Getting Real on Green

With Democrats there's always some Big Evil to combat, whether it's real or not. So if only to get through to the often clueless Dems, I'll call this Big Ethanol.

That's right Democrats--we have found the enemy and it is YOU. Food prices are rising to the point of causing riots in some spots around the world. Why?

In part because you, and some Republican, goofs mandated ethanol (Big Ethanol, repeat Big, Bad Ethanol) in gasoline, and gave subsidies for ethanol production. That's why corn is being planted in arid parts of the country, like North Dakota, where they are using energy to irrigate it in what's usually wheat country, or sunflowers. The first time I saw this I almost drove off the road. (And the fertilizer is petroleum-based.) Does this make sense? Well, maybe only around the steadily encroaching Devils Lake--ring it with corn fields. Some estimates on the cost of all of this to us:

This month, the Coalition for Balanced Food and Fuel Policy, a group funded by domestic beef, pork and chicken producers, released a report estimating that ethanol mandates now cost U.S. taxpayers $33 billion per year. That figure—which includes the costs of the ethanol subsidies and higher food prices—amounts to about $106 for each American.

A year ago, the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University determined that higher food costs resulting from ethanol mandates were costing each citizen about $47 per year.

Another example. It would be cheaper and more energy efficient to make ethanol from sugar, but Brazilian sugar is too cheap, so we have to have import tariffs to protect domestic sugar cane and sugar beet producers. And we give subsidies for ethanol production from domestic sugar--to the point where US growers have the incentive to plant more sugarcane--in drought-stressed Florida. Not to mention encouraging environmental degradation in the Everglades.

Let them drink sugarcane! So now we are also having to increase monies for food stamps.

Some politicians from other parts of the country are talking about siphoning off Great Lakes water. Think about that. We may have to start drinking bottled water again--oh, but they're already taxing that in Chicago. Presumably that practice will spread.

Then you have the problem of what to feed livestock, if corn and other feed is so expensive. Meat prices shoot through the roof, as ranchers cull herds since they can't make the economics work:

But while some food prices have gone down (e.g., oranges and lettuce), others have gone up much faster, particularly grains and the meat from livestock fed on grains. Over the last year, eggs have gone up 35 percent, chicken 10 percent, beef 8 percent, white bread 16 percent.

Corn has experienced the most phenomenal rise. Corn, which averaged around $2 a bushel from 2002 to 2006, rose to over $4 per bushel in 2007 and is now over $6 per bushel.

A cold spring is making it difficult to get this year's crop planted, so that will mean even more upward pressure on prices. CBOT Corn Review.

And if ethanol isn't even very green after all?

Greenhouse gases are another area of concern. Several recent reports have shown that, when accounting for changes in land use, the production of corn ethanol may result in greenhouse gas emissions that are twice those of conventional gasoline.

There's more on the real cost of putting ethanol in our gas:

The irony is how much worse off ethanol is making us in other ways. In recent years, without the subsidies and the mandates, there would have been little if any demand for ethanol. Besides a 51 cent per gallon tax credit, there are other incentives for farmers and small ethanol producers, all together totaling about $1 per gallon.

Ethanol also produces much less energy than gasoline. A car that gets 30 miles per gallon on gas would get only 20 miles per gallon on ethanol. Without the subsidies and the mandates, ethanol would have to be less than two thirds the price of gas before it would pay for people to use it.

And even with all this fencepost to fencepost effort, "...distilling one-third of our corn crop is replacing only 3 percent of our oil consumption." And if you plant crops on newly cleared land just about anywhere else in the world, you are making the supposed greenhouse gas problem worse:

In February, Science published an article by a team headed by Joseph Fargione of the Nature Conservancy showing that converting virgin land into ethanol cultivation multiplies carbon emissions by a factor of 93. "So for the next 93 years, you're making climate change worse," said Fargione.

So, what should we do? Fix the farm bill this year--cut the subsidies, ethanol included. Get real about the cost of climate change. (Do you want to lose all your appliances in quest of Kyoto?) Look for a better way, coupled with a healthy skepticism on climate change itself. Stop the stupid Leftie agit-prop.

As with ethanol, other types of alternative energy require huge amounts of land, which is a scarce resource in itself, especially in urban areas where consumption is greatest:

So it is with all forms of solar energy. Those 30-story windmills produce 1.5 megawatts apiece--about 1/750th the power of a conventional generating station. Getting 1,000 megawatts would require a wind farm 75 miles square. In a January cover story for Scientific American, three leading solar researchers proposed meeting our electrical needs in 2050 by covering southwestern desert with solar collectors. The amount of land required would be 34,000 square miles, about one-quarter of New Mexico. [snip]

If we are ever going to access enough energy to run our industrial economy without overwhelming the environment in the process, we are going to have to find it in the nucleus of the atom.

That's right. Nuclear power is the way to getting real for a green world, atomic energy the only form of energy that doesn't come from the sun. And if you greenies want to think of it in an earthy way, you can call it "terrestrial energy"--harnessing the natural power of the earth.

And quit with the corn, I want to see sunflowers again up north.

UPDATE: The NY Times is worried about oil prices not stimulating enough production. Hmm, how about telling your eco-extremist friends to back off, quit bashing Big Oil, how about some more oil drilling here in the US, and more refineries. We just found some in North Dakota. And there are too many lefties and dictators around the world in charge of the world's oil, including here. Irwin Stelzer.