Government Subsidies
One More Reason Ethanol Is A Sham
Ethanol (even cellulosic or futuristic mushroom-based ethanol) cannot make diesel or jet fuel–and demand for those fuels is growing way faster than demand for regular old gasoline.
November 13, 2008 | Read More
A Deserving Victim Of The Crash
An AP article out yesterday says that many ethanol plants, which have popped up like warts in the last few years, are being shuttered. Good riddance.
October 9, 2008 | Read More
“Railout”: Amtrak Makes a Big Haul
In its final days in existence, the (failed) 110th Congress dropped $700 billion on a (failed) bailout of Wall Street and $611 billion on defense spending and the (failed) Iraq war. Just for good measure, it threw more good money after bad when it shoveled $13 billion down that national rat-hole known as Amtrak.
October 8, 2008 | Read More
A Truly Free Energy Market
In Brazil, they make fuel out of naturally occurring grasses and sugarcane instead of corn. It’s much cheaper and way more effective. Yet we’ve essentially blocked it from coming into the country by levying giant tariffs on it. Once again, we’re doing the bidding of a few small, powerful interests instead of acting for the greater good.
We need to end those tariffs on Brazil’s bio-fuel pronto and let as much Brazilian-made ethanol into the country as we can. Maybe then, our farmers will go back to growing corn for food instead of a wasteful, taxpayer subsidized fuel and our grocery…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
Kill the Corn Ethanol Boondoggle
Corn-belt states like Iowa and Nebraska and agribusiness giants like Archer-Daniels-Midland love ethanol. They make billions from it. Much of that money comes directly from taxpayers in the form of subsidies.
All that cash might be worth it if ethanol actually did something significant to solve global warming or end our reliance on foreign oil. But it does neither. Even if every acre of corn grown in America went to make ethanol, it would only fill a small fraction of our oil needs. And it takes so much energy to produce a gallon of corn-based fuel that it barely decreases greenhouse…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
A Moon Shot over Manhattan Project to Solve our Energy Crisis
Over the course of our recent history, the U.S. government has engineered two enormous scientific successes. The first was the Manhattan Project, which resulted in the atom bomb. The second, launched by NASA, was the space program, which took human beings to the moon for the first time. It’s time for a third massive undertaking on the scale of these historic triumphs to end our reliance on foreign oil. The only long term, sustainable solution to the problem is a massive investment in renewable energy.
We need to put someone in office who doesn’t think in the old either-or ways when…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
Reason #79: Ethanol, Another Phony Solution
Another stupid idea that politicians like to pitch is filling our tanks with corn ethanol. But again, it’s nothing but another boondoggle that lets politicians act like they’re doing something about our energy needs.
First of all, corn ethanol is horribly inefficient. Turning an ear of corn into fuel costs more than a dollar a gallon and it eats up almost as much fuel as it yields. What’s more, it corrodes pipelines, meaning every drop of it has to be hauled to the pump in tanker trucks. So we not only burn tons of energy just to make the stuff, we…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
Reason #78: No Support for Renewables at Oil’s Expense
Messing with oil companies’ tax gifts is like trying to wrest a T-bone steak from a pit bull. It just ain’t gonna happen with today’s powerful oil lobby controlling our politicians. Back in late 2007, though, somebody had the bright idea to fund tax breaks and subsidies for the renewable energy industry-think solar and wind power-by closing the loopholes for oil companies. Yeah, right. The oil lobby came out in force-even though they don’t need tax breaks, thanks to record profits-and Republican Congress members killed the bill, with Bush threatening a veto just in case.
Solar and wind companies, as well as…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
Reason #73: Politicians Keep Pushing the Oil Habit
For decades now, our government has failed to implement a cohesive energy policy to effectively reduce our dependence upon foreign oil. Because of this government failure we’ve got the current war in Iraq. Have we ever even tried to get off oil? Looking back through our national history, we find that a few leaders have made some half-assed attempts to get Americans to kick the fossil habit, and a few others have even taken firm and admirable stances. But time and again all real progress has been stymied by political bickering or by the influence of private interests in Washington. So our…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
Reason #45: Outsourced and Overspent
If our leaders in Washington wanted to, they could easily play the same games Beijing is playing. They could slap matching tariffs on Chinese goods. They could force China to float their currency on the world market, like every other industrialized nation must do. But that would cut into the profits of those thousands of U.S. companies that now rely on cheap Chinese costs.
Our national savings rate is less than zero. Meanwhile, Chinese workers are saving 30 percent of everything they earn.
Our leaders also know that if they forced China to compete in a truly free market, places like Wal-Mart…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
