Posted by Dee Norris
This article concerning the Nobel Prize for Chemistry caught my attention this morning:
Twenty years ago, Douglas Prasher was one of the driving forces behind research that earned a Nobel Prize in chemistry this week. But today, he’s just driving.
Prasher, 57, works as a courtesy shuttle operator at a Huntsville, Ala., Toyota dealership. While his former colleagues will fly to Stockholm in December to accept the Nobel Prize and a $1.4 million check, the former Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist will be earning $10 an hour while trying to put two of his children through college.
Shuttle driver reflects on Nobel snub – Cape Cod TImes
Are we starving science research in other areas to pursue accelerated and possibly needless research into Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) and the dire consequences of AGW at the expense of other more productive and beneficial areas of study?
We have recently heard from Richard A. Muller justifying the distortions and untruths of Al Gore (I guess if the untruths were committed willingly, one could call them LIES) as necessary to stir the public to combat AGW, but at the same time are these tactics shifting funding away from more deserving science projects?
While it was perfectly within his rights not to share the cloned gene with others, Prasher said he felt an obligation to give his research a chance to turn into something significant, even if he was no longer a part of it.
“When you’re using public funds, I personally believe you have an obligation to share,” Prasher said.
How many researchers like Douglas Prasher are under-employed while others like Hansen and Mann receive lecture fees and yet continue to obfuscate data and research paid for by public funds simply to protect their ’empires’?
Your guess is as good as mine, but I ask if spending money on research the explore to the link between global warming and kidney stones really a good use of a limited resource?
In a final thought, I hope some research facility sees this article and offers Doug a job that pays better than $10 an hour. Clearly, he is a more deserving scientist than many of the AGW researchers.
Kim, I should have typed that a gallon of ethanol weighs a touch under 6.6lbs. The thing is you only use a little less than 1/3 of the corn kernel to make ethanol. The third that is protein, etc is passed along to the livestock in the form of distillers grains, and the 1/3 that’s CO2 is used for carbonation, dry ice, flooding oil fields (in the future, hopefully,) or released back into the atmosphere to be reabsorbed by the next crop.
I wasn’t meaning to be insulting to your father. My point was that technology/science advances mightily in 25 yrs. A person can be 100% correct, today, and “way off” in 25 yrs.
Kim, Stanford University published a study that found the world has between 1.0 and 1.2 Billion Acres of ABANDONED Farm Land. In the U.S., alone, we used to rowcrop 400 Million Acres, and, now, we rowcrop 250 Million Acres. We pay Farmers Not to Farm 34 Million Acres.
We “Export” more Corn, Beans, and Wheat Every Year. BUT, we have Never exported any significant amount of Field Corn to Africa. We produce 67% More Corn, today than we did in 1980 (using 10% Less Fertilizer, I might add,) and our yield is expected, in spite of the floods, to be 3 bu/acre higher this year than last year. It’s expected that we will increase our yield by 40% in just the next decade. The new Seeds are a “Wonder.”
The Cerrano in Brazil was considered “infertile” just a few years, ago; Now, they’re speaking of Brazil as the next “breadbasket of the World.” They just needed the right mix of nutrients. The 50% of the World’s land that suffers from Aluminum Toxicity can now be considered “fetile;” thanks to the new seeds. In short, we have Scads of available farmland.
The price of corn is, now, just barely above the cost of production. This is Great News for the Hundreds of Millions of poor subsistence farmers (70% of the world’s malnourished.)
Now, as for “food riots in Asia:” First, maybe we could have some links with actual “Numbers.” Second, the food shortages in Asia were shortages of Long Stemmed Rice. You cannot grow longstemmed rice on corn, soybean, or wheat land. It’s grown in the paddies of Southeast Asia. There is NO vector, whatsoever, between American Field Corn, and Asian long-stemmed Rice.
Largely, the problems in Egypt, India, and China were gov’t-related. Command economy price/import/export controls, related. As for Mexico, Tortillas are made with Mexican White SWEET Corn. There were Import controls on U.S. corn. The last demonstration I heard of in Mexico were Mexican FARMERS demonstrating against the lifting of Import controls on Jan 1st of this year; thus allowing the importation of Cheap American Corn.
You may want to consider this: In 1947 the price of a bushel of corn was $2.16. The price of a barrel of oil was $2.16.
Today, the price of a bushel of corn is about $4.16 The price of a barrel of oil is about $82.00 (front month contract.) A box of corn flakes (containing about $0.06 worth of corn) is, typically, shipped about 1,500 miles.
In 1947 there was 4 times as much corn as “oil” in your corn flakes. Today, there is 5 times as much oil as corn. Texas A&M (hardly a “corn state” school) found, I think, that a dollar increase in fuel prices had twice, to three times the economic impact as a dollar increase in the price of corn.
As for starving children in Africa, you might want to read about Malawi. From a poor, starving country to “giving food” to Zimbabwe (formerly the bread-basket of Africa.)
http://biopact.com/2008/10/malawis-miracle-path-forward-for.html
A little common sense, good governance, and telling the IMF, FAO, and UN to go jump in the lake.
As for where we get our Oil. Mexico is expected to be “Out of the Oil Exporting Business” by 2011. Venezuelan exports have been sliding for several years, and even Canadian exports seem to be slipping a bit.
The last Seven Years have all been about surging Russian, and Angolese Exports. Now, Russian exports are declining, and Angola seems to be topping out. Prudhoe Bay is falling, and The North Sea has fallen off a cliff. Nigerian exports are steadily falling, and China, and India are “Importing” more. The only country on earth that will possibly export More next year than this year is Saudi Arabia; and, due to complete lack of transparency, it is problematic. Absolutely, no one, outside of a select few Saudis really know what Ghawar is doing, but it’s an Awfully Old Field.
Isn’t it worth noting that Oil started it’s spectacular run to $147.00/barrel last October at the exact time that the “Market” was “Peaking?” Correlation = Causation? No. But, still . . . . .
Kum
How about this:
http://ethanolproducer.com/article.jsp?article_id=4494
“report allegedly leaked from the World Bank indicating that biofuels were responsible for 75 percent of the global food price increase was found to be only part of a position paper – an opinion piece based upon individual research – and does not reflect the official position of the World Bank.
The Guardian newspaper of London originally published the story July 4, stating that unnamed sources suggested the secret report was not released in order to prevent the U.S. government from embarrassment. The 17-page paper, which was meant to be part of an internal study released in April and was not secret at all, was written by World Bank Economist Donald Mitchell. It states that the World Bank’s index of food prices increased 140 percent from January 2002 to February 2008, and that the increase “was caused by a confluence of factors but the most important was the large increase in biofuels production in the U.S. and EU”
The Wall Street Journal also wrote about the “leaked report,” July 4. Four days later Wall Street Journal blogger Keith Johnson admitted to speaking with Mitchell only to find the report was not official; his specifications were actually left out of the World Bank’s final version. The draft, dated April 8, states it is “not for citation or circulation,” and “the views of this paper are those of the author and should not be attributed to the World Bank or its executive directors.”
OK, this is not an official world bank report, but still it is AN opinion by a person who had his hands on the data. ( as what you say is your opinion).
This other opinion says that 75% of the food shortage is due to the ethanol policy.
The food market, like the climate, is also a many parameter chaotic system connected by many supply and demands for various basic food stuff. Corn is how part of the world population gets its starch. Another part gets it from wheat and another from rice and some from potatoes. The demands are not isolated from each other. If corn is expensive the price of wheat and rice will also rise because people replace in search of basic starch and because we live in a global economy.
Code Tech, did any of those articles mention that the EU held 10% of their wheat-land Out of Production last year? Or, that we pay farmer NOT to plant 34 Million Acres. Or, that Australia had a Horrible Drought? Or that the farmers in Argentina have withheld their products from the market due to “export Controls?” Or that the deal in Egypt was that the government was Not allowing the Bakers to sell their bread for enough to cover the cost of ingredients?
Did any of those articles mention that the cost of the plastic wrapper exceeds the cost of the wheat in a loaf of bread at today’s prices? Did they mention the failed corn crop in China (the world’s 2nd largest corn producer,) or the price controls there that caused rice farmers NOT to plant?
They seemed to miss quite a lot, no?
Kum Dollison (07:27:51) :
“You may want to consider this: In 1947 the price of a bushel of corn was $2.16. The price of a barrel of oil was $2.16.
Today, the price of a bushel of corn is about $4.16 The price of a barrel of oil is about $82.00 (front month contract.) A box of corn flakes (containing about $0.06 worth of corn) is, typically, shipped about 1,500 miles.”
So, are you saying that it is economically worth turning corn into ethanol, i.e. burning food?
“In 1947 there was 4 times as much corn as “oil” in your corn flakes. Today, there is 5 times as much oil as corn. Texas A&M (hardly a “corn state” school) found, I think, that a dollar increase in fuel prices had twice, to three times the economic impact as a dollar increase in the price of corn.”
So? You are talking of the affluent west where the cost of foodstuff on the plate is a small percentage of the price. That is why in the restaurants portions are enormous.
I am concerned with those who survive with a cup of staple food ( as in http://www.hungersite.com or http://www.freerice.com) a day, which becomes half a cup if corn is burnt instead of put on the food markets.
or
The farmers are getting $3.64/bu for their wheat in st. Louis, today.
http://ncga.ncgapremium.com/index.aspx?mid=28566
That’s, what, about $0.06/lb?
Ethanol, or no ethanol, folks, you can’t grow it any cheaper than that.
Well, yeah, I’d say that allowing the oil companies to pump our oil offshore without paying anything for it would be a “subsidy.”
The Grand-Daddy of all “Tax Breaks,” though, is the “Oil Depletion Allowance.”
Then, there was the power given to the Texas Railroad commission to set prices.
The big thing, though, is that until the last energy bill the big oil companies made it, virtually, impossible for their franchisees to dispense E85, or other biofuels. They controlled distribution to, almost, the same extent that AT&T used to control communications. I don’t think anyone wants to go back to those days.
Until recently, the farmers raised corn and sold it for about a dollar less than it cost to produce. The government, then, reimbursed them for the difference. As recently as a couple of years, ago, this was $11 or $12 Billion Dollars. Those days are gone, thankfully, as corn is now about $4.00 bu (about $0.50 above the cost of production in most places.) Approx. 90% of that corn was used to feed livestock, or exported to Europe, and Asia to feed livestock. This Beef, and Pork was then eaten by the middle and upper classes. Note: the poor people in Asia that eat pork largely eat pork they, themselves, have raised.
Anyhoo, we, now, export more corn, and beans than ever. we haven’t been a “Major” wheat exporter for many years. But, we, now, produce “way more” corn than ever. We are now using a portion of some of the kernels (the Starch) to make ethanol (the protein, etc. is returned to the food chain in the form of distillers grains, a cattle feed that is superior to corn.)
The front month contract, yesterday, for ethanol was $1.75/gal. (This is prior to Any subsidies.) The front month contract for gasoline was $1.90/gal. The blender (oil co.) now takes the ethanol and blends it with gasoline. THEY receive a $0.51 Blender Credit. They pretty much pass the lower cost along to you. In the meantime We’re Not sending $56 Million/Day Overseas. And, we’re saving some, rather substantial amount of money (again, estimated at over $40 Billion/yr) due to the fact that we’ve lowered demand for imported oil, substantially.
I’m through. Thanks to the blog-owner for letting me defend, myself. I do think it’s very important that the anti-AGW movement Not allow itself to be identified as nothing more than a big-oil mouthpiece. Everyone should strive for as much accuracy “as possible.” Myself included, of course. 🙂
Kum (07:12:08) You are still finagling around two important points, that ethanol is uneconomic without subsidies and mandates, and that the diversion of land from food production to fuel production increases the price of food. I’ll grant that land use is not completely fungible.
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Kum (09:13:51) I’d like to thank you for the opportunity for this conversation, brief and disjointed as it has been. You have been very informative, and more civil than have I.
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And, Kim, you are continuing to ignore the fact that corn is selling, today, for a touch over $0.07 lb. If you sell it for less than $0.06 lb (which you can only do by subsidizing it’s production) you take all of the “subsistence” farmers in Africa, S. America, and Asia out of production. 70% of the world’s malnourished are “Subsistence Farmers.”
I would argue that raising the price of corn from $0.05 lb to $0.07 lb will NOT cause starvation. But, putting hundreds of millions of subsistence farmers Out of Business, will.
As for ethanol being “uneconomic,” That’s just untrue. Reread my post above. We are NO LONGER subsidizing the production of corn (thereby saving $11 Billion Annually in Price “Supports.”
The Ethanol refiners are buying the corn at market prices and producing ethanol, which they’re selling for $1.79 Gallon, Today. That is Fifteen Cents Cheaper than Gasoline. If you will read this link of research done by the NREL, in conjunction with the DOE, you will see that in a “Proper” engine ethanol is, actually, More Efficient than gasoline. BTW, these engines are coming to a showroom near you, soon.
The Big difference that I see in the “economics” is that it seems very likely that gasoline will be selling considerably higher 3 years from now than it is, Today; whereas, it seems probable that ethanol will be somewhere in the range it is Now.
BTW, the tax credit for blending ethanol is slowly being removed. It drops to $0.46 gal in 09′. Look, ethanol production is an “infant” industry. Presently, it’s caught between two volatile “Commodities,” corn, and oil. The Blenders’ Tax Credit has enabled it to withstand some pretty violent assaults while it was getting it’s footing.
It is, now, getting much more efficient. They are starting to extract the corn oil (thus making better swine feed, and providing cooking oil, etc.) It is starting to use biomass for process energy rather than nat gas, or coal. Poet’s plant in Emmetsburg, Ia (Project Liberty) will use the corn cobs to produce cellulosic ethanol, while, at the same time, providing process energy to run the plant. There are some really exciting things coming down with using Municipal Solid Waste (see Bluefire.)
Range Fuel’s new Georgia plant will come online in early 09′. It makes ethanol out of wood waste. This was all made possible by starting with the easiest biostock to work with, Corn.
Kim, common sense tells us that our World Economy (that thing that keeps billions of people from starving) is Driven by Oil. Common Sense, also, tells us that those pools of oil Won’t Last Forever. Some say we’re “peaking,” now. Some say we won’t “Peak” for several years. EVERYONE acknowledges that we WILL peak.
They didn’t inject those Hundreds of Billions of Dollars into the banking system the last couple of days because we’re in a Depression. They put it in to Keep us from Going into a Depression. That’s what we’re doing with Biofuels. We’re NOT developing this technology because we’re OUT of Oil. We’re developing this technology because Some Day we Will Be.
It’s cool, Kim. We, ALL, need to search for the truth the best that we can. It IS difficult, sometimes.
Yikes, I forgot to put up the Link to Efficiency.
http://www.methanol.org/pdf/ISAF-XV-EPA.pdf
Kum said
“Well, yeah, I’d say that allowing the oil companies to pump our oil offshore without paying anything for it would be a “subsidy.”
Wow, You might want to let the oil companies know that they need not make the payments for the leases listed below:
“A year ago, 40 companies vied for 282 tracts in the annual western Gulf lease sale. More than 3,000 tracts were offered. The highest bid, $37.6 million, was made by StatoilHydro USA, a subsidiary of a Norwegian oil company.”
Also there will be royality payments in case you are unfamiliar with oil economics.
The Texas Railroad comission power over oil ended in 1970. What are you talking about?
“The East Texas oil field’s discovery sparked a boom in production that sent prices plummeting. After a lengthy battle, the Railroad Commission won the right to limit the production of oil to keep the price of oil from falling too low. Because of this regulation, the commission was important to the national and international energy supply until the 1970s.”
Similarly the oil depletion allowance ended in 1974.
So I guess there are currently no subsidies or special tax breaks for the oil companies?
Re peak oil The predictions that peak oil is around the corner have been made many times for over 50 years, yet new technology and production methods have continuously proven the claims wrong time after time. Brazil just made huge offshore oil finds. You might want to read the following which indicates we have at least a 40 year supply of oil not to mention shale and coal which can be liquified to provide motor fuel.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/the_myth_of_no_oil.html
Some of the info from this article follows:
“Although Congress has not authorized a thorough inventory of offshore resources for over 30 years, the American Petroleum Institute estimates recoverable U.S. oil resources at about 86 billion barrels offshore and 32 billion barrels onshore.[7] This estimate doesn’t take into consideration technological advancements, unconventional sources and recent discoveries. ”
“Meanwhile, it is estimated that oil production from tar sands in Canada and South America would add an additional 600 billion barrels to the world’s supply.[5] Canada, which does not segregate conventional oil from tar sands, is currently the largest U.S. oil supplier with about half of Canadian crude derived from oil sands. This oil is forecast to reach 3 million barrels per day in 2015. The Economist[6] recently noted that there exist “174 billion barrels of proven reserves in the oil sands of Alberta” alone.”
These Tar Sands?
http://www.environmentaldefence.ca/reports/pdf/TarSands_TheReport.pdf
Don, I’ll betcha a dollar to a donut these will be shut down within 10 years. In fact, I think I read where all of the new projects have been put “on hold.”
And, didn’t I read that Canada’s oil exports to the U.S. are slipping?
Don, you’ve obviously worked a long time in oil. You know that it’s not the “reserves;” it’s the “Flow Rate.” And, OUR Flow Rate is slowing. Has been since 73′. We’re down to about 25% of our consumption. Our 3rd largest source, Mexico, will probably drop out of the Oil Exporting game in 2011. Cantarell, their largest field, fell 30% Year, on year. Venezuela, our 2nd(?) largest source is exporting less to us Every Year. Nigeria, it’s falling, also. So is Kuwait.
It’s not “Reserves;” it’s “Flow Rate.”
Prudhoe Bay is slipping away. The GOM is falling. The North Sea is “Plunging.” The U.K. and Indonesia are now “importing.” China’s imports are up every year. So with India. Russia has rolled over, and it’s exporting less every month. By the way they did EOR on Texas, and the North Sea. They did “Tertiary” on Texas and the North Sea. And Cantarell. Didn’t matter. When it’s over; it’s over.
Now, it all hinges on Ghawar. The field is Seventy Years Old. Shale? There’s shale all over the world. It’s the oil of the future. Has been, forever. Shell keeps saying they’ve got it ALL figured out. Ready to go. They never go. Meantime, they had to write down their reserves by 50%.
Don, I Don’t hate oil. I Love oil. But, only a fool would bet his future on Venezuela finally figuring out the tar sands. Or, Shell doing Shale. The “Wall Street” guys might believe in all that; but, they thought it was a peachy-keen idea to give oversized loans to people with no jobs, and bad credit.
I think we need to take out a little “insurance.” And, I’m not talking “credit default swaps” from Joe’s bar and grill, and hedge fund. I’m talkin a little biofuel infrastructure. Just to be on the Safe Side, ya know?
Pheh, there is still a mandate, still a subsidy, and corn for ethanol has raised the price of food here in the US and will wherever land is diverted from food to fuel. There is a trade-off between using the sun’s energy as converted through the biosphere for food or transportation, just as there always has been. How about letting the market decide, rather than being forced to buy an insurance policy against future fears? If peak oil is your best rationale, then ethanol will become economically sensible eventually anyway. To push it before its time is wasteful.
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You lose all credibility when you state that you believe the Tar Sands will be shut down. EVER. Not going to happen.
ESPECIALLY when you back your absurd hope with a FAR FAR LEFT NUTJOB ENVIROWHACKO publication.
Sorry, Kum, but you just exposed yourself for what you are. Or confirmed it, whichever.
It’s an environmental disaster, Code Read. And, for what? A couple of million barrels of oil in a world that needs 85 mboe, daily?
You might be right. I doubt it, though. We’ll see.
I have no idea the “particulars” of that outfit; but, their argument is compelling.
Kim, did you object, strongly, to the subsidies for deep-water drilling in the energy bill of 2007? And, Kim, corn is about $3.50/bu, now:
http://ncga.ncgapremium.com/index.aspx?mid=28566
That’s about $0.06/lb. Do you really think six cent/pound corn is raising your food prices? Do you understand that $3.50/bu is, basically, a year’s work, and large investment to “Break Even?” Ah, well, I guess we’ll just agree to disagree on this one. G’nite. 🙂
Oops, it’s Code Tech, not Code Read. Where’d I get that? Sorry, Code Tech.
Kum (19:21:58) You see, this is the sort of sophistry you use. No matter what the price of corn is, it would be lower if there were no demand for it for ethanol. Hence, yes, food prices would be lower if corn weren’t diverted to ethanol production.
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Furthermore, commodity prices are depressed from the credit squeeze. What was the corn price during the last year?
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By the way, Dee, good stuff at TD.
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No Kim, there are no Free lunches. The only way corn can be grown below the cost of production is if it’s “subsidized” by the “Taxpayer.”
You can pay it at the supermarket; or you can pay it on April 15; but, You WILL pay the cost of production.
And, yep, corn prices were a lot higher before the hedgies were forced to liquidate.
Which begs the question; Why were they so high to start with?
I mean, we’re producing more ethanol than ever, right? But corn prices have fallen back to, basically, the cost of production.
So, why were corn prices so high? You might want to take a look at This.