US politicians and bureaucrats have less compassion and common sense than an average Londoner
Guest essay by Paul Driessen
“You’ve heard of Live Aid? Well, this is Drive Aid,” an ardent young man says, as he approaches London pedestrians. “Greedy people in developing nations are eating huge amounts of food that could easily be turned into biofuel to power our cars. African acreage the size of Belgium is being used for food, and we’re saying it should go to cars here in the UK. Can we have your support?”
Londoners reacted with disbelief and outrage, the ActionAid UK video shows, and refused to sign his mock petition. The amusing stunt drove home a vital point: Biofuel programs are turning food into fuel, converting cropland into fuel production sites, and disrupting food supplies for hungry people worldwide. The misguided programs are having serious environmental consequences, as well.
Why, then, can’t politicians, bureaucrats and environmentalists display the common sense exhibited by London’s citizenry? Why did President Obama tell Africans (many of whom are malnourished) in July 2009 that they should refrain from using “dirty” fossil fuels and use their “bountiful” biofuel and other renewable energy resources, instead? When will Congress pull the plug on Renewable Fuel Standards?
Ethanol and other biofuels might have made some sense when Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and established mandates (or “standards”) requiring that refiners and consumer purchase large quantities of ethanol and other biofuels. Back then, despite growing evidence to the contrary, many people thought we were running out of oil and gas, and believed manmade global warming threatened the planet. But this is not 2005. Those rationales are no longer persuasive.
The hydraulic fracturing revolution has obliterated the Club of Rome “peak oil” notion that we are rapidly exhausting the world’s petroleum. Climategate and other IPCC scandals demonstrated that the “science” behind climate cataclysm claims is conjectural, manipulated and even fraudulent. And actual observations of temperatures, storms, droughts, sea levels and Arctic ice have refused to cooperate with computer models and Hansen-Gore-EPA-IPCC disaster scenarios.
In fact, biofuels and Renewable Fuel Standards cannot be justified on any grounds.
The United States is using 40 million acres of cropland (Iowa plus New Jersey) and 45% of its corn crop to produce 14 billion gallons of ethanol annually. This amount of corn could feed some 570 million people, out of the 1.2 billion who still struggle to survive on $1.25 per day.
This corn-centric agriculture is displacing wheat and other crops, dramatically increasing grain and food prices, and keeping land under cultivation that would otherwise be returned to wildlife habitat. It requires millions of pounds of insecticides, billions of pounds of fertilizer, vast amounts of petroleum-based energy, and billions of gallons of water – to produce a fuel that gets one-third less mileage per gallon than gasoline and achieves no overall reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Ethanol mandates have caused US corn prices to rocket from $1.96 per average bushel in 2005 to as much as $7.50 in autumn 2012 and $6.68 in June 2013. Corn growers and ethanol makers get rich. However, soaring corn prices mean beef, pork, poultry, egg and fish producers pay more for corn-based feed; grocery manufacturers pay more for corn, meat, fish and corn syrup; families pay more for everything on their dinner table; and starving Africans go hungry because aid agencies cannot buy as much food.
By 2022, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (amending the 2005 law) requires 15 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol and 21 billion gallons of cellulosic and other non-corn-based biofuels. That will monumentally worsen all these problems.
Equally insane, the Environmental Protection Agency’s draft rule for 2013 required that refiners purchase 14 million gallons of cellulosic biofuels. There’s a teensy problem: the fuel doesn’t exist. A mere 4,900 gallons were produced in March, and zero the other months. So companies are forced to buy fantasy fuel, fined big bucks if they do not, and punished if they get conned into buying fraudulent “renewable fuel credits” from “socially responsible” companies like Clean Green Fuel, Absolute Fuels and Green Diesel.
Ethanol collects water, which can result in engine stalls. It corrodes plastic, rubber and soft metal parts. Pre-2001 car engines, parts and systems may not be able to handle E15 fuel blends (15% ethanol, 85% gasoline), adversely affecting engine, fuel pump and sensor durability. Older cars, motorcycles and boats fueled with E15 could conk out in dangerously inopportune places; at the very least they could require costly engine repairs. Lawn mowers and other gasoline-powered equipment are equally susceptible.
On a global scale, the biofuels frenzy is diverting millions of acres of farmland from food crops, converting millions of acres of rainforest and other wildlife habitat into farmland, and employing billions of gallons of water, to produce corn, jatropha, palm oil and other crops for use in producing politically correct biodiesel and other biofuels.
To top off this seemingly inexhaustible list of policy idiocies, all this ethanol and other biofuel could easily be replaced with newly abundant oil and gas supplies. Amazing new seismic, deepwater, deep drilling, hydraulic fracturing and other technologies have led to discoveries of huge new reserves of oil and natural gas – and enabled companies to extract far more petroleum from reservoirs once thought to have been depleted.
That means we can now get vastly more energy from far less land; with far fewer impacts on environmental quality, biodiversity and endangered species; and with none of the nasty effects on food supplies, food prices and world hunger that biofuel lunacy entails.
We could do that – if radical greens in the Obama Administration, United Nations and eco pressure groups would end their ideological opposition to leasing, drilling, fracking, Outer Continental Shelf and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge development, Canadian oil sands, the Keystone pipeline and countless other projects. We could do so, if they would stop behaving like environmentalist Bull Connors, arrogantly blocking the doors to human and civil rights progress.
This colossal global biofuels industry exists only because resource depletion and climate Armageddon ideologies do not die easily – and because politicians lavish government mandates and billions of dollars in taxpayer and consumer subsidies on firms that have persuasive lobbyists and reliable track records for channeling millions of those dollars back to the politicians who keep the racket going.
The ActionAid UK video has lent some good British gallows humor to a serious issue. As another well-known Brit might say, it is time rein in a global SPECTRE that has wreaked too much human and environmental havoc.
To get that long overdue effort underway, Congress needs to amend the 2005 Energy Policy Act, eliminate the Renewable Fuel Standards and end the taxpayer subsidies.
A few thousand farmers and ethanol makers will undoubtedly feel some pain. A few hundred politicians will have less money in their reelection coffers. However, countless wild creatures will breathe much easier in their newly safe natural habitats – and millions of families will enjoy a new birth of freedom, a new wave of economic opportunity, and welcome relief from hunger and malnutrition.
_____________
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.
Excellent. Every point is spot on. We need a lot more activism to stop this madness.
I’d like to know if any of the big oil companies have been buying up farm land in preparation for the biofuels thing.
To add the the illogic, ethanol production produces CO2.
As unenlightened as most Americans are I wonder how that question would be answered in the U.S. ” Would you sign a petition to stop the U.S. production of biofuels from a food source that could be used to feed starving people in Africa?”
Ban biofuels
Apparently the biofuel hype buys approval among large crowds. Buses in Cambridge proudly wear the “100% biofuel” signs and nobody throws stones at them. In reality they use a split petroleum diesel – recycled cooking oil system. There is nothing “bio” about it.
http://newsroom.scania.com/en-group/2013/05/22/cambridgeshire-shows-the-way-to-the-future/
I’ve been loaded drunk and still unable to think like an eco freak – what does one have to do in life to be that brain dead? God only knows of the various states I’ve been in over time – but at no time could I possible think that bizarre.
The farmers are getting rich here in ND, not from the oil, but from farming. And whenever a piece of farmland becomes available, they bid it up to ridiculous prices. I guess it must all pencil out, but it has to come to an end at some point. There will then be a farmland bubble burst. None I know “believe” in AGW, but they all grin when the subject comes up.
@ albertalad: Simple. In the morning you’ll wake up sober. The eco freaks will still be brainwashed.
albertalad says:
June 23, 2013 at 1:26 pm
“I’ve been loaded drunk and still unable to think like an eco freak – what does one have to do in life to be that brain dead? ”
Choom.
Most Africans have no money. No money to buy food, farming equipment; they do not constitute a demand. It makes no sense to sell them this food. If you give them the food, you destroy the ability of local farmers to sell their crops. All large scale starvations are based on inadequate distribution of wealth. May I introduce you to UN Agenda 21, a fine program that aims to solve that problem through by way of a small tax on developed nations along the lines of their fuel consumption. Can I have your support, Sir?
Seriously, there is little effective demand for food in poor countries. How did you get to be a policy analyst?
Biofuel was suppose to come from switch grass and many other cellulose dense crops. The technology was “just around the corner.” The organisms to throw into the brewer’s pot were to break down cellulose and make….ethanol.
Well, well, what have we here? The organisms aren’t cooperating. It seems that there is a bit more to the break down of complex cellulose as opposed to breaking down sugars that reside in cane and corn. In other words, the hype preceded the technology. Where did we see that before?
Think: wind, solar, biofuels….
So, by an ingenious bit of farm subsidy Congressional sausage making, the every year 15% excess corn crop could be “plowed” into making ethanol while the cellulose technology catches up. Great! Unfortunately, there is a delay in the technology, and, as usual with Federal programs, too many hogs are feeding at the trough so the corn acreage increased. Instead of 15% corn surplus to ship off shore to hungry people, we now have converted 40% of acreage to corn biofuel ethanol. Now it would be too politically risky to shut the faucet off.
George Washington had to deal with corn ethanol during the Whiskey Rebellion of 1791. Historical lessons Congressional types do not forget.
Any program, such as biofuel, which must be subsidized via government, is by definition, not economically viable.
“Ethanol and other biofuels might have made some sense when Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and established mandates (or “standards”) requiring that refiners and consumer purchase large quantities of ethanol and other biofuels. Back then, despite growing evidence to the contrary, many people thought we were running out of oil and gas, and believed manmade global warming threatened the planet. But this is not 2005. Those rationales are no longer persuasive.”
Well. That one paragraph sure screwed an otherwise good sarcastic article.
Ethanol and other biofuels???? There is only ONE biofuel,ethanol. And it never has,nor ever will make sense.
They are not standards,they are mandates.Used by eco-goons to impose their will on others.
Thousands still believe “manmade whatever” still threatens the planet.
I suggest Mr Driessen eat nothing but pine needles and grass for the next 2 months,if he believes his position is so right.
Or did your auto-post screw-up,Anthony,and the above post should be in Friday Funnies?
Simply excellent! Marvelous pathology.
I truly loved:
“3 meals per day or 3 miles per day?” Brilliant!!
A surreal world indeed!
I have a question. The recent fires from peat land burning in Sumatra which is choking Singapore with smoke, how much of that is caused by clearing land for palm-oil production to create bio-ethanol for the European car market?
Anyone knows?
LOL.
That about says it all, unfortunately.
Still LMFAO.
Its a serious problem though. My family is feeling the pinch, from soaring food prices. I can only imagine what really poor people are enduring.
The biofuel industry knows it generates as much CO2 as ‘fossil’ fuels
The biofuel industry knows it is responsible for destruction of virgin rain forest, and loss of habitat for wild life such as Orangutans and displaces croplands in the USA
The biofuel industry knows it is forcing prices of food higher and increasing the probability of starvation in third world countries
But The biofuel industry could not care less – wallets are being filled by the money laundering subsidies from taxation. Fat wallets erase bad consciences
And of course all the ‘do you want fries with that’ marketing ‘professionals’ in transportation of all types are pushing how ‘green’ their vehicles and now aircraft are ‘because they use biofuels’ or are ‘flexfuel’.
A child dies every 5 seconds from hunger and these people are happy making money by turning food into fuel. In the 3 minutes it takes you to fill your tank with ‘green’ E85 fuel – 38 children will have died from starvation. Good to be green?
The world is facing a hunger crisis unlike anything it has seen in more than 50 years.
925 million people are hungry.
Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes.
That’s one child every five seconds.
http://www.bread.org/hunger/global/
A really powerful way to get the message across – most people have not thought about this. (I wonder when it will be on the BBC)
It requires millions of pounds of insecticides, billions of pounds of fertilizer, vast amounts of petroleum-based energy, and billions of gallons of water –
====
…and it’s not regulated the same as “food”….so the sky is the limit
Food for cars but not for stomachs … and how many people die from starvation/malnutrition every year … sounds like genocide to me.
government driven economics, still not working, reminiscent of the failed soviet socialist politics.
Gene
Surely the recycled cooking oil used in those buses in Cambridge comes from vegetable oil . In which case that makes it bio fuel surely. Cook with it first then use it for transport. Sounds a good use for the stuff
Tonyb
It’s not just the Africans. The greedy Mexican peones want to make tortillas with their corn. Off with their heads I say — forget the petitions!
America too needs bio-fuel — where is the president when he is needed?
I forgot to mention the new trend. It is from some African countries and UN agencies urging cash shipments from the US instead of grain. They want to stop distorting local farm prices with the shipments but will take the cash instead. I’m sure this will get to the poor that need the food at affordable prices—just as sure as I am of UN good intentions on the science behind global warming and regional wealth redistribution. Any mistakes the UN makes in this policy push can be made up with more appeals for cash. It’s a despicable way to get double payments.
Population growth in the 3rd world is the greatest threat to the planets biodiversity.. The burn anything for fuel and eat anything for food is doing the planet no favors..
Environmentalists dont want another billion people, never mind two three or four.. So they bring market forces to bear that will make it a bad idea for poor people to have children..
So you make it look like your going after 1st world big business or the oil and gas companies..
You demonize them while promising huge sums of money to all the poor people (read leaders), if only they will starve themselves to.. loose a few pounds..
The people in charge of these questionable countries jump at the chance of free money..
Starving their own people gives them money up front and saves them from having to pay for bullets later, when they have to shoot them anyways..
Not to many double bonuses in Africa..
Here in Ontario I pay the extra and use Shell Hi-test. No ethanol.
Brazil is using its best regions for agriculture to produce ethanol from sugar cane.
Stupidity is not the privilege of any country!
Signed: A Brazilian.
Liberals(government) have visions. Conservatives have consequences.Liberals have good intentions. Conservatives have results. Thomas Sowell has written a number of books on economics. This has never been about saving the planet.
@ Jay says:
June 23, 2013 at 3:34 pm
Population growth in the 3rd world is the greatest threat to the planets biodiversity.. The burn anything for fuel and eat anything for food is doing the planet no favors..
Environmentalists dont want another billion people, never mind two three or four.. So they bring market forces to bear that will make it a bad idea for poor people to have children..
So you make it look like your going after 1st world big business or the oil and gas companies..
You demonize them while promising huge sums of money to all the poor people (read leaders), if only they will starve themselves to.. loose a few pounds..
The people in charge of these questionable countries jump at the chance of free money..
Starving their own people gives them money up front and saves them from having to pay for bullets later, when they have to shoot them anyways..
Not to many double bonuses in Africa..
**********************************************************************
I thought you were talking about the USA until I read the last sentence. Perhaps it was only a vision of the USA in another few years, if We the People don’t correct the political mistakes of the last few years quickly and permanently.
@Mike jarosz
As unenlightened as most Americans are I wonder how that question would be answered in the U.S. ” Would you sign a petition to stop the U.S. production of biofuels from a food source that could be used to feed starving people in Africa?”
They would probably say “Which Africa?
Africa, Albuquerque, Bernalillo, NM 87102, USA
Africa, Galena, Delaware, OH 43021, USA
Africa, Rockport, Spencer, IN 47635, USA
Africa, Kissimmee, Orange, FL 34747, USA
Africa, Minneapolis, Hennepin County, MN 55404, USA
Africa, Gallatin National Forest, Big Sky, Madison, MT 59720, USA
“
oil is aboitic – there is no shortage – just politically and financially convenient to state such.
biofuels are a waste of time also – elts drive food prices higher
fracking is also a waste of time and slowly they are making vast tracts of land unfriendly to human settlement and over time you will see the relocation of people as per the UN agenda 21 initiative
Its all just part of the plan
Excellent article,
I agree with everything so stated.
One omission that I would note is that the corn ethanol farming/production causes massive pollution in the Gulf of Mexico that would be unacceptable for any other industry,
Go to
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-14/gulf-of-mexico-s-extinction-by-ethanol.html
The pollution in the Gulf of Mexico from corn ethanol has been well known for years; yet ignored by our government, the environmentalists, and the MSM. I attended a conference over 13 years ago where this problem was outlined. We make a big deal when a small oil spill occurs in the Gulf (The BP oil spill was not small) while ignoring the well known fact that runoff from the corn farming causes a swath of the northern Gulf of Mexico that each summer turns into a dead zone, drained of oxygen and devoid of life, and will be larger this year than usual.
“If conditions are right this year, the dead zone might occupy an area the size of New Jersey, or 7,800 square miles.”
“Once the Mississippi’s waters reach the Gulf and the warming sun, the nutrients cause huge algal blooms. While the algae are blossoming, they suck oxygen from the water, and again after they die and fall to the bottom to decompose, where bacteria further deplete the water of oxygen. Fish either die or head farther from shore.”
It is a disgrace that the EPA ignores this environmental issue while mandating more and more ethanol each year.
Just wanted to note that there are several companies out there pushing the cellulose ethanol scam. They have extracted 100s of millions of dollars from gullible governments all over the world over the years and haven’t produced any ethanol of note to date.
Ethanol is alcohol which comes from natural yeasts which work on sugars.
There is no yeast that turns cellulose into alcohol.
Momma Nature has been working on cellulose for almost 400 million years and she hasn’t found a quick way to break down celloluse and especially turn into sugars or into alcohol yet.
The cellulose to ethanol business is a scam, just like almost everything green.
Alas, all those good intentions. Like the U2 concert where the ever-sanctimonious Bono got the audience quiet, started clapping his hands and said: “Every time I clap my hands a child dies in Africa”. Shouted a Scotsman in the audience: “Well, stop clapping your hands then, you f… bastard”.
Per Strandberg (@LittleIceAge) says:
June 23, 2013 at 2:16 pm
A surreal world indeed!
I have a question. The recent fires from peat land burning in Sumatra which is choking Singapore with smoke, how much of that is caused by clearing land for palm-oil production to create bio-ethanol for the European car market?
Anyone knows?
Yes it is caused by claimed illegal fire setting and the industry blamed is the palm oil industry…
SINGAPORE—Smog accumulating over Singapore from fires in Indonesia worsened again on Thursday, prompting concern about widening economic and diplomatic fallout, amid government warnings the haze could cover the small, island country for an extended period.
With public anger rising, Singapore pressed its neighbor for urgent action against the purposely kindled forest fires that have billowed into one of Southeast Asia’s worst air-pollution crises.
………………
Some experts blame large commercial farms on Sumatra that are part of Indonesia’s $21 billion palm oil industry, the world’s largest. Three of the biggest palm oil companies in Indonesia are based outside the country: Indonesian-owned and Singapore-based Golden Agri-Resources, E5H.SG -0.90% Wilmar International, F34.SG +0.31% also based in Singapore, and Malaysian-based Sime Darby 4197.KU -0.95% .
Environmental activist group Greenpeace says half of all the land where the biggest fires are occurring in Indonesia is controlled by commercial plantations, suggesting companies are clearing land to make way for new crops. The Singaporean prime minister also linked the fires to commercial enterprises, rather than small landholders. But Wilmar and Sime Darby on Thursday attributed the fires to small landholders, as did Astra Agro Lestari, AALI.JK -1.58% one of Indonesia’s largest palm oil companies.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323300004578557420367297556.html
Either this is pure Lewandowsky bait or you’ve been sampling too much of the bioethanol.
Fracking is highly profitable and unsubsidised so how can it be a waste of time. And despite the propaganda of those who oppose it, there is no detectable sign of fracking on the surface if it is done properly. So how can fracking be making “vast tracts of land unfriendly to human settlement”.
Live Aid did, and is still doing, a lot of good work in Africa, specifically Ethiopia. Unfortunately, far too much of that money was pilfered by authorities. There is plenty of food in Ethiopia, in fact so much so quite a bit does go to waste (Which surprised me). People still go hungry simply because most people are not working and food prices have increased, in a only a few years, to levels that even working people can’t afford. Some of that is due to Govn’t/corporate corruption, a poor low wage economy (Even some tourist trinkets are made in China rather than locally), and forced land evacuations. I think this is what the UN’s Agenda 21 has in store for all peoples except them, of course.
I know it would be naughty but I would have signed the petition with zeal. Just to annoy the Action Aid do-gooders. They are right about bio-fuels but you can be sure that many of their other ideas are just as whacky. Having spent time in Africa I am opposed to all aid and aid organizations.
@ Ian H says:
June 23, 2013 at 5:30 pm
d says:
fracking is also a waste of time and slowly they are making vast tracts of land unfriendly to human settlement and over time you will see the relocation of people as per the UN agenda 21 initiative
Either this is pure Lewandowsky bait or you’ve been sampling too much of the bioethanol.
Fracking is highly profitable and unsubsidised so how can it be a waste of time. And despite the propaganda of those who oppose it, there is no detectable sign of fracking on the surface if it is done properly. So how can fracking be making “vast tracts of land unfriendly to human settlement”.
*************************************************************************************
Indeed it is. I just signed a 3 year lease with a local company (in MS) to drill on my land 🙂 . Fracking was attempted here around 30 years ago, however the soil at 7000′ was uncooperative so this will be a ‘traditional’ vertical well. Mainly clay, which simply clogs up the works as it enters the pipes. Fracking is useful in brittle stone. In any event a drill pad is one acre (208′ square) in size, and includes the storage & separation and other machinery for drilling and pumping. Not exactly ‘vast tracts’ of land. I certainly have no intention of moving because of it. There are also a great many regulations regarding water and chemical disposal, etc. and restoration of any land needed for temporary road access, etc. All of which is paid for by the drilling company. I’m certainly looking forward to the extra income, and not the least bit concerned over any paranoia about human settlement 🙂 . I have farmer neighbors with producing wells in the middle of their fields, and haven’t heard a single complaint yet.
There is one problem with the article.
Hydraulic fracturing spreads poisons in the environment leading to toxic chemicals leaching in to water supplies, Fracking is being used by the Globalists.to poison land in order to snatch it up at low prices.
There are MASSIVE oil reserves in North America and no doubt other places round the world that are as yet untapped, THEY are the answer to the peak oil myth.
US politicians and bureaucrats have less compassion and common sense than an average Londoner
—————————————
Who could have imagined that that was even possible?
David, then we’re doomed, ’cause they’ve been fracing for over 60 years. I think they originally used TNT (great way to fish too – bag your limit every time).
Then you do a 180 in your last sentence, which I agree with.
@David
“Hydraulic fracturing spreads poisons in the environment leading to toxic chemicals leaching in to water supplies.”
Really?
Any examples where that has happened in the last 65 years?
There are some errors in the comments above. Ethanol is not the only biofuel. Try Biodiesel and wood, chips or pellets.
I live in the middle of the deadly haze caused by burning land to clear it for Oil Palm plantations. The excuses, moaning and investigations beggar belief because what is required is ACTION, Put the fires out and get the land owners to pay. The problem with doing this is that the Corporations are trying their best to blame the subsistence farmers who had their land stolen for the fires.
Another problem, biofuel from palm oil, which is not a food and very efficient is declared evil by the greens, yet they love wood chips and pellets.
So much so, they closed Drax in UK and are converting it to wood pellets, which they source from clear cutting North Carolina. Wow really good that.
Palm oil converted to biodiesel, is used in the plantations along with recycled waste thus no fuel, fertilzer or insecticide is used.
Another issue that needs a clear report here is how clean is wood, I have read that emissions from wood burning are far higher/worse than coal. Anybody have the facts/data
choke, cough splutter, idex over 400
http://i45.tinypic.com/35l6rf7.jpg
Gunga Din says:
June 23, 2013 at 1:10 pm
To add the the illogic, ethanol production produces CO2.
True. But it’s noble cause CO2.
d says:
June 23, 2013 at 4:41 pm
oil is aboitic
It may well be, but I think you meant: “abiotic”. In which case you’d be insulting a whole MESS of Cretaceous plankton and algae.
But what I don’t understand is…
What were “Londoners” chosen as the benchmark to gauge “US politicians and bureaucrats” ?
Could not agree more. Biofuel production is a criminal waste of food for the profit of a few.
Palm oil plantations have a constant battle with the surrounding rainforest trying to take back what is theirs. This takes lots of fuel and weedkiller to do.
Palm oil for any use is not environmental.
It appears any practice that is called ‘green’ or that is somehow associated with the ‘war’ (the first casualty in ‘war’ is the truth) to fight climate ‘change’ turns off all reason and logic. Ecological and economic damage for no significant reduction in CO2 emissions which are not a problem anyway is completely acceptable…. …..It does not matter to the climate fanatics that converting corn to ethanol results in increased CO2 emissions (if all energy inputs are included, including fertilizer, and current efficiency of distillation processes, it possible with state of the art vacuum distillation to reach parity or slightly better however due to the significantly higher capital costs for vacuum distillation fossil fuel and higher costs for electricity than natural gas, natural gas is typically burned for the necessary triple distillation.) … ….It also does not matter to the climate fanatics that the US are using some of the most fertile land on the planet (12 feet of topsoil as the top soil has been deposited ironically by the 22 glacial/interglacial cycles) to grow food to convert to ethanol…. ….It does not matter to climate fanatics that as there is limited agricultural land on the planet that virgin forest is being cut down to grow more to convert to biofuel. The EU mandated 20% biofuel would require all available EU agricultural land, as that is not practical they happily cut down virgin forest. … ….It does not matter that cutting down/burning down virgin rainforest forest in Indonesia will result in leached soil that cannot grow anything in 10 to 20 years. See Brazil also where the practice is to raise cattle where rainforest once grew…. ….It does not matter that as there is a lag in cutting down virgin forest to grow food to convert to biofuel that the cost of food increases which has resulted in food riots in third world countries.
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/slyutse/as_i_discussed_here_last.html
EPA’s RFS accounting shows corn ethanol today is worse than gasoline
http://plevin.berkeley.edu/docs/Plevin-Comments-on-final-RFS2-v7.pdf
http://www.senseandsustainability.net/2012/01/26/scrapping-corn-ethanol-subsidies-for-a-smarter-biofuels-policy/
From its first appearance in 1978 to this past December 31st, the policy provided over $20 billion in subsidies to American ethanol producers, costing the U.S. taxpayer almost $6 billion in 2011 alone. Enacted in the spirit of “energy independence,” ethanol subsidies became a redoubt for the agricultural lobby and a lighting rod for criticism from environmentalists and sustainability advocates To add to the environmental cost of U.S. corn ethanol is the potential of its expanded production to raise global food prices, potentially increasing the likelihood of social unrest and instability worldwide. Some 40 percent of the American corn crop is now distilled into fuel, and The Economist has estimated that if that amount of corn were used as food instead, global food supplies of corn would grow by 14 percent. Both the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization have noted the positive link between U.S. corn ethanol production and rising corn prices. Because of America’s position as the leading corn producer and the status of Chicago-traded corn prices as a benchmark for global ones, the U.S. can have an outsize impact on worldwide food prices. Indeed, corn prices have more than tripled in the last ten years, in no small part due to the ethanol boom.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html
The Clean Energy Scam
The U.S. quintupled its production of ethanol–ethyl alcohol, a fuel distilled from plant matter–in the past decade, and Washington has just mandated another fivefold increase in renewable fuels over the next decade. Europe has similarly aggressive biofuel mandates and subsidies, and Brazil’s filling stations no longer even offer plain gasoline. Worldwide investment in biofuels rose from $5 billion in 1995 to $38 billion in 2005 and is expected to top $100 billion by 2010, thanks to investors like Richard Branson and George Soros, GE and BP, Ford and Shell, Cargill and the Carlyle Group.
But several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it’s dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it. Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous.
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/313699/news/world/singapore-demands-action-from-indonesia-on-haze
The illegal burning of forest on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, to the west of Singapore, to clear land for palm oil plantations is a chronic problem, particularly during the June to September dry season.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22998592
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/forests/palm-oil
Biodiesel fuelling palm oil expansion
Commitments from various governments to increase the amount of biofuels being sold are pushing this rise in demand, because they’re seen as an attractive quick fix to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By 2020, 10 per cent of fuel sold in the EU will be biofuel and China expects 15 per cent of its fuel to be grown in fields, while India wants 20 per cent of its diesel to be biodiesel by 2012. The irony is that these attempts to reduce the impact of climate change could actually make things worse – clearing forests and draining and burning peatlands to grow palm oil will release more carbon emissions than burning fossil fuels.
But this phenomenal growth of the palm oil industry spells disaster for local communities, biodiversity, and climate change as palm plantations encroach further and further into forested areas. This is happening across South East Asia, but the problem is particularly acute in Indonesia which has been named in the 2008 Guinness Book of Records as the country with fastest rate of deforestation. The country is also the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, largely due to deforestation.
Much of the current and predicted expansion oil palm expansion in Indonesia is taking place on forested peatlands. Peat locks up huge amounts of carbon, so clearing peatlands by draining and burning them releases huge greenhouse gases. Indonesia’s peatlands, cover less than 0.1 per cent of the Earth’s surface, but are already responsible for 4 per cent of global emissions every year. No less than ten million of Indonesia’s 22.5 million hectares of peatland have already been deforested and drained
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-04-14/biofuel-production-a-crime-against-humanity/2403402
John Marshall, the fuel they use is the fuel they make from Palm Oil????????????????? Weeds they cut and compost, Under the canopy weeds are not a problem. Use far less fertilser than western farmers. Your real beef is???????????????????
Dont forget, as I write this the people running the extates are choking me and millions of others to death. Facts count.
Obama will double or triple down tomorrow. Unlike the DDT ban which is slowly, slowly fading away after only killing a few million Africans, the bio and anti-carbon folks are likely here to stay for the balance of you lifetime. Just too much money and too many big players in the game.
David says:
June 23, 2013 at 7:24 pm
“Fracking is being used by the Globalists.to poison land in order to snatch it up at low prices.”
Ok, back it up. Show price data; show evidence that “the land is poisoned”.
They’ve been fracking in the Lüneburger Heide here in Lower Saxony since the 60ies. Even the German Greens have never claimed or found evidence for such poisoning.
You didn’t know it’s old technology? The only part that is new is computer controlled horizontal drilling. You talked about something you don’t know anything about it? Well, why not read a little about it first.
Which chemicals in particular? About 97% of fracking fluid consists of water and quartz sand. Those are in fact the active ingredients – water to fracture the rock – and sand to prop open the cracks which have been opened. The rest typically consists of additives to keep the sand in suspension, make it easily pumpable etc. Typical additives include
1. A bactericide to prevent bacterial action underground causing corrosion of the well casing.
2. A gel (often guar gum) to thicken the fracking fluid and keep the sand in suspension.
3. A cross-linker (borate) to maintain the viscosity of the gel
4. A clay stabiliser to prevent clay minerals from clogging the well.
5. A gel breaker to prevent the gel from coagulating.
6. pH buffers to keep everything at the required pH.
7. A surfactant (detergent) to increase the slipperiness of the fracking fluid for ease of pumping.
A variety of different additives could be used to do these jobs. The exact composition is a commercial secret. But there is no real need to resort to toxic chemicals as all these things can be done with non-toxic additives. Indeed you can do it all with a combination of food additives and common household cleaning materials.
The most toxic chemicals involved are the ones already in the ground; the fracking fluid is pumped into oil bearing rock. I suppose fracking does help these “poisons” to move. That is the point. But when they move they don’t enter “the environment” – they get extracted.
Remember that all this happens very deep down in the rocks where the petrochemicals come from – far away from the surface and the green living stuff – and well below ground water level. That deep down things generally tend to stay put. There is oil down there which hasn’t moved for millions of years (ergo fracking). The only way the fracking fluid has of getting out of that trap is generally by coming back up the well with the oil and gas – which is usually what happens.
As to the toxic chemicals leaching into water supplies – got an example? I have yet to see a real one. All I have seen are scare stories which misrepresent the gas which commonly escapes naturally in areas above gas and oil deposits as something new and dangerous. In many of these places gas and even oil have been bubbling naturally to the surface for millenia. If you think that is a problem the only realistic cure is to extract the oil and gas; by fracking!
First time I’ve ever heard that particularly ridiculous conspiracy theory. Conspiracists are actually very rare in the ranks of skeptics. Those few who do exist are keenly sought after by people like Lewandowsky who sees his mission in life as making us all out to be totally whack. If you contact him he’ll be very pleased to get to know you. Heck he’ll probably write a whole paper about you!
Ethanol sucks as a fuel…
Sean says:
June 23, 2013 at 1:22 pm
“Ban biofuels”
Disagree… the solution to the problem of government intervention isn’t more government intervention (i.e. banning a specific fuel type).
The solution is to stop subsidizing it and let it compete with conventional fuels on its own merits (this goes hand in hand with ending any subsidies enjoyed by conventional fuel producers.)
Biofuel subsidies exist in many forms:
1. Farm subsidies and crop insurance plans that encourage corn growers to overproduce,
2. Tax credits and incentives for ethanol production,
3. Blending mandates that require the purchase of ethanol and other biofuels by petroleum refiners and distributors,
4. Tax incentives for fuel retailers to install equipment and infrastructure for alternative fuels.
5. Exemptions from excise taxes applied to convention fuels.
Here is a summary table of US Federal and State Laws promoting alternative fuel use: http://www.afdc.energy.gov/laws/matrix/tech Note there are more than 750 laws specifically promoting ethanol and biodiesel.
The problem isn’t the biofuel itself… the problem is the the distortions caused by governments interfering in the marketplace.
From what I gather there is a land grab race in Africa, Asia & Latam fueled by foreign companies to produce biofuels.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/08/30/us-africa-biofuels-idUSTRE67T27M20100830
http://www.amazon.com/Biofuels-Land-Grabbing-Security-Africa/dp/1848138784
Why produce biofuels when the fuel is already in the ground? The sooner we end this madness the better. I see a catastrophe looming.
I’m reminded of the 10:10 video of a few years back in which kids were blown up if they did not reduce “carbon emissions” to save the planet. That video was not tongue-in-cheek, though.
The ethanol mandate is very likely unconstitutional. We are being forced to buy something we may not want, which decreases mileage, and does possible damage to our engines, adding expense there. But it doesn’t stop there. We as taxpayers are paying through the nose for the “privelege” of putting something we don’t want in our engines, by virtue of subsidies. It’s an outrage. Big Green is costing us, big time.
Biofuel, except for that made from waste products, is quite simply a crime against humanity!
I should mention that if Africans are forced against the wall as per fossil fuels they will ACCELERATE their rate of deforestation. I can’t burn oil or gas, fine I’ll head off to the nearest tree with an axe or machete. The global warming con artists are the worst enemies of the environment.
Since President Obama’s father is from Kenya he maybe interested to know that only 16% of the population has access to electricity (World Bank). Luckily for the Kenyans they have the geography to tap into their geothermal resources and are doing so now. Other countries in Africa may not be so lucky and may one day find themselves cooking on solar cookers on a rainy day. What’s one or two days of hunger between friends eh.
Kenya geothermal
http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/Kenya-in-cheaper-geothermal-option–/-/2558/1471406/-/6osd6j/-/index.html
Kenya access to electricity
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS/countries/KE?display=graph
“Jimbo says:
June 24, 2013 at 4:47 am”
That is already happening, for a fact in Ethiopia, where wood/charcoal burning is, actually, banned, believe it or not with no other source of heating/cooking energy for most people. in 2006, the last time I was there, on an NTO tour some 200kms north of Addis Ababa, the driver stopped at a road-side “shop” and purchased two large bags of charcoal. I guess you could say it was a kind of “black” market. But you are right, people will do what they need to do to survive while in poverty and that is usually at the detriment of the local environment.
PS I don’t have anything against solar cookers; I am against people having no choice.
Patrick, what many people in the relatively comfortable west don’t realise is that deforestation is happening right NOW without the onslaught of biofuel land grabs. With the onslaught gathering pace things are going to get much, much worse for deforestation, hunger, loss of wildlife habitat etc. No wonder some folks at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change tried to get immunity from prosecution for their actions. I think in future people will be tried for CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY and rightly so.
UNFCCC seeking immunity from future prosecution.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/12/unfccc-wants-immunity-from-prosecution-prior-to-rio20/
http://johnosullivan.wordpress.com/2012/06/14/un-climate-scientists-plead-for-immunity-from-criminal-prosecution/
“Jimbo says:
June 24, 2013 at 5:18 am”
Totally agree. I have seen the poverty firsthand. I believe more, in the west, need to see how the other half of the world lives, or tries to at least. I have friends in Ethiopia who once worked for the UN and resigned for the obvious rorting of funds/donations from western countries. More money is spent on whiskey and parties than anything else.
(Ethiopia imported Eucalyptus trees in the ~60’s I think it was. It grows straight, it grows fast, great for building houses and firewood/charcoal, BUT it’s a non-native and has an invasive root system which extracts any ground water it can find and grows like a weed).
If anyone thinks for one second that deforestation won’t be a problem in a world where people are deprived on coal, oil and gas then please read the following.
A good post by William Astley above. Most USA ethanol Corn is used for food. Its recycled through cow fodder.
Do we grow wheat and winter barley instead of Palm Oil?
The subsidies are the crime, they feed corporations who have little regard for humans. Land grabs in Indonesia and other African and South East Asian countries are criminal. Often a farmer will wake up to discover his land being burned, having been sold without him knowing about it. Wait its not his land, living there for generations, nobody told him to register his land.
balance is needed, supplement cheap fossil fuels with competitive biofuels, balance the books, provide local employment and wealth. Its not difficult.
Start righting the wrongs, jail the corporate burners, get them to pay to put the fires out.
Force the watermelons to declare why Oil Palm is evil but wood chips and pellets are gods gift to humanity. Explain how and why???????????????
Is it beyond the experts here to show the difference between coal buning and wood burning in terms of emissions and co2 output.
Why do we keep going in circles. Ethanol is good, no its bad. Facts must exist.
JY says:
June 23, 2013 at 1:09 pm
I’d like to know if any of the big oil companies have been buying up farm land in preparation for the biofuels thing.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
For background see my recent comments: link and link
First, start off with this from an IMF report: the top earners’ share of income in particular has risen dramatically. In the United States the share of the top 1 percent has close to tripled over the past three decades, now accounting for about 20 percent of total U.S. income (Alvaredo and others, 2012).
People like George Soros and Lord Rothschild and even US Universities are getting into the landgrab. Chinese firms and Gulf sheiks are snatching up farmland worldwide.
The reason is they are now big money makers thanks to biofuel: Cash Rental Rates for Iowa Farmland (2013 Survey) have gone from $146 to $197 in 2009, depending on the area, to $210 to $294 in 2013.
Corn prices in March 2013 (high) were $7.13/bu compared to $2.03 in March of 2000 and $2.37 in March of 1990
Land prices in Iowa have gone from $1857/ac in 2000 to $8296/ac in 2012. ($5064 in 2010) The average home price was $207,000 in 2000 and $272,900 in 2010.
To make this farmland available at distressed prices we have the Food Safety Act of 2010 although the US government has been going after farmers with Swat teams since Bush. Feds buying up farmland they [intentionally] flooded; Soros in on it
The Farmland grab is not just in the USA.
Seems violence over land grabbing is happening. Violence hits Nicaraguan rainforest as land invasions mount: … Leaders of Nicaragua’s indigenous Mayangna community are battling an invasion of land speculators and small farmers into the Biosawas Biosphere Reserve, the second largest rainforest in the Americas…
Bankers are of course smack in the middle of this food bubble. How Goldman Sachs Created the Food Crisis
REPORT UNCOVERS WORLD BANK FUNDED LAND GRAB IN UGANDA
The World Bank funding land grabbing in South America
The World Bank has rejected a call to suspend its involvement in large scale agricultural land acquisition following the release of a major report by the international aid agency Oxfam on the negative impact of international land speculation in developing countries, particularly Africa.
And the food cartel is in on the kill too.
ADM profits soar 550 percent as ethanol margins improve
ADM largest political donor
Apr 5 2007: Monsanto Profit Up 23% on Corn-Based Ethanol Demand
Apr 5 2007
April 3, 2009: Monsanto posts record profits
Record profits for Cargill: Cargill reported record profits of $4.24 billion, beating the previous high of $3.95 billion from 2007-08, and a 63% increase… Cargill is a big grain trader.
Gail Combs, excellent post, different country and structure but same result, land stolen. It matters not if for corn, or Oil Palm, or Firewood, its theft and driven by the Man Made Globull warming scam.
The money is in the subsidies, the global markets and transfer pricing. The big plantations here now sell mature plantations for top dollar and buy Jungle land for bottom dollar. That way they maximise their profits.
The land scam is global, take NZ the Maori wins right to land ownership. They then fall liable to land tax. But being a subsistence farming group, they have no money to pay the tax. Thus the land is seized back due to non payment of tax.
same in Indonesia except nobody tells the land owner, the poor farmer, to register his land or pay tax. Thus when they have a buyer, they sell and pocket the money themselves ( the authorities). Sick
American farmland is not renewable, once it is spent, it is gone. Fields need to lay fallow.
This resource requires limits to it’s exploitation. Like perhaps, save it for food producton.
“What about our grandchildren” . Is this not a mantra of the warmistas?
Third world children starve now. Our children will starve later.
What about our grandchildren indeed.
“To get that long overdue effort underway, Congress needs to amend the 2005 Energy Policy Act, eliminate the Renewable Fuel Standards and end the taxpayer subsidies.”
Paul, any sensible person would agree, unless he is receiving subsidies to plant corn for this purpose. It is naive to think an institutionalized industry like this can easily be overturned. I suppose you could give each farmer several million bucks to stop – that is about all I can see that might work. A change of government won’t work because a lot of Repubs get their support from the rural voters and, of course, killing an industry that supplies jobs and tax revenues won’t be popular.
Can you make ethanol out of dead bats and birds? That could preserve food production and improve the economics windmill energy.
Populations and Environments in the USSR were severely compromised to meet the goals of “Central Planning”.
Socialism in action.The ends justify the means.
Ethanol mandates are an example of “Central Planning”.
Welcome to the post USSR, post Cold War, Brave New World.
It would appear the USSR won.
@- “In fact, biofuels and Renewable Fuel Standards cannot be justified on any grounds.”
Wrong, they are justifiable as subsidies to the US largescale agribusiness as a means of making corn farming more profitable.
Because Africans and starving people do not have as much money for food as Americans have for car fuel.
Folks, if you REALLY want to get mad at the enviroNazis, read Paul Driessen’s book Eco-Imperialism: Greeen Power Black Death. It sets forth in greater detail many of the points in his essay here.
What these people are doing to poor people worldwide – including here in the US (artificially high electric rates, $4 gasoline so grandmothers can’t give the grandchildren they’re raising a decent diet) and in the UK (carbon taxes = mass murder by hypothermia)
On another point: everyone should read Roosters of the Apocalypse, by Rael Isaac. It tells the story of a teenage Xhosa girl named Mnongqause who prophesied that if the Xhosa people slaughtered their herds and destroyed their crops, doom would be averted and their ancestors would return to give them new wealth. (This story was also told in James Michener’s docu-novel, The Covenent, about South Africa.) And of course, after the herds were slaughtered and the crops destroyed, no ancestors reappeared to provide the promised bounty – and 2 million of the Xhosa people starved toi death.
Notice the parallels between global warming alarmism and the story of the Xhosa? There’s a difference, however: Mnongqause surely did not intend that her people should die, whereas the alarmists DO intend that people should suffer and die.
Possible correction to my last post: Rael Isaac says 30,000 to 50,000 Xhosa died, but other accounts give figures of up to 2 million. Even so, if 30,000-50,000 was 1/3 of the Xhosa people, that is still genocide by false prophecy. The point remains the same.
RobRoy says:
June 24, 2013 at 7:16 am
American farmland is not renewable, once it is spent, it is gone. Fields need to lay fallow….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Actually it can be renewed but it takes years. My farm had over two feet of loam when the soil survey was done. (1940’s) When I bought it, it had no loam and was 98% clay and 2% organic. (soil samples) After twenty years as pasture I have added about 4 inches of top soil. Due to our thunder storm downpours I lose a bit down the hill.
This is why I dislike Monoculture farming. Small family owned farms rotate crops, hay fields and pasture. One study showed family farms using the correct techniques of companion planting actually get more food per acre compared to Monoculture farming.
There is also the new Food Safety’s Scorched Earth Policy which includes poisoning ponds, bulldozing tree lines (wind breaks) and killing wildlife.
On top of that, because Monoculture uses such big equipment, I think the wind breaks put in after the Dust Bowl are being ripped out.
Also see: Temperate Region Agroforestry
The practice of ripping out grass filter strips and tree wind breaks could come back to bite us if the climate is indeed cyclical and we return to drought conditions similar to the 1930’s.
@grey
“The land scam is global, take NZ the Maori wins right to land ownership. They then fall liable to land tax. But being a subsistence farming group, they have no money to pay the tax. Thus the land is seized back due to non payment of tax.”
What a load of utter rubbish.
First of all , Maori (being defined to anybody who can claim a great-great-great- great ‘Maori’ grandmother or father somewhere in the past) have been given billions of dollars of assets by the present tax payer for alleged crimes committed by their other great-great-great- great grandmother or father. Land, fisheries, water, natural resources. They even claim (and have gotten) radio spectrums.
Secondly, Maori tribes DO NOT pay taxes over unproductive land. In racist New Zealand ONLY non-Maori pay taxes over bare land.
Don’t start me on this….!
JDN says:
June 23, 2013 at 1:43 pm
…..Seriously, there is little effective demand for food in poor countries. How did you get to be a policy analyst?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You are a bit behind the times. The WTO agreement on Agriculture took ‘care of third world food self sufficiency’ along with the World Bank/IMF SAPs. The first world needs to quit interfering with the third world.
From Clinton who pushed the USA into the WTO (and sold us out to the Chinese. )
SAPS:
This is from ” someone from Africa who is trying to save the Zebu cattlle in Kenya. These cattle, indigenous to the area, therefore better for their use, are being replaced by other cattle…I have told the man some of what is going on here. (He is actually currently in the US for a short time.) I asked him about the USDA. Seems as though they are as “loved” there as they are here, by us. And they are screwing things up just as bad there too.
I have enclosed 2 of his responses to share with you. ” – Kim P., July 2008
GunnyGene says: @ June 23, 2013 at 7:03 pm
I just signed a 3 year lease…. Which company?
David says:
June 23, 2013 at 7:24 pm
There is one problem with the article.
Hydraulic fracturing spreads poisons in the environment leading to toxic chemicals leaching in to water supplies, Fracking is being used by the Globalists.to poison land in order to snatch it up at low prices…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Where is your link?
Fracking has been around for well over a hundred years
@ Gail Combs says:
June 24, 2013 at 2:45 pm
GunnyGene says: @ June 23, 2013 at 7:03 pm
I just signed a 3 year lease…. Which company?
*************************************************************
Fletcher. Based in Alabama. www dot fletcherpetroleum dot com/
Gary Pearse says:
June 24, 2013 at 7:32 am
….. A change of government won’t work because a lot of Repubs get their support from the rural voters and, of course, killing an industry that supplies jobs and tax revenues won’t be popular….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I think you are selling the USA farmer short. According to the 2002 Ag Census there are 2.2 million farms only 70,642 have GROSS (not net) sales over $500,000 or more and only 73,752 are corporations. Those are the commercial farms that can actually support a family full time.
GROSS SALES……..Number of farms
up to $25,000……….1,519,209 (hobby)
25-$100,000……….. 2,98,385 (family)
$100,000 & up…….. 3,11,388 large
All of the farmers I know have a second job. They farm because they love it, not to make money. Most of the farmers I know are for smaller government. Again they are in farming because they want to be their own boss and they hate the USDA/FDA/WTO.
GunnyGene, Thanks
@ Gail Combs says:
June 24, 2013 at 3:34 pm
GunnyGene, Thanks
********************************************
You’re welcome. Are you just curious or checking out the competition? 😉
This is typical glass house philosophy. I suggest some of these people go and live in the conditions of some of Africa and then discover how stupid and self centred they are. They need to get in the real world.
The solution is simple — make biofuel from switch grass, inedible high cellulose sugar cane, waste, etc., rather than from food crops. Stop practicing corporate welfare by subsidizing the manufacture of ethanol from corn.
GunnyGene says: @ June 24, 2013 at 4:01 pm
You’re welcome. Are you just curious or checking out the competition? 😉
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I am sitting on gas shale in NC. So far fracking is illegal however it is being revisited and just passed the house!!! It will have to go back to the Senate “…, where leaders aren’t happy with the House’s changes.”
Not a complete win but better than nothing.
@ Gail Combs says:
June 24, 2013 at 6:34 pm
GunnyGene says: @ June 24, 2013 at 4:01 pm
You’re welcome. Are you just curious or checking out the competition? 😉
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I am sitting on gas shale in NC. So far fracking is illegal however it is being revisited and just passed the house!!! It will have to go back to the Senate “…, where leaders aren’t happy with the House’s changes.”
*****************************************************************
Well, good. Have you got some mineral rights? Not all states allow that for landowners. MS does, and this will be the second well we draw a little mailbox money from if it comes in. We’re smack in the middle of the Black Warrior Basin, which has been proven, and still has several million bbls of oil and a few trillion cf of gas undiscovered according to the last USGS assessment in 2007. Not a big field as these things go, but worth drilling. http://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-069/dds-069-i/
Other_Andy, sorry to pull your chain but I got that from source and have actually walked on Land under such threat. In any group there are bad eggs that pervert rules to their benefit. Look at Mighty River Group, having successful geothermal, why do they try Wind? To get the subsidies. Also they paid about double market rate for their Geothermal, ripped off.
NZ is in a great position to be energy and fuel independent, all renewable but little real action is taken. No need for wind or solar at all
Justthinkin says:
June 23, 2013 at 2:10 pm
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sorry justthinkin – there are in fact many biofuels – think biodiesel. My new Dodge diesel has a huge warning sticker NOT to use biodiesel in any blend. Ethanol is for gasoline engines or engines designed to run on ethanol mixes. Durability – I expect not. I ran alcohol fuelled engines some. Lots of maintenance. Not for the average driver. But good for the car dealerships 😉