[Peace-discuss] The madness of biofuels

Sat Feb 19 07:52:11 CST 2011

Wayne--

...precamur ut ... non loquaris nobis vulgate audiente populo qui est super 
murum... because they won't understand either the language or the sentiment.

But this seems to me quite important, even as the political economy of fossil 
fuels is misrepresented by both business parties in support of US imperial 
crimes in the Mideast: "We must end US dependency on Mideast oil" so 
misrepresents the situation that it's not even wrong.

I'm not normally a fan of the Manhattan Institute, but long ago on "News From 
Neptune" we coined The Incompleteness Principle, which states, "No one can be 
wrong all the time!"  I'm very much afraid that Mr. Bryce is right in this 
case.  --CGE

PS-the awful Chambliss is the bff of our awful fake liberal senator Durbin, and 
they're up to some serious no-good, viz. & to wit:

'SLASH MOB: WARNER/CHAMBLISS/DURBIN GETTING SERIOUS - Mark Warner and Saxby 
Chambliss are merging their bipartisan group of 20-or-so senators with a gang 
that other senators are calling "the D-triple-C": Durbin, Conrad, Crapo and 
Coburn, the four senators who voted for the deficit panel's recommendations (and 
are still here). None of them think they'll have a plan ready by the time the CR 
expires, but Warner says folks'll be surprised at how much support they have.

'Democracy For America has been pressing Durbin not to agree to cuts to Social 
Security or other entitlements, which led to a meeting between group members and 
a Durbin staffer in Illinois. Before the meeting, the staffer pulled the 
organizer, Dr. Pamella Gronemeyer, aside and said, "Don't worry, it won't affect 
you," referring to possible cuts to Social Security ... "I was taken aback. I'm 
not talking about myself. I'm talking about my kid and other people's kids," she 
said. "I don't care if it affects me. That's not how I make my decisions. It's 
not about me. It's the right thing to do. Anybody whose parents lived through 
the depression knows what it can be like."'

On 2/19/11 2:55 AM, E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
>
> The consumption of corn starches and seed oils as automotive fuels is 
> thermodynamically/entropically stupid, and economically unsound, as well as 
> unethical.  Of course it is strategically wise in the minds of the evil 
> hegemons who rule the US of A to starve out others as a means of more and more 
> power.
>
>
> The Ethanol industry is driven by politics and some of the most unethical 
> xomboid human shells on the planet are ramrodding it, such as the "leadership" 
> of the US Corn Growers Association and geniuses like Saxby Chambliss.  Like 
> Ted Geisel's Once-ler, they have no intent for their positive feedback loop 
> except biggering, and Biggering, and BIGGERING.  Damn the young barbaloots in 
> their barbaloot suits.  Who cares about crummies in the tummies?  The 
> automobiles of the world demand ethanol and their owners have the money to buy 
> the ethanol that everyone, everyone, Everyone needs.  This buggery of 
> biggering is backed by billions of bucks provided on the backs of the people, 
> and by that buffoon Bernanke's infinite printing press and for the benefit of 
> Obot's bankster buddies.  They say that Ethanol is good for the environment, 
> building lie upon lie.  Babel's bricks are mortared with slime indeed.
>
> *
>
> *
>
> "ad viros qui sedent super murum ut comedant stercora sua et bibant urinam 
> suam vobiscum"
>
> _Madness of Biofuels --_
>
> Last month, Peter Brabeck, the chairman of the Swiss food giant Nestle, 
> declared that using food crops to make biofuels was "absolute madness."
>
> The epicenter of that madness is the U.S. corn-ethanol sector. This year, it 
> will consume 40 percent of all U.S. corn - that's about 15 percent of global 
> corn production or 5 percent of all global grain - in order to produce a 
> volume of motor fuel with the energy equivalent of about 0.6 percent of global 
> oil needs.
>
> Congress lavishes about $7 billion in annual subsidies, mandates and tariff 
> protections upon an industry that is helping push global food prices to 
> all-time highs and shrink grain reserves at the very same time that global 
> grain production is faltering and protests over food prices are becoming common.
>
> The quantity of grain to be consumed this year for ethanol production - 4.9 
> billion bushels - boggles the mind. That's more than twice as much as all the 
> corn produced in Brazil and more than six times as much as is grown in India. 
> Put another way, that's more corn than the output of the European Union, 
> Mexico, Argentina and India combined.
>
> Despite these facts, President Obama said last month in his State of the Union 
> speech, "We can break our dependence on oil with biofuels." Meanwhile, Newt 
> Gingrich, former speaker of the House, who is considering a run for the 2012 
> Republican presidential nomination, was in Iowa recently, cravenly wooing the 
> ethanol producers and slamming "big city" critics of the ethanol industry. 
> Alas, there's little reason to expect much bravery out of Mr. Gingrich's 
> fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill. Current Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio 
> Republican, recently told reporters not to expect cuts to the ethanol 
> subsidies because they are "not in the discretionary spending pot."
>
> While Mr. Obama prevaricates and Congress dithers, ethanol boosters are once 
> again claiming that their sector has negligible effect on grain prices. 
> However, the events of the past few weeks - corn futures at near-record highs 
> and social unrest related to food prices - are nearly identical to the mayhem 
> that occurred in 2007 and 2008. Back then, more than a dozen studies, 
> including ones by Purdue University, the World Bank and the Congressional 
> Research Service, exposed the link between increasing ethanol production and 
> higher food prices. Soaring food prices led to violent protests in Egypt, 
> Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Haiti, Mauritania, Ethiopia, Madagascar, the 
> Philippines and Indonesia. Worries about adequate food stocks led several 
> countries to ban food exports.
>
> In May 2008, the Rand Corp. warned that diverting corn to the ethanol sector 
> was not only bad economics, but a security threat: "Using corn for ethanol is 
> economically inefficient and has harmed U.S. national security. Diverting corn 
> from food to ethanol production has pushed up world market prices for grains 
> and other foods, which, in 2008, resulted in riots in a number of developing 
> countries."
>
> In recent weeks, we've seen food price increases and protests that are 
> reminiscent of 2008. There have been food riots in Algeria and Mozambique. 
> Last month, about 8,000 Jordanians protested in the streets of Amman and other 
> cities over rising food prices. In Egypt, the world's biggest wheat importer, 
> wheat prices are up by 30 percent over the past 12 months. Those higher wheat 
> prices are being stoked by rising corn prices, which have doubled over the 
> past six months and are at about $7 per bushel. "Higher corn prices always 
> means higher wheat prices," says Bill Lapp, president of Advanced Economic 
> Solutions, an Omaha-based commodity consulting firm.
>
> In December, a study by two U.S. agriculture economists, Thomas Elam and Steve 
> Meyer, found that corn prices are being directly stoked by demand from the 
> ethanol sector. Mr. Elam and Mr. Meyer, who have done consulting work for the 
> meat industry, found that without the ethanol mandates, the average price of 
> corn would be lower by more than $2 per bushel. They also conclude that 
> "biofuels policy has caused significant cost increases for all users of 
> feedgrains."
>
> David Orden, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy 
> Research Institute in Washington, told me that surging corn prices are "a 
> continuation of what happened in 2008." The push for biofuels, he said, "has 
> clearly tightened up agricultural commodity markets. That's good for farmers, 
> but it is not good for poor people around the world."
>
> Many of those poor live in the United States. Some 43.6 million Americans, 
> about 14 percent of the population, are receiving federal food stamps. Since 
> October 2008, the number of Americans relying on food stamps jumped by 41.5 
> percent, and enrollment in the program has increased for 26 consecutive 
> months. And thanks to the ethanol scam, those many millions are being priced 
> out of the meat aisle. Over the past year, beef prices have risen more than 6 
> percent, and pork prices are up 11 percent. Economists are expecting overall 
> grocery prices in the United States to rise by about 5 percent this year.
>
> But the real - and likely more dangerous - food-price increases will happen 
> outside of this country. Last year, the Organization for Economic Cooperation 
> and Development projected that global grain prices are likely to be as much as 
> 40 percent higher by 2020, and a London-based nonprofit entity, ActionAid, 
> predicted that some 600 million more people could be left hungry by 2020 
> because of increased production of biofuels.
>
> Mr. Brabeck, the chairman of Nestle, the world's biggest food company, has 
> rightly put the spotlight on the biofuels madness. As the head of a company 
> with $100 billion in annual food-related revenues, Mr. Brabeck clearly has a 
> keen understanding of the global food industry. And last month during the 
> World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he identified the stunningly 
> obvious solution to the ongoing insanity. "No food for fuel," he said.
>
> It's time - no, it's long past time - to heed Mr. Brabeck's advice. "No food 
> for fuel" should be the mantra on Capitol Hill and at the United Nations. In 
> addition, it should be a required oath for all of the candidates (Mr. Gingrich 
> in particular) who are planning to campaign in Iowa for the 2012 presidential 
> election.
>
> Stop the madness.
>
> /Robert Bryce is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His latest book 
> is "Power Hungry: The Myths of 'Green' Energy and the Real Fuels of the 
> Future" (PublicAffairs, 2010)./
>
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>
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