Ethanol Archives - Common Sense Evaluation

Great Moments in Unintended Consequences

December 11, 2010 gags

All actions have unanticipated side effects, but government acting through regulation or legislation is particularly adept at creating disastrous unintended consequences.

Great Moments in Unintended Consequences takes a look at three instances of epic government facepalm: Osborne Reef, Corn Ethanol Subsidies, and a particular clause in ObamaCare that is already doing more harm than good.

Amusing

Ethanol’s Grocery Bill

June 2, 2009 gags

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that using food for fuel is an incredibly stupid idea.

The Obama Administration is pushing a big expansion in ethanol, including a mandate to increase the share of the corn-based fuel required in gasoline to 15% from 10%. Apparently no one in the Administration has read a pair of new studies, one from its own EPA, that expose ethanol as a bad deal for consumers with little environmental benefit.

The biofuels industry already receives a 45 cent tax credit for every gallon of ethanol produced, or about $3 billion a year. Meanwhile, import tariffs of 54 cents a gallon and an ad valorem tariff of four to seven cents a gallon keep out sugar-based ethanol from Brazil and the Caribbean. The federal 10% blending requirement insures a market for ethanol whether consumers want it or not — a market Congress has mandated will double to 20.5 billion gallons in 2015.

The Congressional Budget Office reported last month that Americans pay another surcharge for ethanol in higher food prices. CBO estimates that from April 2007 to April 2008 “the increased use of ethanol accounted for about 10 percent to 15 percent of the rise in food prices.” Ethanol raises food prices because millions of acres of farmland and three billion bushels of corn were diverted to ethanol from food production. Americans spend about $1.1 trillion a year on food, so in 2007 the ethanol subsidy cost families between $5.5 billion and $8.8 billion in higher grocery bills.

A second study — by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality — explains that the reduction in CO2 emissions from burning ethanol are minimal and maybe negative. Making ethanol requires new land from clearing forest and grasslands that would otherwise sequester carbon emissions. “As with petroleum based fuels,” the report concludes: “GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions are associated with the conversion and combustion of bio-fuels and every year they are produced GHG emissions could be released through time if new acres are needed to produce corn or other crops for biofuels.”

The EPA study also explores a series of alternative scenarios over 30 to 100 years. In some cases ethanol leads to a net reduction in carbon relative to using gasoline. But many other long-term scenarios observe a net increase in CO2 relative to burning fossil fuels. Ethanol produced in a “basic natural gas fired dry mill” will over a 30-year horizon produce “a 5% increase in GHG emissions compared to petroleum gasoline.” When ethanol is produced with coal burning mills, the process “significantly worsens the lifecycle GHG impact of ethanol” creating 34% more greenhouse gases than gasoline does over 30 years.

Both CBO and EPA find that in theory cellulosic ethanol — from wood chips, grasses and biowaste — would reduce carbon emissions. However, as CBO emphasizes, “current technologies for producing cellulosic ethanol are not commercially viable.” The ethanol lobby is attempting a giant bait-and-switch: Keep claiming that cellulosic ethanol is just around the corner, even as it knows the only current technology to meet federal mandates is corn ethanol (or sugar, if it didn’t face an import tariff).

As public policy, ethanol is like the joke about the baseball prospect who is a poor hitter but a bad fielder. It doesn’t reduce CO2 but it does cost more. Imagine how many subsidies the Beltway would throw at ethanol if the fuel actually had any benefits.

Source…

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December 26, 2008September 9, 2012 gags

Amusing

Democrats Against Drilling and the American People

July 24, 2008 gags

The entire liberal Democrat community in both the US Senate and US House have been against drilling for many years…now with gas over $4.00…who is to blame ? Yes…the liberal Democrats in the US House and Senate…so don’t vote for any of them…send them packing in November along with Senator Obama…especially Senator Obama!

Democrats Against Drilling

Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other liberal leaders on Capitol Hill are gripped by cold-sweat terror. If they permit a vote on offshore drilling, they know they will lose when Blue Dogs and oil-patch Democrats defect to the GOP position of increasing domestic energy production. So the last failsafe is to shut down Congress.

Majority Leader Reid has decided that deliberation is too taxing for “the world’s greatest deliberative body.” This week he cut off serious energy amendments to his antispeculation bill. Then Senate Appropriations baron Robert Byrd abruptly canceled a bill markup planned for today where Republicans intended to press the issue. Mr. Byrd’s counterpart in the House, David Obey, is enforcing a similar lockdown. Speaker Pelosi says she won’t allow even a debate before Congress’s August recess begins in eight days.

She and Mr. Reid are cornered by substance. The upward pressure on oil prices is caused by rising world-wide consumption and limited growth in supplies. Yet at least 65% of America’s undiscovered, recoverable oil, and 40% of its natural gas, is hostage to the Congressional drilling moratorium.

The Democratic leadership is trying to smother any awareness of their responsibility for high prices. They are also trying to quash a revolt among Democrats who realize that the country is still dependent on fossil fuels, no matter how loudly quasimystical environmentalists like Al Gore claim otherwise.

I found this quote on the Free Republic that pretty much sums it up.

Something to think about. Don’t forget to get the word out, this election is important.

The Democrats forced a freeze on SPR(Strategic Petroleum Reserve). The oil prices went up.

The Democrats passed a farm bill with Ethanol. The oil prices went up.

The Democrats pushed a bill threatening to sue OPEC. The oil prices went up.

The Democrats said “no drilling”(Can’t drill our way out, etc). The oil prices went up.

The Democrats held hearings decrying speculators, and pushed regulatory changes about speculation. The oil prices went up.

Democrats pushed for windfall profits on oil companies. Oil prices went up.

Democrats begged Saudi Arabia to pump more oil. Oil prices went up.

Democrats passed measure increasing “renewable fuel” investments. Oil prices went up.

The Democrats went on vacation (4Th of July). Oil prices went down.

Bush announced the end of the executive ban on drilling. Oil prices plummeted, biggest 2-day drop ever.

Bush administration cleared regulatory hurdles to drill in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. Oil prices went down.

A new well was brought online. Oil prices went down.

Administration published new relaxed rules for shale oil. Oil prices went down.

We made it through hurricane season so far; Latest storm didn’t bother gulf – oil prices went down.

So far, it looks like everything the Democrats said would lower prices actually raised prices.

Meanwhile, everything that happened that looked like it would INCREASE SUPPLY caused the oil prices to DROP.

So, economics 101 is still operative. Supply and demand folks. It still works.

Get government involved in the market and prices go up, get them out and prices go down.

Leave the markets alone congress!! Do something productive like… oh I don’t know, go on vacations! (See above)