Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Roger Helmer MEP – The European Union has scrapped post 2020 biofuel targets, thanks to pressure from green groups concerned about environmental damage.
Green transport target will be scrapped post-2020, EU confirms
EU laws requiring member states to use “at least 10%” renewable energy in transport will be scrapped after 2020, the European Commission confirmed, hoping to set aside a protracted controversy surrounding the environmental damage caused by biofuels.
The European Commission will table a revision of the Renewable Energy Directive at the end of 2016, aiming to further push renewable sources like wind and solar across the European Union.
On transport, “we will look specifically at the challenges and opportunities of renewable fuels including biofuels”, said Marie C. Donnelly, Director for Renewables at the European Commission.
The current directive, adopted in 2008, requires each EU member state to have “at least 10%” renewable energy used in transport by 2020 – including from biofuels and other sources like green electricity.
This has drawn criticism in Britain, where reaching the 10% target will require doubling current biofuel supply, adding a further penny per litre on pump prices, according to a leaked memo by the Department for Transport.
But the 10% target will be dropped in the new directive, Donnelly told a breakfast seminar organised at the European Parliament on Tuesday (3 May).
The article goes on to discuss bureaucratic strategies by which EU administrators might quietly undermine or even reverse the official change in biofuel policy – but murky byzantine policy twists are nothing unusual, for a tenuously democratic organisation which habitually “misspends” billions of Euros of its annual budget.
If Britain exits (as I hope) the EU will cease to exist within 10 years (as I hope).
even before (as I hope) – it seems that this EU is first the idea of a certain Walter Halstein – and of the states, using Jean Monnet, schuman, and Delors …… wait and see
It will be very fast if this passes:
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2016/05/04/esm-new-eu-treaty-in-the-works-will-bankrupt-nations/
a blank check on each country’s money, payable on demand to the EU, with no exit, no end, no limit, and all legal rights to investigate or bring suit removed.
An unacountable unstoppable bank account raid will not be disciplined for long, and at zero balance left for the owners, any nation will no longer care about the legal nicities, but will instead revolt.
https://olivierdemeulenaere.wordpress.com/2016/05/09/europe-aveu-martin-schulz/
Good news, especially for the likes of the orangutan, but to credit the decision on pressure from ‘green groups’, when the bio-fuel target was only introduced because of green groups, is a bit odd.
Bloke down the pub,
Green groups, is a bit odd,
“odd,” illogical, stupid, ignorant, no Sir normal,.
Bloke said:
“…when the bio-fuel target was only introduced because of green groups, is a bit odd.”
Actually, fuel-from-food is a humanitarian and environmental disaster, and the greens are responsible for this entire debacle, including:
. the clear-cutting and burning of rainforests for palm oil plantations in the Far East;
– the clear-cutting and burning of rainforests for sugarcane-to-ethanol schemes in Brazil;
– the overplanting of corn and increased depletion of the Ogallala aquifer for corn ethanol schemes in the USA;
– huge increases in food corn prices in Latin America, leading to widespread hunger.
Bravo greens! Way to save the world!
Allen get the carefully crafted lie award for today. See Allen, when you repeat a lie, you are still lying.
Slight correction to the corn and malnutrition in Latin America. What happened was that the US made a trade deal with the region allowing it to dump corn at low prices. This cause the bankruptcy of a large number of peasant farmers that had been surviving at the prevailing price.
Once the producers were driven from the land or launched into the drug business, the prices were free to range up and down at the whim of the exporters. It is noteworthy that the exports were GMO’s hybrids and the losses in the mountains (no longer grown) were native varieties.
Everyone knows that hybrids perform poorly on replanting so the seeds available are not really ‘seeds’. The short version is that food production by the masses collapsed leaving them impoverished and on the move.
Dropping the requirement for ethanol in US fuel will dump even more corn on those markets where there is zero protection for local producers. It is quite incorrect that ‘cheap food’ solves problems of starvation and poverty. When everyone is a viable producer it is much better for the whole population.
Hi Crispin. Interesting comments re corn. References please?
I was referring to the ~doubling of corn prices especially in Mexico about a decade ago that caused widespread hunger and social unrest.
Would appreciate knowing more about your comments.
Regards, Allan
There is a difference between conservationists, environmentalists, and greens. Conservationists want to preserve nature for humanity’s use and enjoyment. Environmentalists want to preserve nature for it’s own sake apart from humanity. Greens want whatever’s popular and sounds good.
Greens wanted bio-fuel mandates. Environmentalists and Conservationists wanted to stop it.
And the watermelons want power.
Auto
Hi Auto,
I think many of the watermelons could indeed be Marxists, of whatever variety: Trotskyites, Leninists, Harpo’s, Groucho’s…
Read this article, by Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, at
http://www.ecosense.me/index.php/key-environmental-issues/10-key-environmental-issues/208-key-environmental-issues-4
Excerpt:
The Rise of Eco-Extremism
Two profound events triggered the split between those advocating a pragmatic or “liberal” approach to ecology and the new “zero-tolerance” attitude of the extremists. The first event, mentioned previously, was the widespread adoption of the environmental agenda by the mainstream of business and government. This left environmentalists with the choice of either being drawn into collaboration with their former “enemies” or of taking ever more extreme positions. Many environmentalists chose the latter route. They rejected the concept of “sustainable development” and took a strong “anti-development” stance.
Surprisingly enough the second event that caused the environmental movement to veer to the left was the fall of the Berlin Wall. Suddenly the international peace movement had a lot less to do. Pro-Soviet groups in the West were discredited. Many of their members moved into the environmental movement bringing with them their eco-Marxism and pro-Sandinista sentiments.
These factors have contributed to a new variant of the environmental movement that is so extreme that many people, including myself, believe its agenda is a greater threat to the global environment than that posed by mainstream society. Some of the features of eco-extremism are:
– It is anti-human. The human species is characterized as a “cancer” on the face of the earth. The extremists perpetuate the belief that all human activity is negative whereas the rest of nature is good. This results in alienation from nature and subverts the most important lesson of ecology; that we are all part of nature and interdependent with it. This aspect of environmental extremism leads to disdain and disrespect for fellow humans and the belief that it would be “good” if a disease such as AIDS were to wipe out most of the population.
· It is anti-technology and anti-science. Eco-extremists dream of returning to some kind of technologically primitive society. Horse-logging is the only kind of forestry they can fully support. All large machines are seen as inherently destructive and “unnatural’. The Sierra Club’s recent book, “Clearcut: the Tragedy of Industrial Forestry”, is an excellent example of this perspective. “Western industrial society” is rejected in its entirety as is nearly every known forestry system including shelterwood, seed tree and small group selection. The word “Nature” is capitalized every time it is used and we are encouraged to “find our place” in the world through “shamanic journeying” and “swaying with the trees”. Science is invoked only as a means of justifying the adoption of beliefs that have no basis in science to begin with.
· It is anti-organization. Environmental extremists tend to expect the whole world to adopt anarchism as the model for individual behavior. This is expressed in their dislike of national governments, multinational corporations, and large institutions of all kinds. It would seem that this critique applies to all organizations except the environmental movement itself. Corporations are criticized for taking profits made in one country and investing them in other countries, this being proof that they have no “allegiance” to local communities. Where is the international environmental movements allegiance to local communities? How much of the money raised in the name of aboriginal peoples has been distributed to them? How much is dedicated to helping loggers thrown out of work by environmental campaigns? How much to research silvicultural systems that are environmentally and economically superior?
· It is anti-trade. Eco-extremists are not only opposed to “free trade” but to international trade in general. This is based on the belief that each “bioregion” should be self-sufficient in all its material needs. If it’s too cold to grow bananas – – too bad. Certainly anyone who studies ecology comes to realize the importance of natural geographic units such as watersheds, islands, and estuaries. As foolish as it is to ignore ecosystems it is absurd to put fences around them as if they were independent of their neighbours. In its extreme version, bioregionalism is just another form of ultra-nationalism and gives rise to the same excesses of intolerance and xenophobia.
· It is anti-free enterprise. Despite the fact that communism and state socialism has failed, eco-extremists are basically anti-business. They dislike “competition” and are definitely opposed to profits. Anyone engaging in private business, particularly if they are successful, is characterized as greedy and lacking in morality. The extremists do not seem to find it necessary to put forward an alternative system of organization that would prove efficient at meeting the material needs of society. They are content to set themselves up as the critics of international free enterprise while offering nothing but idealistic platitudes in its place.
· It is anti-democratic. This is perhaps the most dangerous aspect of radical environmentalism. The very foundation of our society, liberal representative democracy, is rejected as being too “human-centered”. In the name of “speaking for the trees and other species” we are faced with a movement that would usher in an era of eco-fascism. The “planetary police” would “answer to no one but Mother Earth herself”.
· It is basically anti-civilization. In its essence, eco-extremism rejects virtually everything about modern life. We are told that nothing short of returning to primitive tribal society can save the earth from ecological collapse. No more cities, no more airplanes, no more polyester suits. It is a naive vision of a return to the Garden of Eden.
************************
you may have missed that the green.gang is now pursuing pepsi and a host of others who use palm oil for the indonesian forest fires.
but wait – the best is yet to come! when it’s no longer possible to fake the record upward due to obvious cooling- they will claim triumph for having saved mama.gaia from fricasee.
I think that they made the decision because Honeywell/UOP has all the best patents for bio-fuel and processing plants, and few/no European companies will make money. Does anyone have info to refute that?
..Who are these ” Green ” groups that are opposed to bio-fuels ??
Latest News http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/05/04/new-administration-rule-would-permit-thousands-eagle-deaths-at-wind-farms.html
..I posted that on WUWT yesterday !! Great minds etc….LOL
absolutely disgusting. I commented–shouldn’t be too hard to find me. LOL
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/2016/Colgate-Palmolive-Johnson–Johnson-and-PepsiCo-among-brands-failing-to-protect-Indonesias-forests/
The German Green Party demanded biofuels. They are mostly made from palm oil. Malaysia and Indonesia are pillaged to make space for subsidised ‘biofuels’ of which diesel is far easier than gasoline or butanol. Suddenly it is better to have diesel engines in Europe. Everything was going fine until the same Greens found their policy of subsidising fuel was burning forests, not just OPM. Other People’s Money. Now they want big capital to save the forests from Green Policies.
Hold their green feet to the fire they ignited. Is that a terrifying or torrefying prospect? We will find out what torrefied feet look like.
Plus, Crispin, the Germans especially know about issues with diesel engines now.
That has gone a bit quiet though, hasn’t it? Maybe it wasn’t just VW who were doing it and maybe the EPA doesn’t want to be further in the spotlight for clown science again.
I don”t think there are any green group for corn ethanol
To best defeat multiple enemies aligned against you, get them fighting each other.
In this case, two groups of greens have been brought into conflict , resulting in a defeat for one of them.
What they probably do not realize, is that it is in fact a defeat for both of them.
We can be pro-environment as well as pro-reason. The conflict only comes when you fail to see the difference.
They certainly don’t have the corn lobby we have here in the US.
Believe it or not, it could actually be a rational decision as studies have apparently shown that adding biofuels increase CO2 emissions compared with not doing it.
“adding biofuels increase CO2 emissions compared with not doing it.”
I recall studies beginning to show this in the mid-nineties, and some environmentalists coming to grips with it in the mid-naughts. How’s that for a learning curve? Now some of the regulatory leaders are catching on. This is a relatively simple question of counting outputs from a designed process. Recognizing the truth about climate change will take considerably longer.
http://www.thegwpf.com/the-age-of-cheap-oil-and-natural-gas-is-just-beginning/
http://www.thegwpf.com/is-tesla-in-trouble/
Let us hope that the green cognitive dissonance is terminal
You will have to ‘plant a tree to save the world’ faster – DRAX is catching up!
Yes, but it seemed like such a good idea at the time.
Like my daddy used to say,
“It’s like trying to put overdrive on a jackass…
It’s a good idea but it just doesn’t work.”
It’s fascinating that most ‘green’ schemes involve, higher taxes/subsidies (wind/solar/methanol), degrade/destroy the environment in other ways (burning forests for power / mercury filled lights), misallocate resources better served (farming/methanol) or involve massive amounts of carbon input to achieve marginal carbon savings (wind/solar/methanol). All in the name of saving 0.000001% (pick a number) carbon output.
Here in Ontario Canada, where we get most of our energy from Hydro and Nuclear, the government has increased power prices from 5.5 cents flat rate to 12-18 cents (I know this is still low in some parts of the world) in just a few years to help support renewables. It’s getting so bad I am looking to switch my stove & dryer to gas. They just increased the rates again due to a warm winter (demand was low) citing not having enough money. So when power is saved, money is not saved. They don’t lower the rates after a cold winter do they.
Liberal math is maddening (rant over).
I love driving on the Gardiner expressway in Toronto and watching the lone symbolic government-installed wind turbine sitting idle most days! It a constant reminder of why this technology will never be reliable,, affordable or plentiful. Can’t wait to see the cranes erected to repair the mechanical and electrical components that are guaranteed to fail.
Its coming.
Luckily Liberal budgets balance themselves … or at least that is what Jr Trudeau believes 😉 & therefore you don’t need math!!
In Ontario, Hydro and Nuclear account for 86.3% of generation. The electrical grid in Ontario is essentially “Carbon Free”. Yet that is not good enough. It has to be from “sustainable, alternative” sources to keep the Greens happy. The truth is, they just want un-economical power that will slow down the economy. I think it is from their love of Marx, and their hate of successful business.
Further to m last comment, How can 7.3% of the power generation (which is “alternative sources”) over double the cost of electricity. I think that this really shows just how costly these alternative electrical generators are. They are billed as “free energy”, but cost many times more than traditional sources.
And, in a free market society, shouldn’t the consumer be allowed to decide for themselves if they think ‘saving the world’ is worth paying the extra money for their power?
Regarding the Ontario rates, 12-18 cents is only what you pay for the ‘raw’ power. You can over double that once you get your bill with service, delivery etc added. So actual price per Kw is closer to double or 20-30 cents per Kw. Just for anyone else comparing in other parts of the world who think we have it too good. Monthly bill is about $125-150 CDN for average house.
Duncan, all you say is true. It is a surprise that such a conceptually stupid plan was ever accepted in the first place. Expensive electricity in the name of make cheaper electricity.
Sustainable? I haven’t heard about rainfall ceasing or the atoms wearing out.
I live in the southern end of boondoggle country where the flailing arms smite the sky. A friend is getting paid CDN$0.345 per kWh for his rooftop solar PV, 20 year contract. He is farming money. To pay the investment he needs that sort of return because on the face of it, there is no rational investment to be made at market rates.
For the money we could have built a thorium fluoride plant and patented the hell out of the processes that make it better. The Ontario provincial plan makes the national one look brilliant. What a thing it is to have to say that.
What are the emissions from burning Alberta? Black carbon? CO2? Organic carbon aerosols? Don’t they know that forest fires emit dioxins? If they had cut that forest and made pellets people would scream about the pillaging of nature and how terrible it is that mankind destroys everything. Now that nature has destroyed everything it’s OK I suppose. What could be more natural than a forest fire?
Greenpeace: Indonesia and Ft McMurray are the bonfires of your vanities.
But it’s TREE carbon dioxide, not COAL carbon dioxide!! That’s what makes all the difference to the jade-shaded!
Old post, but great link to the boondoggle in Ontario
http://www.windontario.ca/
“This has drawn criticism in Britain, where reaching the 10% target will require doubling current biofuel supply, adding a further penny per litre on pump prices,”
It would more likely be a lot more than just a penny per liter more at the pump. Biofuels are evil, designed to make fuel more expensive and put burdens on other sectors of the economy, such as corn in the US. Making corn into alcohol uses so much corn that it raises the price of corn and grains around the world, starving the poor and stressing all else.
The biofuels programs, largely treated and handed out as corny capital projects, are a version of a broken-window economy. Supposedly to save petroleum fuels, we make biofuels from other sources, in the process using more petroleum-derived energy than the energy we get back when we use it as fuel. It’s a losing proposition.
During our extended recession in the US, the corn to alcohol producers were losing income as the economy slowed down, an expected result. They had the gall to ask the government to increase the required percentage of alcohol in gasohol in order to increase demand for alcohol. How evil of them to try to carry on with business as usual (for them) while the rest of the people and economy suffered. The percentage of alcohol requested was high enough to begin destroying gasoline-burning engines, wantonly destroying wealth, just as the Cash-for-Clunkers Program was a blatant destruction of wealth.
I maintain that the increased percentage of alcohol in gas-burning engines will be much more effective than Cash-for-Klunkers. Since the 15% alcohol gas has only a lower price to distinguish it from other gas, people will go for the lower price. The nozzle is no different. 85% has a yellow cover on the nozzle. Yes, I know about the stickers at point of sale. How many read them???
The only reason why alcohol gas is cheaper is because it’s subsidized.
Let’s not forget that you also get less mpg with alcohol than you do with gasoline.
Indeed barryjo
– the 15% alcohol in gasoline will turn perfectly good transportation into Klunkers so the Cash for Klunkers program has just morphed a bit.
I get significantly lower fuel consumption using gasoline without ethanol that more than offsets the extra cost (some suppliers have premium fuel without ethanol). For 10% to 15% more cost I get 15% to 20% lower fuel consumption. Maybe it only works for my 3.6 litre 2010 vehicle. Manual says 5% is ok, 10% marginal, and DO NOT USE 15%. Maybe if you have a newer hybrid designed for ethanol it would be ok. Flex fuel vehicles can use 83% ethanol.
Before you reply that studies say that you don’t get better fuel economy using non-ethanol fuels – I have tested this on my own vehicle on long trips for 6 years. It is always the same. I get better economy on non-ethanol fuels on my particular vehicle and my particular driving style. (Studies say yes and no so who the heck knows, may be vehicle design dependent.)
All my small machines get ethanol free fuel after a mechanic advised me that one of my chain saws was probably wrecked by ethanol contaminated fuel. The ethanol ate it. It was rather obvious.
So while I do use low ethanol fuels (no choice), I always look at the price differential and buy up if the differential makes sense and the premium grade is ethanol free.
In Canada and some states, premium gasoline does not have to have ethanol as long as the company meets the “average” ethanol mandate. Since most fuel sold it regular, it is not hard to meet the mandated amount.
However, because of blending, gasoline with no ethanol is less and less available and may disappear in the next few years. Nevertheless, there is still lots of ethanol free gasoline. Over time as older engines are replaced, it may become a non-issue but I have some 20 to 40 year old engines that just don’t like ethanol.
Click on your province or state in the following link and you can see the diminishing numbers (though the list is not complete as I know of some other stations that say they do not have ethanol in their premium fuel.)
http://www.pure-gas.org/index.jsp?stateprov=AB
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
Brilliant news (if it sticks). And hopefully the devastation of SE Asian rainforests will now ease. Callously brought about by an 80% increase in palm oil plantations, in the region, to satisfy the EU’s insane, feel-good, 10% biofuel mandate.
Feels great filling up the Ferrari with ‘biofuel’, not so good for the Orangutans and their habitat across the other side of the globe.
I have lived in the SE Asian region for over ten years and regularly fly over the areas of Indonesia and Malaysia and have witnessed, with my own eyes, the dramatic and speedy devastation of flora and fauna wreaked by Palm oil plantations, ramped up in recent years to supply Europe’s penchant for feel-good, ‘Green’ biofuels.
Where has Greenpeace been?
Where was/is the outrage from the “save the planet” crew?
So let’s review: A key carbon-obsessed policy based on pseudoscience, in addition to making fuel costs go up, and causing environmental and sociological damage, doesn’t even do what it is supposed to do, which was wrong to begin with. Yeah, we knew that. Same with all their other carbon-obsessed energy policies. Always fun when so-called “green” groups “discover” what we skeptics/climate realists have known all along.
The real test is whether this gets through the thick political skull of Hillary. Of course any change would have to be done right after the election to avoid upsetting the Iowa caucus vote, the home of corn ethanol madness. Add it to the list of supposed mandates claimed in the first 90 day lurch. It could be well down on the list of such (contrived) voter mandates.
That’s assuming she wins. But the outcome of the battle between her and Trump is anyone’s guess.
True indeed Bruce. It could be a Trump landslide but the phony-socialist hangers-on in the media will still be saying the creepy b!tch is winning until the polls close.
… not a Trump supporter BTW, just a phony-socialist hater.
This was on the cards for some time, see bottom of page 40:
http://docs.wind-watch.org/Clean-Energy-What-is-it-and-what-are-we-paying-for.pdf
The go to page 51, it won’t be long until the whole thing falls apart. It was completely ill conceived and can never be met.
This has drawn criticism in Britain, where reaching the 10% target will require doubling current biofuel supply, adding a further penny per litre on pump prices
Supermarket average prices rose by 3p a litre for both fuels with petrol rising from 102.68p per litre to 105.85p and diesel from 102.58p to 105.76p.
http://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/environment/2016/05/05/fuel-prices-up-for-second-month-in-a-row
I’m not complaining but scrapping the biofuel target because it will increase prices by less than one percent when the month to month variation is greater than three percent seems a little hard to believe.
Do not confuse price with cost. Governments love for people to confuse those two.
I do not confuse price with cost. All numbers quoted were prices at the pump.
It’s also a good way of hiding the fact that the EU blowhards were incapable of developing a bioethanol industry and had to put a tariff on US ethanol to further hide their abject uselessness at implementing anything other than phony-socialist propaganda.
Whether you like the concept or not, US agriculture and engineering were capable of actually implementing the industry. Brazil too.
BZ
It’s not about increasing the price at the pump, it’s about the effects of current biofuels on the environment.
First generation biofuels – those derived from food crops – have been at the centre of an intense controversy regarding their effects on the environment, with scientists warning they contribute to deforestation and food scarcity.
A recent study for the Commission found the indirect land use change of biofuels to be bigger than previously thought, leading environmentalists to warn they are more polluting than fossil fuels, a claim strongly refuted by the industry.
A great awakening.
The so-called “second generation” such as rapeseed or jatroptha isn’t any better and is arguably worse. While they don’t use foodstuffs, they are grown on cropland, displacing food production.
Rapeseed is used to make cooking oil, so it is food. “canola oil” is one name used as “rape oil” causes some folks pause…
Just ban the use of fossil fuels in tractors and transport vehicles used in the corn ethanol mandate. Just be sure and implement it right after the election and add it to the list of claimed mandates from the election.
Good ‘ol biofuels and Ethanol. All my small engines at home as well as my 2012 Ford truck will have their warranties voided if E15 is implemented.
At E10 in gasoline I loose about 10% efficiency through gas mileage. Home Engine have to use non-ethanol special purchase gasoline to operate smoothly. Not only do you pay higher prices for additives, but if you do not use additives to clean up the ethanol you will pay latter in repairs. Also if you own a boat, you do not want a manfunction based on the mandated fuel.
http://www.boatus.com/pressroom/release.asp?id=1075#.VytLWtj2b5o
Tom in Texas wrote, “At E10 in gasoline I loose about 10% efficiency through gas mileage.”
For E10 (10% ethanol and 90% gasoline), the [change in mpg] is small (~3%) when compared to conventional gasoline,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel
Tom in Texas
The 3% figure seems to be based loosely on the energy content, not actual difference. Ethanol runs cooler so the expansion of gases is lowered. In a true ethanol engine the compression ratio is changed to get some of the function back.
Putting E10 in a gasoline engine can easily have a 10= drop in delivered power, subject of course to the impact of design variables.
Arguments based on LHV or HHV alone are not meaningful because it depends on the combustion pressure and speed. For example the impact on mileage should vary with engine speed. Methanol is a pretty good fuel in a diesel engine, but maybe not your diesel engine!
Tom, I hope you do not own a boat, you are too stupid to use it.
tout le monde oublie “JEAN LAIGRET” – !!! un génie pourtant –
WordPress.com
Eric Worrall posted: ”
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Roger Helmer MEP – The European Union has scrapped post 2020 biofuel targets, thanks to pressure from green groups concerned about environmental damage. Green transport target will be scrapped post-2020, EU confirms”
but fuel is not fossil
Discovered this interesting interactive map. http://www.eia.gov/state/maps.cfm
Click on “Layers/Legend” then clear all except biomass. Seems the EPA is worried about all of the bad stuff in coal but look at where all of the Biomass facilities are. Why.? What health effects do they have? Does this map include the fact that ethanol producing facilities burn their own waste?
Actually, the “waste” from corn ethanol plants is the valuable dry distiller’s grains or DDGs, which is used in animal feed. Some even think of this as the primary product and that ethanol is the waste product, produced from the starch that the animals don’t need.
Philincalifornia: You are 100% correct in my opinion – at least in my very dated experience. I worked on a joint venture for a cattle feeding operation developing ethanol facilities in the late 80’s and 90’s. There was no question that they considered the ethanol a by-product that was only economic due to the government (and Industry) subsidies. Without the subsidies on the ethanol, grain would have been fed directly. However, partially processed grain from an ethanol plant is/was a better feed.
This is still true today Wayne. I’m in a business that needs to be on top of ethanol economics for other reasons. I was in a meeting last month where I heard that sometimes DDGs sell for more than the price of the corn, but you won’t read that in an Eric Worral article as he has DDGsophobia. This, despite that fact that I’ve brought this up before, with real links.
Excuse me, that would be Worrall not Worral.
Each farm state has two senators. We’ll never get rid of ethanol without getting rid of democracy. Expect ethanol content of gas to keep going up and mileage to keep going down. Better buy an electric lawn mower.
With children suing companies based on climate change and all the other innovations in legal claims in recent years, I think it’s time to look into directly suing U.S. corn farmers–for the children, the consumers, the lawnmower owners, the commuters, and all the small engine users. Boycotting Iowa and other large corn states would also help. Corn ethanol also discriminates against the poor.
You shouldn’t expect that at all Tab. The fight to even get to E15 was long and hard. It’s going nowhere above 15%, except for flex engines that can use E85.
You can run an electric lawnmower on a fuel cell that generates electricity directly from ethanol. Green fuel, green power, green lawn, just stupid economics.
Bill Mollison told me that there is more horsepower installed on lawn mowing equipment in the USA than on food farming tractors. Still true?
Since there could be some biologists reading this, have any studies been done correlating global warming with the increased use and spread of the honey bee around the globe. Seems to me that there would be a very strong correlation. Thus, Honey bees are the cause of global warming and the eradication of many native plants.
Even if co2 is the threat they say it is, bio fuels are completely illogical. It would be more carbon friendly to grow these crops and allow them to rot in the ground to offset the co2 from fossil diesel.
But the bigger problem from bio diesel is, it goes off in less then 12 months!! or so I’m told. Apparently, a there’s a bacteria in it that causes the diesel to break down. This is added to fossil diesel in European countries today. So if you have a boat, RV, or machine that has diesel fuel in the tank for more than 12 months That’s a big problem.
I just met with a global expert in biofuels (a real one) in Beijing. He says the biofuel solution is to turn everything into methanol because it is such a flexible fuel. It also doesn’t go bad. It is noxious, but so are green fanatics and we worked out ways to put up with their emanations so methanol will be a breeze.
He pointed out that all plastics can be turned into methanol and all biomass as will. All the sorting of garbage will be reduced to mineral or non-mineral. It actually sounded quite sensible. Methanol can be used as a feedstock for making plastic. You can fly planes on methanol. It is probably worth turning it into butanol for cars.
D. Carroll wrote, “But the bigger problem from bio diesel is, it goes off in less then 12 months!! or so I’m told. Apparently, a there’s a bacteria in it that causes the diesel to break down.”
All diesel supports the growth of bacteria. Read this …
Microbial Contamination of Diesel Fuel: Impact, Causes and Prevention
http://hpcdfuel.com/pdf/DOWfuel_training.pdf
If you ever buy a diesel boat, you will learn how difficult it is to stop fungus growing in the diesel tank and clogging up the fuel filter…
If you buy a boat you should learn how to use it safely. I was responsible for JP-5 used for emergency diesel on our nuke ship and refueling helos looking for subs. We made sure our fuel was good because lives depended on it.
I have know people who have gotten into the Pacific Ocean before finding out that their new boat had contaminated. There are services that will pump out diesel fuel, clean tanks, and so forth.
My boat has a gasoline fueled atomic 4. I do not leave the dock until I know the fuel is good and everything else is working well. For engines that I do not run frequently, I try to run them dry and then add fresh fuel, the next time I run them. I run my boat at the dock for an hour or so to make sure that the fuel is good.
One of the reason I think have a home generator for power outages is a waste of money is that the average person does not know how to take care of fuel.
There is an advantage for diesel if you use a lot of fuel. However, most sailboats and RV are used for part of the years and do not use a lot of fuel.
Meanwhile, CO2 emissions rose last year in the EU.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2016/05/03/co2-emissions-rose-in-the-eu-last-year/
Looks like the wheels are falling of the EU renewables bandwagon
No way. Weren’t the wind turbines supposed to fix that?
These people are such fkin idiots that they don’t even know how to use a pencil and the back of an envelope.
‘The European Commission will table a revision of the Renewable Energy Directive at the end of 2016, aiming to further push renewable sources like wind and solar across the European Union.’
This running amok gets cancelled by lack of amunition: money.
The bio-fuel-from-food scheme pressed for by green Groups is a humanitarian and environmental disaster which causes clear-cutting and burning of rainforests for palm oil plantations, burning of rainforests for sugarcane-ethanol schemes in Brazil. overplanting corn in the USA driving up World prices, and especially high food prices and hunger in Latin America.
The WindTurbine power generation schemes pressed forward by Green Groups are inefficient, costly and require massive subsidies to keep them going. The Wind-Turbines kill bats and birds and spoil people’s health and sanity, despoil the landscape, reduce milk production and are a fire hazard too.
Energy and CO2 taxes pressed for by Green Groups, fail to effect the World temperature, impoverish people and reduce their access to useable energy, kill old people in fuel poverty and cold, handicap the development of Third World Countries, and restrict people’s ability to travel and move goods.
There seems to be a pattern of Green Group activity emerging through the haze of CAGW.
I am skeptical about liars who are experts is everything.
I do not know about the EU but I have read most of the 2005 US Energy Bill.
Mandates for biofuels were not to reduce CO2. They were to develop alternate sources of transportation fuel. There was no mandate for any particular source. So there is no mandate for corn.
Farmers in the US could produce more crops than the world needed for food. Some were using feed corn in pellet stoves. Feed corn was dirt cheap.
Since corn farmers were ready to meet the demand, they captured the market. Good for them. There is not a nicer group of people in the world.
For all you folks who want to blame all the ills of the world on corn farmers, shame on you.
Mostly agree except the bit about apportioning shame. No need for that. Corn is just biomass that grows pretty efficiently. Nothing wrong with using biomass as fuel. It doesn’t affect the price of corn-based food.
The interference in the world food price is the dumping of low priced corn on the market where farmers need a higher price to make a viable living. Like putative CO2 harm, there have to calculated benefits and opportunity costs for economic actions. Overproduction and dumping are definitely harmful to small scale farmers who were doing fine before the intervention. There are numerous examples. South Africa and milk from the EU is a good one. The EU subsidises milk production and the net effect is to destroy the South African dairy industry.
If green groups are concerned about environmental damage, why haven’t they called for an end to the bird-choppers?
It’s called “cognitive dissonance”, which manifests itself as abject fkin stupidity, usually put forward with an elitist, holier than thou, planet-saving voice.
Google Emma Thompson
Ethanol is only good for drinking (gin, vodka, whiskey) The only environmentally-good biofuel is used cooking oil for diesel engines. Biogas from cow and pig manure is also good for engines converted to compressed natural gas.
That tree growing out of a petroleum barrel looks staged, I suspect the photograph has been manipulated to make it appear that such things happen. Does anyone have any experience with green biofuel barrels placed on featureless grey landscapes and the objects that emerge from them? I have also seen a hose and dripping fueling nozzle from a petrol pump emerging from a such a barrel fantastically suspended in the air, as if it were summoned by a snake-charmer. No supporting wires were in evidence..
The planet has been conquered but our exploration of stock imagery is far from complete.