Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Trading food for fuel, in a world where high food prices already affect the poor, has always seemed like a bad idea to me. If I have a choice between growing corn to fuel SUVs versus growing corn to make tortillas, to me that’s a no-brainer. I’ve known too many people for whom expensive tortillas are unobtainable tortillas to vote any other way.
Figure 1. The preferable kind of corn-field-based fuel, brought to you by a corn field in Michigan. SOURCE
As a result, I’m a long-time opponent of turning corn into fuel. I think it is a crime against the poor, made the worse by the unthinking nature of the ethanol proponents as they advocate taking food out of poor kids’ mouths.
But that’s not the only way that our monomaniacal insistence on renewable energy is taking food from the plates of the poor. For example, tropical forest has been cleared for oil-palm plantations for fuel. But even that is not what this post is about. This post is about trading food for energy in California, the breadbasket for the nation. Here’s the headline:
Fresno County judge rules in favor of I-5 solar project
Jan 03 – The Fresno Bee, Calif.
A Fresno County judge has ruled that a solar energy project along Interstate 5 can move forward despite arguments from the state farm bureau that it will eat up valuable California farmland.
The decision, which comes as good news to the state’s burgeoning solar industry, is the first handed down in the ongoing land war between solar developers seeking real estate for renewable energy and Central Valley farmers trying to protect their tillage.
While the ruling pertains only to the Fresno County project, the decision sends a message across the Valley that agriculture doesn’t necessarily reign supreme.
“I do think it gives a boost to the solar development community,” said Kristen Castanos, a partner at the law firm Stoel Rives in Sacramento who has represented energy ventures and tracked solar efforts on farmland. “This gives counties and developers a little more confidence in moving forward.” SOURCE
This is unbelievably short-sighted. The only good news is that compared to say buildings, it’s much easier to remove a solar installation and return the land to actually producing food. Not easy in either case, but easier for solar. But the good news stops there.
The bad news is, the power thus produced will be much more expensive than power from either fossil fuels or hydropower. But both fossil fuels and hydro are verboten under Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown’s plan to get 30% of all electricity from renewable sources, with “renewable” meaning “renewables other than hydro”. Thirty percent! This madness has already given us some of the highest electrical rates in the country, and we’re not even near to 30% renewable yet.
The worse news is what the dispute was about. California has a strong farmland act, called the Williamson Act. If you put your farmland under the Williamson Act, you can’t develop it, it has to stay farmland. In exchange you get various tax advantages. The important thing to note is that it is a legal contract between the State of California and the owners of the land. This is to prevent the landowner from taking the benefits and then developing the land.
In this case, the article cited above goes on to say (emphasis mine):
Superior Court Judge Donald Black found last month that Fresno County officials acted appropriately two years ago when they canceled a farm-conservation contract that allowed a solar development to proceed on ag land near Coalinga.
The California Farm Bureau Federation sued the county, alleging that the Board of Supervisors did not have the right to cancel the contract put in place under the state’s farm-friendly Williamson Act.
Black said county supervisors met Williamson Act requirements for canceling the contract.
“All parties concede the development of renewable energy is an important public interest both in the state of California and in Fresno County,” Black wrote.
I’m sorry, but there is no public interest in wildly expensive solar power. Nor should County officials be able to break a legal contract at their whim, based on some fanciful claim of a public benefit. The only people being benefitted here, above the table at least, are the owners of the project. The owners will be paid a highly inflated price for their power, which I and other ratepayers will be forced to subsidize. Expensive subsidized energy is not in the public interest in any sense.
In any case, breaking a Williamson Act contract to put in a solar installation definitely reveals the profound hypocrisy of the people behind the project and the useful idiots that support it. They’re approving massive, hideous development on prime farmland in order, they claim, to save the environment. Yeah, pave it to save it, that’s the ticket …
It also sets an extremely bad judicial precedent for future breaking of Williamson Act contracts. Since Kelo vs. New London the expansion of the “taking” powers of governments under the infinitely flexible rubric of “public interest” has ballooned unbelievably. Now we are to the point where they can even take away Williamson Act protections.
The Williamson Act is there to protect the totally irreplaceable, amazingly productive farmlands of California. The Fresno County officials are breaking the intent and spirit of the Williamson Act so that private developers can make a fortune picking the ratepayers’ pockets … and that’s supposed to be in the public interest? Spare me. For me, a kid who grew up on the good rich California earth, that’s a very sad day.
So yes. The idea that you shouldn’t allow the development of solar installations on some of the world’s finest farmland, not just any farmland but farmland legally protected under the Williamson Act, appears to be history in Californica. Infinitely stupid.
Y’know, I love the land here—the fold and break of the coastal hills dropping into the ocean; the wide valleys full of farms; the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where I grew up, towering over the Central Valley; the crazy, blazing deserts; the forests and groves full of deer and fox and mountain lion; and my own little corner where I live in the middle of a redwood forest, with a tiny triangle of the sea visible through the coastal hills. What’s not to like?
But I am roundly fed up with the government, and with the ‘lets power the world on moonbeams, we can all ride high-speed unicorns for transportation and just eat veggie-burgers’ crowd of folks that thinks losing irreplaceable farmland is a good thing in a hungry world, and thinks that hydropower is not renewable energy …
Regards to all,
w.
Not sure of the validity of this , but I was sent this link from my sister, who lives in Orange Co., CA, & is totally fed up with the state of the CA govt (and is quite discouraged by this link as they want to tax them leave the state). Imagine, being taxed if you leave the state. Note in the article that the revenue generated by the tax to leave the state will be used ” to acquire shares of specified corporations to influence environmental policies and practices.”
Yeah, that sounds like something the government should be involved with (sarc). See link for more :
http://www.conservativecrusader.com/articles/exit-stage-left-california-s-proposed-departure-tax
If true & it passed, this is not going to make things better in the Golden State, but is certainly in line with the decision referenced in this post
It makes me angry too. Even worse, I see no respite. A huge proportion of the sheeple support this nonsense. The more “educated” they are, the more they support it — because all of the leftist indoctrination in the public schools and our universities. Sadly, they are churning out new Moonbeam and Obama voters at a rate that is truly frightening.
And as you fill your ‘flexfuel’ tank with 10% or more ethanol from corn – remember that every 5 seconds a child dies from hunger. http://www.bread.org/hunger/global/
So wasn’t it a good money making idea to mandate using land that could grow food crops should instead grows crops for fuel. Nothing to do with the destruction of the grain reserves so that hedge funds could do future trading in food-stocks of course. (As you read this another 2 children have died – who cares?! – look how much money the hedge funds are making)
This site will occupy 90 acres and supply enough power for 18,000 homes. Solar power cost is now.less.than $2 per watt. Please try and tell the truth.
Private markets allocate resources efficiently. When Government over-rules markets the result is an inefficient allocation of resources, and a reduction in national income. We now have a political system that is designed to produce poverty and it is doing so. Why is anyone surprised?
The Regulatory Class is ever here to help us.
Usually into oblivion.
But they are helpfully destroying the society they live off of.
Will your opinion of your govt, be higher tomorrow?
I was not this cynical before I watched that movie,narrated by the bulbous hypocrite, which gave my BS detectors a massive overload.
CAGW Belief complete with the law of unintended consequences, created by govt, pushed by govt and protected by govt.
Using our tax dollars to attempt to destroy the Nation state, which all civil servants swear an oath to protect, is called treason.
Whats funny is the people who still insist that their contract with government will be honoured, while they stand silent (or in support) as govt disregards contracts and steals from the public.
Must be a post modern thing, the laws the law except for when it applies to me?
I am horrified. My family has been asking if our conservation easement (sale of development rights to the state) protects the land from future development. I have said that it does–it is supposed to be an easement in perpetuity. But if we were in California, I guess not. Willis is right, contracts and easements must be honored. Otherwise, what’s the point? This owner has received the benefits of a farmland easement (of sorts–not sure of the law in California), and now will enjoy the benefits of this renewable project to the detriment of productive farmland. Does he have to refund his easement benefits?
Willis — Couldn’t agree more with your sentiments about the folly and inhumanity of subsidizing and/or mandating ethanol, but I wonder if you lost a few zeroes in your calculation for food consumption — Best regards — Goks
Kermit and Chris Riley are right that the marketplace is best at allocating resources. But when the government requires that some percentage of fuel include ethanol it disrupts normal marketplace allocations. It drives up the price of ethanol and has the same result as a direct subsidy.
The percentage of our economic activity that is market driven as opposed to regulation driven is an interesting measure of our remaining liberty. I am afraid that in the case of renewable energy the market has very little influence.
Plow, plant, fertilize,water, harvest, process, and truck.
Corn requires more energy than it produces to make the end resulting 30% less efficient fuel.
On Solar, I live near a 150,000,000 dollar solar plant that serves 3,000 people,,,, part of the time.
Does anyone actually think a solar field is natural and Eco-friendly?
Have you actually ever viewed one in person?
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b5JZbJNzixA/T_xP6gQOWwI/AAAAAAAAZGY/4HkZ_dWVdng/s1600/Obama%2Bat%2Bthe%2Bsolar%2Bfield.jpg
Hi Willis,
As always, a thought-stimulating post. Now, I have noted that many people posting here are very much opposed to government regulation, incentives, taxes etc to influence the way we produce energy. My question then is this: Imagine there was no government involvement at all, no energy-related taxes, no requirement to put ethanol in gas, no subsides for biofuel.. If that were the case, and some entrepreneur would find it profitable to build solar panels next to I5 – would you still be opposed? (I would, because the area is just too beautiful to desecrate like that..)
Steve Schaper says:
January 5, 2013 at 5:00 pm
As far as the corn is concerned, and these facts have been presented to you by varous commentators time and time again, False dichotomy. We don’t raise the kind of corn you can make tortillas from. The surplus the government engineers us to raise will either rot on the ground at the elevator or be converted into distillers grains for cattle feed and alcohol to lower your exhaust emissions. The infrastructure is not in place for switching to flint corn, either.
——————–
That still doesn’t make using corn for gas a good idea.
cn
Willis,
A very simple question for you.
What is the current actual achieved Kw/Hr per acre of Solar power in California? The actual 24/7 averaged figure.
Answering this simple question, opens up many more, such as why do they need so many “pilot” or “test” or “concept” plants? Seems they get billions in “research ” dollars is one simple answer.
Steve: I thought most of the corn grown in the US was field corn, which is what Mexican tortillas are reportedly made from. The US exports corn to Mexico for this purpose. Recipes for corn tortillas start with dried field corn. Don’t cattle eat dried field corn, as do horses, ducks, etc? What kind of corn do we grow?
Willis
A technical point. Several years ago I did a project to measure the solar viability of the land at the Techachapi wind park. It turns out at the altitude in question that it is far more productive than just about anywhere in the state AND the electrical infrastructure is in place to handle the power in a much more environmentally friendly way.
I also have access to 83 acres of land in the middle of the park.
If any of the attorneys for the opposition would wish to contact me about this, Anthony has my email address.
All that has to be shown is that there is a greater public benefit for using land already set aside for this activity than by taking Williamson Act farm land. This can easily be done.
john robertson says:
January 5, 2013 at 6:33 pm
“…Using our tax dollars to attempt to destroy the Nation state, which all civil servants swear an oath to protect, is called treason…”
*
Totally agree. It’s the same here in Australia – and Gillard is guilty of treason as I understand it. It is the same in many countries. The whole Green agenda is designed to destroy civilization.
Perhaps “treason” is a term we need to introduce into the thoughts of ministers and senators more frequently. Perhaps into the press, too, as at least that smells of something exciting. Perhaps our “leaders” need to be reminded that they are meant to be working for the people, not enslaving them, not crippling them, starving them and killing them through neglect and willful criminal behaviour. The “leaders” most into this scam know full well it is a mockery of science and a lie.
I heard somewhere, once only, that the initial “Arab Spring” riots were, in fact, food price riots.
It is morally criminal to burn food in engines or cover agricultural land with umbrellas. I bet the solar farm owners also spray all sorts of herbicides to prevent plants growing up between the solar panels and shading them.
As for that one green job, it is a man with a long broom walking between the rows of useless panels brushing dust off them in a vain effort to maintain efficiency, if you can call it that.
AllanJ, Kermit, Chris Riley, and others
The marketplace is, indeed, best at allocating resources, but there are other factors that have to be considered, e.g., property rights, contracts, rule of law, which may very well (should) have precedence. Thus, for example, we do not sacrifice our rights under the constitution even if insisting on them is economically inefficient.
I’m with Ken Mitchell and TimTheToolMan. There are so many options that are way better than the government’s plan.
Take any building and look at its base load (the lowest amount it needs) then put panels on the roof and offset half of its base directly. No batteries required. Other ideas try to match energy source with use so no storage is required. Solar seems to work best at the same time that air conditioning is required (hot sunny days) so perhaps directly use solar to feed the AC? There are already solar powered (DC) water pumps for irrigation which also seem to work when the plants are the thirstiest (hot sunny days).
So instead of getting rid of agricultural land why not use the solar power to water it? Nah we’ll just get rid of those pesky plants and trees then lose half the electricity in conversion and transmission. Sigh 🙁
Of course these and any other ideas should be done without the taxpayer on the hook for it. You’d think we’ve seen enough boondoggles out of governments in this arena.
john says:
January 5, 2013 at 6:23 pm
This site will occupy 90 acres and supply enough power for 18,000 homes. Solar power cost is now.less.than $2 per watt. Please try and tell the truth.
Er John, I’m paying less than $0.00013/WattHour (0.12061/KiloWattHour to be precise) and really enough pwr for 18,000 homes from 90 acres day or night rain or snow? Your post is so silly that I’m embarrassed to be responding…. if real, $2 / WattHour creates what the Brits call Fuel Poverty. Fuel Poverty is where people freeze because they can’t afford the energy needed to heat their homes. Go suck eggs.
The reasons they exclude hydro are that a) it’s too cheap and efficient, and makes all the others look bad; b) it’s very limited, constrained by available geography, and c) it doesn’t generate ‘subsidies for all’, and hence is of no value to the lobbyists.
john says:
January 5, 2013 at 6:23 pm
This site will occupy 90 acres and supply enough power for 18,000 homes.
John, I live on 1/3 of an acre. Are you saying I can provide 65 of my neighbors (plus myself) with electricity, if I cover my house and lawn with solar panels?
John,
That would be Freeze as in “Freeze To Death”. Suck some more eggs.
typo:
hyrdrohydroThe conversion of food to biofuel is an illogical green scam. The practice is illogical as there is no significant reduction in CO2 due to the practice – for corn converted to ethanol – and the cost of the corn based ethanol is five times the cost of conventional gasoline.
Rather than converting corn to biofuel, the US and other Western countries could construct nuclear power plants which are expensive, but do result in a reduction in CO2, which is not a problem anyway.
AGW alarmists do not care about cost or logic. There is no extreme climate change problem to solve. The planet’s response to change in forcing is to increase or decrease clouds in the tropics thereby reflecting more or less sunlight of into space, negative feedback. The extreme AGW cases require the planet to amplify the CO2 warming. If there is negative feedback rather than amplification a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will result in less than 1C of warming with most of the warming occurring at high latitudes which will expand the biosphere.
The AGW alarmists protest, lobby, and lie if necessary to push the irrational agenda. The conversion of food to biofuel supports the assertion that the extreme AGW agenda is irrational.
It is a travesty, that news organizations such as the BBC continue to support irrational scams.
Vast amounts of agricultural land are being diverted from crops for human consumption to biofuel. Currently roughly, 40% of the US corn crop is being converted to ethanol for example.
The immediate consequence of converting food to biofuel is a dramatic increase in the cost of basic food such as a 140% increase in the price of corn.
As it is a fact that there is limited amounts of agricultural land and requirement for food for humans, vast regions of virgin forest are being cut down for biofuel production. The problems associate with this practice will become acute as all major Western governments have mandate a percentage of biofuel.
Analysis of the total energy input to produce ethanol from corn show that 29% more fossil fuel input energy is require to produce one energy unit of ethanol. If the fuel input to harvest the corn, to produce the fertilizer, and to boil the water off to distill ethanol/water from 8% ethanol to 99.5% ethanol (three distillation processes) to produce 99.5% ethanol for use in an automobile, produces more green house gas than is produced than the production consumption of conventional gasoline, if the energy input of the waste corn stock is not included. (The corn stock can be used to feed cattle but is not relevant in terms of amount of biofuel produced. (i.e. The food value of the waste stock helps to reduce the cost of the conversion processes not the energy required for the conversion.)
The cost of corn based ethanol is more than five times the production cost of gasoline, excluding taxes and subsides. Rather than subsiding the production of corn based ethanol the same money can be used to preserve and increase rainforest. The loss of rainforest is the largest cause of the increase in CO2.
http://www.uiweb.uidaho.edu/bioenergy/NewsReleases/Biodiesel%20Energy%20Balance_v2a.pdf
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. Even cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass, which has been promoted by eco-activists and eco-investors as well as by President Bush as the fuel of the future, looks less green than oil-derived gasoline.
Meanwhile, by diverting grain and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks, biofuels are jacking up world food prices and endangering the hungry. The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year. Harvests are being plucked to fuel our cars instead of ourselves. The U.N.’s World Food Program says it needs $500 million in additional funding and supplies, calling the rising costs for food nothing less than a global emergency. Soaring corn prices have sparked tortilla riots in Mexico City, and skyrocketing flour prices have destabilized Pakistan, which wasn’t exactly tranquil when flour was affordable.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-04-14/biofuel-production-a-crime-against-humanity/2403402
Biofuels ‘crime against humanity’
Massive production of biofuels is “a crime against humanity” because of its impact on global food prices, a UN official has told German radio. “Producing biofuels today is a crime against humanity,” UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food Jean Ziegler told Bayerischer Runfunk radio. Many observers have warned that using arable land to produce crops for biofuels has reduced surfaces available to grow food. Mr Ziegler called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to change its policies on agricultural subsidies and to stop supporting only programs aimed at debt reduction. He says agriculture should also be subsidised in regions where it ensures the survival of local populations. Meanwhile, in response to a call by the IMF and World Bank over the weekend to a food crisis that is stoking violence and political instability, German Foreign Minister Peer Steinbrueck gave his tacit backing.
http://news.yahoo.com/prime-indonesian-jungle-cleared-palm-oil-065556710.html
Prime Indonesian jungle to be cleared for palm oil
Their former hero recently gave a palm oil company a permit to develop land in one of the few places on earth where orangutans, tigers and bears still can be found living side-by-side — violating Indonesia’s new moratorium on concessions in primary forests and peatlands.
Prime Indonesian jungle to be cleared for palm oil
Their former hero recently gave a palm oil company a permit to develop land in one of the few places on earth where orangutans, tigers and bears still can be found living side-by-side — violating Indonesia’s new moratorium on concessions in primary forests and peatlands.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-04-14/biofuel-production-a-crime-against-humanity/2403402
Biofuels ‘crime against humanity’
Massive production of biofuels is “a crime against humanity” because of its impact on global food prices, a UN official has told German radio. “Producing biofuels today is a crime against humanity,” UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food Jean Ziegler told Bayerischer Runfunk radio. Many observers have warned that using arable land to produce crops for biofuels has reduced surfaces available to grow food. Mr Ziegler called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to change its policies on agricultural