Living the American Green

An Ethanol Molecule. You know... Science Stuff!

The other week, I posted a few things about Ethanol: how the lobby was holding up the Waxman Bill, etc.  As per my usual, it was one part educated conjecture, one part politics, one part research a six parts B.S. (essentially, the patented  LtAG 9 part system!)

After Mark made the fair point that numbers might be a good thing, I tried… but lets be honest — I don’t know much about “science”.  On the other hand, I know people who know things.  Some of them even know a lot of things.

One of those people, a Mr. James C, was kind enough to tell me a little ’bout Ethanol, and about why we shouldn’t let that ship sail off to the proverbial land of the elves just yet.  (Yeah, that was a LoTR reference.  So what?)

James works for a company makes enzymes for the corn ethanol industry, so he has a dog in this fight.  However, he also has “knowledge” of “science” stuff, so we have to suspect that he knows what he be talking bout.  The following is all his words, and let me tell you: they make sense.

“I have come to believe that while corn is not the ideal crop, it is the currently the only means to reduce emissions in cars on the road today. Even when we look slightly into the future, technology is still lacking. While electric cars will become more of a reality in the future, the battery technology is not here yet and they will likely be expensive when it is. Also, we have to think about where the electricity is coming from (ie, coal is worse that solar but solar costs a lot).  Funding into fuel cells has been cut by the DOE as it’s not really a feasible technology.  Algal biodiesel likely will never happen (it’d be great if it does but there are too many hurdles such as how to collect it). (Editors Note: Crap!  We were really jazzed about that!)   Finally, we can make more efficient cars, but they will still need liquid fuel likely in conjunction with electricity (hybrid electric).   (more…)

Credit to Greenpeace for this AWESOME image

After all that tom-foolery the other day ’bout Ethanol, Mark made a good point on the entire discussion: Show me the numbers!

Well, interestingly enough, Tuesday’s New York Times showed off some numbers — only I don’t think they were the the numbers Mark was looking for.  No, these numbers where far more sinister.   These are numbers about Ethanol and that fantastic enviro-buggaboo: Big Oil.

A charitable reading of that article: These two former arch enemies are starting to see eye to eye on how they can work together to solve the energy problems confronting this country.  A less charitable reading: Oil Companies are co-opting the movement because they 1) realize they need to green up some, 2) see a potential for profit, and 3) see that bio-fuels don’t require them to dramatically shift anything: cars can still run, gas can still be pumped, and no one has to really re-invest or rethink how they live.

Meanwhile, they are bringing there massive and terrifying lobby power to bear on an issue where the statistics can make them seem like they are turning over a new leaf.

Number Times

Ok, enough.  Mark, here are some of them numbers.

• 36 billion — the number of gallons of Biofuels that Congress mandated to be produced by 2022.  That’s three times the current amount, and essentially guarantees that Ethanol in some format will be a cash crop — even if it’s never as energy efficient as it needs to be.
• $1.5 billion — the amount that BP has invested in Biofuel research over the last 2 years.
• 3 billion — the approximate number of bushels of corn that went into Ethanol production in 2007 .
• 330,000 — estimated number of barrels of Petroleum, per day, replaced by Ethanol in 2008.

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Ethanol production

It’s tricky to get a handle on.  Many forward looking environmentalist types have decided that it’s a past fad; that essentially Corn Ethanol production was a dead end given it’s land and water use, and the amount of energy that goes into it.  People who were very excited about the potential of corn as alternative fuel in the 90’s can’t BELIEVE that people haven’t moved past it in the 2000’s.   More nuance: we might not have DQ’ed things like production of Ethanol fuel from Algae, so over-all reaction against it seems like a bad idea.

However, like everything else, there is a huge lobby for Corn Ethanol, (which has some valid points!) and many Midwestern Democrats are completely unwilling to hear about anything that might touch the status quo of cash for that cause.  It doesn’t matter if it’s good green policy (and evidence suggests that it is not) — it matters if it is good pork.

It’s a mess, to be sure… but a mess worth sinking the Waxman-Markey environmental bill over?

Yup.

Once again, Congress is the place that great ideas go to die.  Look, I realize that the Cap and Trade program is going to be hard on some folks.  But this quibbling, this exempting and counter exempting, this hijacking of the debate over things that are not central to the discussion — this is why the tax code is millions of lines long.  This is why you need a PHD in stupid to begin to track the reasoning that suggests that a bill designed to get this country on track to start combating global climate change issues is getting nickled and dimed into irrelevance by stupid riders and past gripes.

Peterson and the 26 Democrats on his committee say they will vote against climate change legislation passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week unless it better addresses several concerns raised by farmers, including reversing the EPA decision.

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