrown fuels." What the committee didn't mention in its press release was that it had built the legislation around Mr. Chambliss's cap on corn ethanol (at 15 billion gallons), and that the rest of the 32 billion-gallon-a-year mandate would have to come from other (still imaginary) sources, say switchgrass. The bill passed 20-3.
Things are even hotter in Washington, where lobbying groups are firming up their positions against corn ethanol. The hugely influential National Cattlemen's Beef Association has gone so far as to outline a series of public demands, including an end to any government tax credits (subsidies) for ethanol and an axe to the import tariff on foreign ethanol. Put another way, the cattlemen are so angry that they are demanding free markets and free trade -- a first. Maybe ethanol really is a miracle fuel. In any event, expect the ethanol call to get harder for Plains state senators.
From the other side, green groups are grousing about the environmental consequences of intensive corn farming. International aid organizations are complaining that ethanol is raising the overall cost of food and diverting grain from poor countries. Ducks Unlimited, part of Washington's "hooks and bullets" conservation lobby, sported a recent article in its magazine complaining that farmers are taking idle land out of conservation programs -- land currently home to ducks -- and using it for corn farming again.
All this pressure is beginning to hit home. Ethanol isn't going away anytime soon; you can't unring a bill. But senators are said to be readying amendments to offer to the new ethanol bill that would use triggers or waivers to further water down the corn element. Turns out there are huge economic consequences to Congress micromanaging energy policy, and all to aid its campaign donors in agribusiness. A lesson the U.S. is now learning the hard way.
Classic example of herd behavior.
How industry pressures and competing national agendas dim prospects for a climate treaty
Flurry of lobbying cash obscures U.S. climate debate
Comments
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amazingdrx Posted 4:14 pm
19 May 2007
My quick blurb was this. Ethanol only helps commodity corn growers. Dairy farmers, his main ag constituency are getting hurt badly by higher grain and feed prices due to corn ethanol.
So it hurts all farmers who raise animals.
And of course cuts the mileage of many cars 10%, even on E15, the mildest adulteration formula. That means we buy and burn an extra gallon per 10 gallon fillup to drive the same distance. And every gallon of ethanol uses a gallon of oil based fuel in production and transportation.
Feingold told a great story at his town meeting last year here. He said his mother knew their town needed a new bridge, so when she shook her representatives hand she asked him about it. He didn't respond, so she shook his hand until he promised to get the bridge built.
Maybe I'll try that.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 9:56 pm
19 May 2007
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/kstrasselpw/?id= ...
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kgpc Posted 1:54 am
20 May 2007
http://www.ethanol-news.de
http://www.ethanol-news.de
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:17 am
20 May 2007
Catch being Distillers Grain isn't suitable for human consumption.
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/05/biofuel ...
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While it's great to get people rilled up on Ethanol
One has to consider all those can be sidestepped by switching to other Ethanol production methods.
Performance (Butanol)
Compatibility with existing infrastructure (Butanol)
The Energy Balance (Other crops, Butanol)
Food Prices (Other crops)
_
The real issues are:
CO2 balance (4% to 0.5% to negligible - Especially when produced using coal.)
Air pollution reductions (It would make things worse. - Especially when they allow this)
Opportunity Cost for TaxDollars to achieve the above. (over $2.5 billion a year and it's barely offset even 1% of our Oil use. About 12x the amount of federal subsidy given to solar.)
In addition to:
Arable Land Resource Demand (Too damn much)
Water Resource Demand (Too damned much)
_
When dealing with someone who will use every chance to deny what your saying, try to make sure you have bulletproof arguments in hand.
Try to avoid falling into the trap of letting them set the frame for your arguments.
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:28 am
20 May 2007
And of course, more on the CO2 balance
Rainforest Deforestation.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070208-et ...
http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0516-ethanol_amazon.html
Which is a lot more serious than losing a few trees.
http://greyfalcon.net/palmoil
http://greyfalcon.net/soy
However losing the rainforrest trees is more like a triple-whammy when you add on their albedo effect, where the sun is most intense.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/12/planting_trees.ph ...
http://www.llnl.gov/pao/news/news_releases/2005/NR-05-12- ...
(^^^ Note the "trees add to global warming" part of this study is "On time scales longer than a few centuries". Only reason I bring it up is to reinforce the importance of tropical rainforrests)
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odograph Posted 2:51 am
20 May 2007
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GreyFlcn Posted 3:36 am
20 May 2007
http://www.biodieselmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=1 ...
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Delay And Deny Posted 4:08 am
20 May 2007
Now you see it: The Democrats, Barrack Obama and Gore are basically shills for biodiesel.
Do you think for a minute any of them believe in the claptrap of AGW?
Nope -- but collecting fees for scaring America into giving up its cropland, raising the price of food and selling us corn for $3 a gallon sure makes sense.
John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"
You Read It Here First
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:20 am
20 May 2007
I don't deny this.
Catch being the Republicans are even bigger shills.
Basically need Iowa to win a presidential election. And they know this. So unless you bend over backwards to please the "corn gods" then you aren't going to win.
So everyone is forced to pay homage to Iowa.
Or as another skeptic puts it. (Jabailo, you'd like this guy)
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Ron Steenblik Posted 6:13 am
20 May 2007
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said he wants markets to set policies on low carbon fuels, and called for eliminating subsidies and tariffs related to ethanol. "We need to take down the barriers we have created," Schwarzenegger said at a symposium on low carbon fuels at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in Berkeley, California.
The United States, he said, subsidizes domestic corn-based ethanol and imposes a 54-cents-per-gallon tariff to limit cheap ethanol imports from Brazil. "It makes absolutely no sense. It's crazy, and it's definitely not in the best interest of the customers," said Schwarzenegger.
... He did not offer specific alternatives to the tariffs and subsidies, but said the market should be allowed to come up with the best solutions after targets are set by governments like California's.
"We set the targets. The market decides how best to get there," Schwarzenegger said. ... He called on the U.S. Congress "to adopt a fuel policy that works."
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David Roberts Posted 6:16 am
20 May 2007
Uh ... how about no tariffs and subsidies? Specific enough?
grist.org
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GreyFlcn Posted 6:23 am
20 May 2007
Even if it's not specifically growth in the rainforrest, it it eats up all the other farmland.
Then the cattle grazers, and other crops move into the rainforrest.
How do you avoid carbon fungability when it comes to rainforrests?
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Ron Steenblik Posted 5:13 pm
20 May 2007
Who is making up the difference? Argentina and Brazil, for two. And where are some of Brazil's soybeans being produced? In the Amazon.
So certainly promoting and protecting U.S. corn-based ethanol is not an answer to protecting the Amazon.
On a life-cycle basis, studies of Brazilian ethanol show it yields much greater improvements in CO2-equivalent emissions than does ethanol produced from grains grown in temperate regions. Basically, sugarcane produces more material that can be fermented per hectare, and much less energy is required to transform it into ethanol. Many if not most plants producing ethanol in Brazil use the bagasse for process heat and to generate electricity, which also helps the CO2 balance.
No sugar cane is being produced in the Amazon; rather, new production is taking place on former pasture land, including in the Cerrado. Questions have been raised as to whether the ploughing up of this land will release more carbon into the atmosphere.
It is as unrealistic for people in the global North to expect countries in the South, such as Brazil, to just freeze their agricultural development without some kind of compensation, at least as long as such compensation (e.g., in the USA through the Conservation Reserve Program) seems to be the norm provided in the North. Meanwhile, one way to avoid further agricultural pressure on places like the Cerrado is for the North cut its need for liquid transport fuels in the first place -- and stop subsidizing the consumption of biofuels.
David: From reading between the lines in the article from my previous post, I would guess that what Gov. Schwarzenegger would recommend is a similar policy at the national scale as what he has proposed for California. But some reporters seem to have a problem with a politician pronouncing that he or she is against a subsidy. Apparently, calling for the elimination of a subsidy is not regarded as a policy in their eyes.
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planetthoughts Posted 7:37 pm
20 May 2007
Some politicians may soon start waking up - this is indeed a crisis. A quick ethanol switch does not work. Deeper changes in social attitudes worldwide are needed. Careful analysis of inputs and outputs of each choice are needed. They are still playing games and trying to bring home the pork.
It is time for Americans to listen to science and scientists like we have not done in many years - perhaps have never done except when it comes to space flight. Well, these decisions affect the future of the planet. Some have criticized Al Gore and the Democrats - well they may have joined in some of the mistaken initiatives, but Al Gore did raise a good contrast. Paraphrasing: Hmm, bars of gold, hmm, entire planet, hmm, difficult choice (note: it is sarcasm).
David Alexander
PlanetThoughts.org
Love your Planet.
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