August 29, 2008
We’re starting to like Ed Schafer. A lot. For the unaware, he’s the U.S. Agriculture Secretary who’s fighting the good fight for both ethanol and high-speed Internet in rural areas. Regarding ethanol, Schafer told those assembled at a rural economic development conference that consumers are figuring out how beneficial ethanol is, and therefore “doubting arguments that it is to blame for soaring food prices.” It’s about friggin’ time. Schafer’s comments on ethanol were somewhat in response to the EPA’s decision to maintain the ethanol mandate – in fact, “[their] investigation showed Texas drivers realized much more in gasoline savings - the result of gasoline being blended with cheaper ethanol - than the state’s livestock industry had to pay in increased feed prices.”
Schafer also said, to our surprise, that the Agriculture Department is making a big push to bring the Internet to rural America. We didn’t really know that was within their jurisdiction, but their concern is that our nation’s boondocks “are missing opportunities because their communications systems do not have adequate capacity to handle such advanced Internet applications as streaming video and telemedicine.” Christ, we hadn’t even heard of telemedicine, and we’re city folk. But we do think that streaming video is working well enough in the sticks – judging by the average YouTuber’s spelling and punctuation acumen, there’s no shortage of backwoods goobers on the Internet.
August 25, 2008
So we’ve been wondering why exactly businesses and city transportation services have been so accommodating to hybrids. Not that we aren’t tickled pink about it - the more support hybrids get now, the easier it will be to develop them - but those arms of the System aren’t well known for embracing things. Hell, in our experience they’ve made it a point to drain as much fun from our lives as possible, hence our surprise at their outreach. We have some theories as to why they’re being so friendly, though, and we’ll share them in our usual list format.
1. Businesses/government agencies are run by human beings sometimes
Not everyone in the higher-ups of the System is a cackling supervillain who sits in a high-backed leather chair stroking his white Persian cat between executions of his enemies. Only most of them fit this description. The remaining 10-15% are ostensibly human and are impacted by oil wars and fuel shortages just like the rest of us. They’ve recognized oil dependence as a problem, and have decided to be part of the solution by actively supporting hybrids and alternative fuel sources.
2. Businesses like good PR
No one who owns a company likes getting slapped around by the media (unless they’re Donald Trump), and in general people want to be regarded as the good guy. Considering how many of America’s current problems can be traced back to oil, some businesses are trying to court public frustration by presenting themselves as politically and environmentally-conscious, with enough longterm vision to see a viable place in our society for hybrid cars. It seems shallow, but moves like this can mark the difference between “ew, BP? Don’t they build their pipelines with slave labor? I’ll fill up somewhere else,” and “oh hey, BP’s throwing $8 billion towards alternative energy research. Pull in, I’m under half a tank anyway.”
3. Businesses like money
When the political sector panders to interest groups, it often slings money towards related agencies and provides tax relief and other benefits for companies that play ball. So when someone like Barack Obama decides to give companies government money for researching biofuels and lowering emissions, and encourage investment in those companies, they’re more likely to cooperate. If the public (or their representatives) makes hybrids profitable enough, the private sector will respond. Especially because…
4. Al Gore has taken hostages
We’ve learned from the Internet that Al Gore can belch fire from the telescoping exhaust hatch in his esophagus. So it’s not hard to imagine that he’s used this terrifying ability, among others, to kidnap high-ranking government officials and a few global energy company CEOs and keep them in a windowless, soundproof isolation tank high up on Bridge Mountain. It won’t take much charring to get those guys to start acting right, and this would certainly be a more direct approach than dry, informational books, his Oscar-winning documentary, or even putting his head in a jar on Futurama.
In any case, it’s nice to see people banding together to push for alternative fuel sources, and it’s even nicer to see their efforts rewarded with support from up on high. Let’s keep up the good work.
August 22, 2008
While we’re on the subject of hybrids, it seems like a lot of cities have caught the fever. A lawmaker in Long Island, NY recently suggested that the city “set aside 2 percent of the spaces at some 800 county buildings for certain hybrid cars.” We can’t guarantee that commuters would take this well if it passes - parking anywhere within spitting distance of New York City is like playing an especially vicious last round of musical chairs - but it’s a noble effort all the same.
They’re not the only ones showing favor to hybrids, either. As we’ve mentioned before, some businesses are joining in - IKEA, Home Depot, and Office Depot are setting aside parking for hybrid vehicles in cities like Chicago and Houston. In fact, New York City officials have considered considered letting hybrids park free at city meters, something that hybrid owners in L.A. have been able to do for three years. The outreach towards these cars, and the fuel economy they represent, is nothing short of amazing.
One thing news articles about hybrid favoritism never get into is why so many bottom-line-driven entities have gone out of their way to reward hybrid ownership. We have our reasons, and we’ll list them in a future post - hint: they might involve Al Gore.
August 19, 2008
The Car Connection’s list of reasons to buy a hybrid (and to not buy a hybrid) is flagrant gimmick theft from us, but we’ll let it go because they’ve raised some interesting points. Some of them, like the tax break on newer hybrid models and the employer benefits, we already knew, but we had no idea that single-passenger hybrids were allowed in HOV lanes. And that $8/gallon gas figure certainly leaves an impression.
On the other hand, their list of reasons to pass on hybrids is a little shallow. We seriously doubt people buy hybrids thinking they’ll never need to be serviced, and anyone buying it to honor a fad is an even smaller minority - cars in general are too expensive for that. The tip about “less sensitive steering and brakes” is good to keep in mind, though.
And they are correct in suggesting that not all hybrids are created equal. Motortrend recently reported that the Ford Escape has surpassed its Toyota-made counterpart in crash test results. The addition of high-strength steel into the chassis is what pushed the Escape over the top. We’re questioning why you’d name a car “the Escape,” but if it makes Ford competitive with Toyota, more power to ‘em. Their reputation could use a little help, anyway.
August 15, 2008
Gasification might sound like something your uncle goes through after too much dairy, but it’s actually an old biofuel technology that scientists are reexamining in the wake of the current fuel crisis. According to a Science Daily press release, gasification “is a process that turns carbon-based feedstocks under high temperature and pressure in an oxygen-controlled atmosphere into synthesis gas, or syngas.” Before the advent of the electric light bulb, gas was squeezed out of coal (and used to power gas fixtures) by gasification, and it was briefly considered as an ethanol extraction process back in the 70s. But the stakes might be even higher today, and there’s an ethanol mandate to meet, which means that whatever extraction/distillation methods we use need to be as streamlined and efficient as possible.
Turning the syngas into ethanol might be a key - Ames Lab chemist and Chemical and Biological Science Program Director Victor Lin was quick to point out its merits to Science Daily. “It expands the kinds of materials that can be converted into fuels,” Lin said, adding that such materials include “the waste product from the distilling process or any number of other sources of biomass, such as switchgrass or wood pulp.” In fact, pretty much any carbon-based material can be converted into syngas. And where there’s syngas, ethanol’s not far behind.
But wait! There’s more good news from Science Daily; “The work of Delft researcher Marko Kuyper…has greatly improved the conversion of certain sugars from agricultural waste to ethanol.”
The long and short of it is that Kuyper added a gene found in elephant poop to the baker’s yeast that combines with sugar to make ethanol. This gene can break down the sugars in the materials left over from a batch of ethanol, which can in turn be processed into more ethanol. This is a big step, and Kuyper deservedly received a Ph.D for his efforts thus far. Expanding his work to the industrial level will help the bio-ethanol process tremendously, and we here at Corn Car officially salute his efforts by presenting him with The Corn Car Suggestive Teddy Bear Award for Scientific Innovation.
August 12, 2008
Decision time has come, and it’s good news for ethanol - the EPA has decided not to roll back the ethanol mandate. After a recent statement that “the impact of ethanol on corn prices was only 7 cents per bushel–a fraction of the overall price increase since last year,” the EPA maintained that ethanol was not the economic disaster it was purported to be and kept the mandate as-is.
Of course, there’s been some opposition, specifically from Texas’ livestock industry, but the “rational policy on energy and environmental protection” they’re wishing for depends on the ethanol mandate and the associated boom in biofuel-related investing. Advances made in the process now will make the transition to cellulosic ethanol production smoother down the road.
Besides, the ranchers can direct some of that bitching at their oil tycoon neighbors; $4/gallon gas is more responsible for their situation than ethanol is, or ever was. Local and perhaps financial loyalties aside, the situation is quite literally down to this or this.
August 6, 2008
As diligent readers may recall, we weighed in on Bush’s lifting of the executive ban on offshore oil drilling, noting that it was a particularly stupid idea and an obvious giveaway to his oil tycoon social circle. One of our readers agrees, and sent us a list of his own “talking points” on the issue, in the hopes that they will gain momentum and roll back the “drill drill drill” Republican mantra that has seized control of the issue. Here they are, unedited.
Even before Bush lifted the executive order on offshore drilling, such drilling was ONLY prohibited within 3 miles off the U.S. coast. Anything beyond that was open to drilling. However, by allowing drilling within three miles, Bush has created potential environmental threats to pristine beaches, many of which are important contributors to the local economies of states like California and Florida (indeed, the original ban was put in place after a major oil spill decades ago that harmed some of California’s beaches). It has also created environmental threats to endangered coral reefs. While much of this threat is from oil spills (caused by hurricanes, etc) the “ordinary” operation of offshore drilling also causes toxins to be dumped into the ocean on a daily basis.
Any new oil drilling will not provide immediate relief. Bush’s own Dept of Energy estimates that it will take at least 10 years for oil from new drilling to hit the market. And that’s likely an optimistic estimate, as, depending on problems (equipment/personnel shortages, etc) that could arise, it could take 15-20 years.
Contrary to the often repeated right wing talking point that “just talking about new drilling has caused the price of oil to drop,” this is not the case at all. The price of oil has dropped for two reasons: One, demand decreased as people started driving less and using less oil, in response to the high oil prices. Decreased demand in and of itself lead to decreased prices. Two, the big oil companies, and oil commodity traders, looked at the situation, and became frightened that if the price of oil continued to rise, people would start using even less of it, and do so on a permanent basis - a situation that would harm their profitability. They decreased prices accordingly, to prevent this from happening.
Even when the new oil does hit the market, decades down the road, the price impact will be minimal, and it will do nothing to wean the U.S. off foreign oil. The U.S. has already far surpassed its peak oil production, and, even if we open up new drilling, the new fields will barely make a dent in the decline of U.S. oil production, as thousands of old fields continue to dry up. The ONLY solution to our foreign oil problem is to move away from oil. PERIOD.
Gas prices are already a major issue in this election, but, sadly, people are buying into the “drill, drill drill” mantra. It’s important that we combat this line of thought wherever it arises. We need REAL solutions to our energy problems, some of which you can find here. More drilling will only dig us deeper into our hole, while providing a major boon for big oil.
We’d like to thank our reader for contributing these, and we’d also like to remind him (and anyone else reading this) that another consequence of drilling here is apathy - if people get lulled into thinking domestic drilling will solve our energy crisis, they won’t support efforts to develop alternative fuels because they won’t see the necessity. We literally can’t afford that. Again, this is something you should be writing your representatives about, and keep the above points in mind when confronted by someone who doesn’t see the bigger picture.
August 5, 2008
The Dakota Voice has an interesting op-ed on the undeserved beating ethanol has taken from the press, and cites a study by a group of Purdue University agricultural economists that blames a weak dollar and (surprise surprise) higher gas prices for the rising cost of food.
Especially noteworthy is the included data from the study; while “the cost of food has jumped 7.5 percent since last year,” causes for the increase include “stronger global demand, our weaker dollar, increased exports and weather-related production problems around the world.” They also found that “about $1 of the $4 increase in a bushel of corn is because of the subsidies of the ethanol industry,” instead of the entire $4 that oil lobbyists and people who unknowingly support them have been crowing about for months now.
Now, ethanol is one of South Dakota’s major industries, so it’s understandable that they’d be a little protective of it. But the fact that the driving force behind rolling back the ethanol mandate governs a state practically built on oil (Texas, just in case anyone was wondering) can’t be denied, either.
But there is good news on the horizon; corn prices are dropping, which means some ethanol plants are starting to break even/turn an honest-to-God profit. This means good things for our nation’s gas mileage, although I’m sure Exxon executives fear that we’re creating a monster.
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