jmdrake
06-21-2009, 05:23 PM
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=20381
I recently read a message on a mailing list pushing the environmental agenda of the "Yes men", I thought this was an appropriate time to delve into it further.
A while back the "Yes Men" put out a fake New York Times article.
See: http://www.nytimes-se.com/
There were a lot of things I liked about the fake newspaper like the headline "The Iraq War Ends". But there were two articles that I found disturbing. The first was a headline trumpeting the passage of the Biofuels Ban Act. The article claimed that such an act was needed to stave off a food shortage. The article was long on words and short on common sense. Now I do agree that subsidising biofuels is a bad idea. But banning them? To save food production? Such a nonsensicle proposal ignores basic economics as well as the whole history of and recent advances in biofuels. The second was an article trumpeting the "nationalization" of the U.S. oil industry to give to the United Thieves (excuse me "United Nations") in order to "fight climate change". (The climate on earth has been changing ever since their was an earth. In the 1970s the alarmist blamed "global cooling" on fossil fuels. Then the alarmists blamed "global warming". Now they now we're on to their charades so they euphamistically call it "climate change").
The economics are simple. If food is not subsidized (which it shouldn't be) and biofuels are not subsidized then both can find their natural level. Right now farmers are paid NOT to grow crops in order to keep the price stablizied. Let's say if that artificial crop supression went away. Clearly farmers would grow more food. But they would need a market for that food. So that's where biofuels could help. Now let's say if the "doomsday" scenario of the "Yes Men" actually happened and there were food shortages. Absent some government subsidy what would happen? Clearly the price of food would go up. So lets say a biofuel plant operator came to a farmer and said "I need 10 thousand bushels of corn for X dollars" when the farmer knew he could get 2*X dollars from the food processing plant, who do you think he would sell to? Now I know the Obama administration has been assaulting the idea in economics that people will behave as "rational actors" for a new "behavioral economics" theory. But we shouldn't assume people are going to be completely insane either. Biofuels only works if the price is low enough relative to other fuel options such as fossil fuels and the price of anything in short supply is (again absent massive subsidy) always high.
But the "Yes Men" animous against biofuels also ignores their recent history. If anyone remebers the early stories of the "Veggie-Van" you will recall how it reportedly smelled like KFC or french fries. That's because in ran waste cooking oil. They were using the second "R" of the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" mantra. (Note the "Veggie-Van" webiste is still up and they are pushing "sustainable energy". I guess they didn't get the memo that biodiesal is somehow bad for the earth. I wonder if there will still be bio-diesal run generators at "earth day" celebrations)? But biodiesal isn't the only biofuel that can be made from waste products. In David Blume's book Alchohol can be a gas he dispels the myth that making ethanol necessarily means less food on the table. One thing that most people don't know about is something called "distiller's grain". Basically when corn is mashed and distilled to make ethanol, there is still a lot of food material left over. The left over part is the best part for livestock. (Now I know the PETA people who are upset over Obama killing a fly might cringe over the thought of livestock as well as those who have bought the myth that cow farts heat up the environment, but we'll skip those arguments for now). Even if your a vegetarian such as myself (well mostly) this is still a win-win. You get ethanol for your tank and the animals eat the leftovers instead of the corn meant for the frozen food section.
If that wasn't enough, the hysteria over biofuels also ignores recent advances. The first thing to understand is that our typical food crops aren't the only (or even the best) potential sources for biofuels. Did everybody forget the Brazillian switchgrass story? That country grew and made enough ethanol from switchgrass to declare energy independence. Oh, and at the same time Brazil continued on its path to becoming one of the worlds top food producers. Extracting energy from celulouse is not new. The environmentally conscious, do it yourself website JourneyToForever.org had a recipe for converting sawdust to ethanol. (Incidently they also have a lot of good general information about biofuels including how to make your own biodiesal at home.) And for the alarmists who think "Oh this means the forests will be cut down to make sawdust", realize that there are litterally tons of waste sawdust every year that could be put to good use. Again remember the 3 Rs.) Besides, think of all of the grass clippings that go to waste. Some ends up in compost, but some ends up in landfills. A lot of it could end up in your gas tank....that is unless the "Yes Men" get their way.
The scenario gets even better if you look at biodiesal. A 2004 study by the University of New Hampshire showed if the U.S. auto fleet switched to diesal (a move that itself would save fuel since diesal engines are more efficient), enough biodiesal could be made from 9.5 million arces of algae ponds to supply the entire fleet. That might sound like a lot of acreage, but it's not when you consider that there are 450 million acres in farm production, more COULD be in production if it weren't for government subsidies that paid farmers not to plant, and these ponds could go on land not generally suitable for farming.
There's more I could say (like the fact that sorgham, a drought resistant crop, also gives some of the highest ethanol yields), but it all begs the question. Why would these self appointed (fake) populists want to take away our freedom to recycle waste vegetable oil and cellulose when this clearly has nothing to do with food production? Answer? Well if you turn over oil production to the United Naives, how are they going to turn a profit (excuse me "save the world from global cooling...I mean global warmin.... I mean climate change) if the people are all making their own fuel from fast food resturants and grass clippings? (And this doesn't even talk about hemp, a plant that is legal to import but unfortunately illegal to grow and gives GREAT biofuel yields.) It's really about monopoly control. And there is no worse monopoly onthe planet than a government monopoly. (Just look what happened when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got near monopoly status in the housing market. The CREATED the bad loan instruments that other companies later used to the detriment of the entire economy). National oil companies have a long history of corruption. The United Nations has a long history of corruption. If you had a United Nations oil company that would be corruption squared. But then...maybe that's the plan.
Regards,
John M. Drake
I recently read a message on a mailing list pushing the environmental agenda of the "Yes men", I thought this was an appropriate time to delve into it further.
A while back the "Yes Men" put out a fake New York Times article.
See: http://www.nytimes-se.com/
There were a lot of things I liked about the fake newspaper like the headline "The Iraq War Ends". But there were two articles that I found disturbing. The first was a headline trumpeting the passage of the Biofuels Ban Act. The article claimed that such an act was needed to stave off a food shortage. The article was long on words and short on common sense. Now I do agree that subsidising biofuels is a bad idea. But banning them? To save food production? Such a nonsensicle proposal ignores basic economics as well as the whole history of and recent advances in biofuels. The second was an article trumpeting the "nationalization" of the U.S. oil industry to give to the United Thieves (excuse me "United Nations") in order to "fight climate change". (The climate on earth has been changing ever since their was an earth. In the 1970s the alarmist blamed "global cooling" on fossil fuels. Then the alarmists blamed "global warming". Now they now we're on to their charades so they euphamistically call it "climate change").
The economics are simple. If food is not subsidized (which it shouldn't be) and biofuels are not subsidized then both can find their natural level. Right now farmers are paid NOT to grow crops in order to keep the price stablizied. Let's say if that artificial crop supression went away. Clearly farmers would grow more food. But they would need a market for that food. So that's where biofuels could help. Now let's say if the "doomsday" scenario of the "Yes Men" actually happened and there were food shortages. Absent some government subsidy what would happen? Clearly the price of food would go up. So lets say a biofuel plant operator came to a farmer and said "I need 10 thousand bushels of corn for X dollars" when the farmer knew he could get 2*X dollars from the food processing plant, who do you think he would sell to? Now I know the Obama administration has been assaulting the idea in economics that people will behave as "rational actors" for a new "behavioral economics" theory. But we shouldn't assume people are going to be completely insane either. Biofuels only works if the price is low enough relative to other fuel options such as fossil fuels and the price of anything in short supply is (again absent massive subsidy) always high.
But the "Yes Men" animous against biofuels also ignores their recent history. If anyone remebers the early stories of the "Veggie-Van" you will recall how it reportedly smelled like KFC or french fries. That's because in ran waste cooking oil. They were using the second "R" of the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" mantra. (Note the "Veggie-Van" webiste is still up and they are pushing "sustainable energy". I guess they didn't get the memo that biodiesal is somehow bad for the earth. I wonder if there will still be bio-diesal run generators at "earth day" celebrations)? But biodiesal isn't the only biofuel that can be made from waste products. In David Blume's book Alchohol can be a gas he dispels the myth that making ethanol necessarily means less food on the table. One thing that most people don't know about is something called "distiller's grain". Basically when corn is mashed and distilled to make ethanol, there is still a lot of food material left over. The left over part is the best part for livestock. (Now I know the PETA people who are upset over Obama killing a fly might cringe over the thought of livestock as well as those who have bought the myth that cow farts heat up the environment, but we'll skip those arguments for now). Even if your a vegetarian such as myself (well mostly) this is still a win-win. You get ethanol for your tank and the animals eat the leftovers instead of the corn meant for the frozen food section.
If that wasn't enough, the hysteria over biofuels also ignores recent advances. The first thing to understand is that our typical food crops aren't the only (or even the best) potential sources for biofuels. Did everybody forget the Brazillian switchgrass story? That country grew and made enough ethanol from switchgrass to declare energy independence. Oh, and at the same time Brazil continued on its path to becoming one of the worlds top food producers. Extracting energy from celulouse is not new. The environmentally conscious, do it yourself website JourneyToForever.org had a recipe for converting sawdust to ethanol. (Incidently they also have a lot of good general information about biofuels including how to make your own biodiesal at home.) And for the alarmists who think "Oh this means the forests will be cut down to make sawdust", realize that there are litterally tons of waste sawdust every year that could be put to good use. Again remember the 3 Rs.) Besides, think of all of the grass clippings that go to waste. Some ends up in compost, but some ends up in landfills. A lot of it could end up in your gas tank....that is unless the "Yes Men" get their way.
The scenario gets even better if you look at biodiesal. A 2004 study by the University of New Hampshire showed if the U.S. auto fleet switched to diesal (a move that itself would save fuel since diesal engines are more efficient), enough biodiesal could be made from 9.5 million arces of algae ponds to supply the entire fleet. That might sound like a lot of acreage, but it's not when you consider that there are 450 million acres in farm production, more COULD be in production if it weren't for government subsidies that paid farmers not to plant, and these ponds could go on land not generally suitable for farming.
There's more I could say (like the fact that sorgham, a drought resistant crop, also gives some of the highest ethanol yields), but it all begs the question. Why would these self appointed (fake) populists want to take away our freedom to recycle waste vegetable oil and cellulose when this clearly has nothing to do with food production? Answer? Well if you turn over oil production to the United Naives, how are they going to turn a profit (excuse me "save the world from global cooling...I mean global warmin.... I mean climate change) if the people are all making their own fuel from fast food resturants and grass clippings? (And this doesn't even talk about hemp, a plant that is legal to import but unfortunately illegal to grow and gives GREAT biofuel yields.) It's really about monopoly control. And there is no worse monopoly onthe planet than a government monopoly. (Just look what happened when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got near monopoly status in the housing market. The CREATED the bad loan instruments that other companies later used to the detriment of the entire economy). National oil companies have a long history of corruption. The United Nations has a long history of corruption. If you had a United Nations oil company that would be corruption squared. But then...maybe that's the plan.
Regards,
John M. Drake