I'm a biofuels skeptic, but these studies aren't the end of the story. The increase in carbon they cite comes from increased food production in other parts of the world to make up for corn that goes for ethanol here. By that same logic 1) meat-eating is a far worse problem, since it takes about eight times as much grain to produce a pound of animal protein as for humans as compared with the original grain, and 2) any conversion of arable land to anything else -- houses, Wal-marts, roads, whatever -- is also worse than ethanol production, since it displaces food production AND generates no fuel. There is truth to all of this, but it is not the whole truth.
What is true, I think, is that Midwestern states (and carmakers; witness GM's big push for E85) so far have put too much emphasis on ethanol and not enough on VMT reduction. Maybe we will get to a cellulosic nirvanna state, where biofuels clearly do improve our carbon situation, and maybe corn ethanol is a bridge to that. But clearly we've been too ready to pump up ethanol production and think we're making a big difference. We're not. Eric Sundquist ----- Original Message ---- From: Tim Wong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Eric Westhagen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; BikiesSubmissions <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, February 8, 2008 6:14:43 PM Subject: Re: [Bikies] Twice as injurious to World! It's hardly a secret that ethanol is basically a cash cow for Archer Daniels Midland and the other agribusine$$ giants. What I can't figure out is why anyone with an IQ above about 40 falls for it. We will all soon start seeing big beer price increases, as land is shifted from barley to GM corn. "It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong."--Voltaire (1694-1778) Direct Cost of U.S. War and Occupation of Iraq $490,171,701,658 >>> Eric Westhagen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 2/8/2008 5:58 PM >>> Dear Group, Typical of pop science and "interested monied" conclusions, the BIO FUELS world business was EXPOSED on the NBC nightly news to injure the "environment" twice as much as total gasoline usage. I would expect "each side" of the question has a "hundred qualification" and some retorts will appear here to this post of mine. And that doesn't even take into account what the high corn price has done to the poor of Mexico and has further driven them across the border. Nice going Al Gore and government encouragement. Eric Westhagen _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
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