January 5, 2010
 According to the Environmental Law Institute, energy subsidies are “black, not green.” Approximately $72 billion in fossil fuel subsidies was handed out over ELI’s seven-year study period; renewable fuels only got $29 billion. Half of the renewable subsidies went to corn ethanol production, interestingly enough, but that’s still only $15 billion or so compared to $72 billion for fossil fuels, despite overwhelming evidence that we need to cut our dependence on it for environmental and geopolitical reasons.
Little wonder, then, that ethanol plants keep losing money and shutting down. Articles like New American’s “The Ethanol Fiasco” miss the point because, clearly, the government hasn’t really invested much of anything in renewable fuels yet. But then again, pro-oil shills missed the point for most of 2009, and will continue missing it as long as they dismiss renewables out of hand without noticing how other countries - Brazil, China, India - are capitalizing on them.
But let’s not get too glum, here: Click the Car for an article about the Eco-Smart Zeta ethanol fireplace (which we wrote about last April) that’ll keep you warm during the record cold fronts sweeping the country right now.
December 10, 2009
Short update today, but a worthwhile one: the New York Times has an interesting and sobering article (free registration required) on America’s sluggish green energy development. While some geothermal and wind stuff is being done, overall progress is lagging behind Europe, China, and India (as we all know), and it’s reaching the point where mud hut-dwelling peasants in the ass end of nowhere are going to beat us to a workable green energy program.
Part of the problem is money - banks aren’t lending to alt-energy projects, and existing companies don’t want to invest in new equipment before relevant legislation kicks in. And part of the problem lies at the feet of contentious fartbags like Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who still doesn’t believe that greenhouse gases hurt anything and calls any regulations on them “onerous” and based on “manipulated data.” What will convince him of something that’s already demonstrably true is a mystery. And unfortunately, his fellow Republicans aren’t much more reasonable - their tendency towards anti-everything political hypochondria is just clouding the issue.
The Apollo Alliance’s Cathy Calfo puts it best; “As a country, we need to make a decision that we do or don’t want to be a leader in this area.” Right now, it’s looking like we don’t. And that’s going to cost us dearly in the future. Hell, it already is in the present.
But to cheer us all up, Click the Car for an article about Denmark’s electric car ambitions.
November 9, 2009
Well, the global warming bill has been approved by the Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, but the New York Times doesn’t take that as a sign that the bill itself is going anywhere. Their reasoning, as quoted by the Charleston Gazette, is that “rising joblessness has amplified attacks from critics who deride [President] Obama’s energy policy as a big-government ‘cap and tax’ plan.” In other words, the Democrats are once again hobbled by baseless criticism from the peanut gallery. The bewildering resistance to this bill is explained further, and perhaps better, by the Center for Public Integrity’s Stalemate In Copenhagen project, which shines a light on “fossil fuel industries and other heavy carbon emitters” who’ve been trying to gum up the works. Coal is a big one here, as evidenced by Don Blankenship’s Appalachian Friends of America rallies, where attendees listen to country music and “learn how environmental extremists and corporate America are both trying to destroy your jobs.”
And even if that wasn’t an issue, actual debate on global warming legislation probably won’t start until next year anyway; according to Sen. John Rockefeller, “some people are talking about not doing it until after the 2010 election.” Sounds like what a lot of them tell their wives, actually.
In times like these, there’s only one thing most citizens who aren’t lobbyists and therefore still count as human beings can do: nag the hell out of your representatives’ office staff. Find out who to write/call at USA.gov and get to work! We did elect them to represent us, after all - maybe they need to be reminded of that.
November 3, 2009
Well, while Democrats try to force the global warming bill through the Senate and Republicans threaten to kill it in committee with a boycott, F.O. Licht’s World Ethanol 2009 12th annual conference is being held in Paris this week. Countries like the United States, Brazil, India, France, and Nigeria are being represented and sharing their views on global ethanol development. One of our representatives, Renewable Fuels Association CEO/President Bob Dinneen, will look at “expanding ethanol markets and addressing unsubstantiated claims about the environmental impact of ethanol.” So at least SOMEONE can address the topic like an adult.
Meanwhile, the rest of us get Barbara Boxer and George Voinovich interrupting each other over a retarded semantics disagreement and conservative pundits smearing anyone who speaks up about the issue as a fanatic hippie moonbat. And that’s not even counting the Midwestern contingent who can’t debate this issue for more than ten seconds without tripping over their own dicks trying to monopolize it for political points.
Anyway, now that we’ve thoroughly bummed ourselves out, we’re gonna stop here and hope for the best. But we need something to cheer us up. Some hot chicks posing next to an electric car should do it.
September 28, 2009
Here are some quick links to explore while we whip up a more substantial post. Their contradictory nature is part of the reason that opinions on ethanol are so sharply divided and steeped in misinformation.
Ethanol blamed for hobbling Baltimore police car fleet
Baltimore Sun - Ethanol supplier responds to accusations
Oh, but wait - it gets better.
Carmakers fight higher gas/ethanol blend
But wait! Carmakers really LOVE ethanol and it’s all a ploy to waste tax money!
Luckily, there is some good news on the horizon:
Poet gets funding increase for cellulosic ethanol plant
So there ya go! Happy reading, and we’ll have something with more meat (or soy) to it later on this week!
September 23, 2009
We’re still working on that list of ways to break ethanol into the marketplace, but we stumbled across some more political cartoons that we felt like sharing because, well, they’re retarded. By which we mean, they’ve been taken over by petty conservatives whose grasp of the issues is about as cartoonish as their output. For example:
This lovely caricature connects Obama to the corn lobby with a visual that will give us nightmares for months. Disregarding how much more powerful the oil lobbies are for a second, it’s telling that no one bothered to connect John McCain to the Brazilian sugarcane ethanol he obviously preferred to domestic ethanol production. Of course, the only obvious way to make a cartoon out of that would be to put him in one of these, which would probably kill anyone who so much as glanced at it.
For more rage-inducing fun with political cartoons and the reactionary dipshits who make them, parse through this list. By the time you’re done, we should be back on track.
September 14, 2009
All righty, back to ethanol! And just in time, too, because it’s becoming more and more apparent that the sun is rising on cellulosic ethanol production.
First of all, there are a lot of processing plants being built and put to use; “Several companies…announced in June at the International Fuel Ethanol Workshop and Expo…that they have already produced cellulosic ethanol from demonstration plants or will do so within the year,” and as if that wasn’t good enough news, “they are producing between 70 gallons and 85 gallons of biofuels.”
This rush of productivity mirrors the optimism found in a study released by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratory (and sponsored by General Motors, of all people), who “found that large volumes of cellulosic biofuels could be produced from already identified biomass sources and resources without displacing crop production.” The study also made a longterm projection that cellulosic biofuels could compete with oil by 2030, a speculation based on future oil prices and accelerated development of feedstocks.
We don’t think we need to explain how awesome this news is for ethanol supporters, especially in the face of the smug naysaying we’ve had to put up with over the years. The big question is, of course, how cellulosic biofuels will be introduced to the marketplace if predictions come true and widespread production happens by 2011, but as it becomes more apparent that there is room for them in said marketplace, the laws of supply and demand will take their course. Hell, this might be fodder for another one of our lists…
August 27, 2009
While the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal continues to sound ethanol’s death knell, citing financial issues that aren’t—-to be fair—-necessarily unfounded. However, they routinely ignore the many cool innovations going on within the biofuel industry right now, the latest of which is perfect for what’s left of summer: watermelon ethanol. The journal Biotechnology for Biofuels reports that “20% of the watermelon crop doesn’t go to market every year due to imperfections, bad spots, or weird shapes.” But instead of just plowing them back into the ground, “watermelon juice can be fermented and used directly, or it can be used as a ‘diluent, supplemental feedstock, and nitrogen supplement’ with other biofuel crops.” Watermelon juice also has several health benefits, and can be used to produce lycopene, which is important for prostate health.
This development came out of left field for us, we must admit, but we’re pretty enthused about it - making fuel from waste crops that would otherwise be thrown away is at the heart of conservation. Besides, if they can distill fried chicken grease and leftover coleslaw into biofuel, every 4th of July picnic ever would be a boon to the industry.
Speaking of, someone write Nick Cannon, NAS, and Affion (the three guys who made “Eat That Watermelon“) and let them know about this. Dated references to minstrelsy are all well and good, but we’ve got a planet to save, dammit!
August 20, 2009
First off, it is WAY too hot outside.
But we aren’t the only ones feeling the heat these days. Obama’s energy plan is facing stiff resistance from grassroots protesters who, in keeping with the style of the times, are funded by corporate interests. A large protest in Houston, TX earlier this week that was “as much a celebration of oil’s traditional role in the Texas way of life” as it was a chance to bitch at the federal government was put together by Energy Citizens, a group backed by the American Petroleum Institute. In fact, many of the protesters were oil company employees who’d been brought in from work by buses to air their bosses’ grievances.
And it gets worse. The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity got busted for hiring a PR firm to send forged letters against climate change laws to Congressmen. Worse, the letters were sent under the pretense of concerned minority activist groups like the NAACP. Dick move, guys.
Why all this acrimony? Oil companies strongly object to setting limits on emissions of heat-trapping gases because they’re too cheap to buy emission permits. Their supporters and paid sycophants denounce the proposed legislation as an energy tax that undermines the economy of oil-rich states.
We’ve seen sponsored protests across the board in recent months, much of it from the conservative end of the spectrum, but Corn Car has long suspected that oil companies were propping up most of the anti-energy reform crowd, so that isn’t surprising. What really sucks longterm about astroturfing, though, is that it’s becoming impossible to just be an aware, outspoken citizen without being on someone’s payroll, or being suspected of it. As far as we know, our blog doesn’t have any corporate sponsors. Unless the interns are hiding the checks from us, the little bastards.
May 6, 2009
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