Posted by GasMan on May 9, 2008 Check this out from Brownfield News Wire-
Ethanol’s defenders working “24-7″
Thursday, May 8, 2008, 4:47 PM
by Peter Shinn
The Nebraska Corn Board hosted National Corn Growers Association CEO Rick Tolman in Lincoln Wednesday. Tolman, who was originally scheduled to talk about corn research with University of Nebraska at Lincoln officials, added a press conference to his agenda in order to defend corn-based ethanol.
Tolman told Brownfield afterward he’s been working practically non-stop to counteract a sophisticated, multi-million dollar public relations campaign by the oil and food processing industries against ethanol. And Tolman is asking for the aid of agricultural producers who back the renewable fuel.
“We really need farmers to get up and help tell the story - make sure their Congressman their Senators know the facts and what’s going on,” urged Tolman. “But it is 24-7.”
The only multi-million dollar campaign working against ethanol is the costs imposed upon consumers by our outlandish biofuels policy
Read More | Category: Federal Legislation
Posted by Marlo on May 8, 2008 Washington Times
Food and fuel follies
May 8, 2008
By Ed Feulner - “What could possibly go wrong?” That’s what members of Congress probably thought when they started shoveling bigger subsidies at ethanol producers. Now, with food riots erupting in some parts of the world, we have our answer: a lot.
Other factors — a weak dollar, high energy costs, low crop yields in places such as Australia — have played a role in this crisis. But diverting food to fuel is clearly a contributor and it exacerbates the situation. (more…)
Read More | Category: Food or Fuel?, Commentary
Posted by Marlo on May 8, 2008 Guns for Oil
Wall Street Journal
May 7, 2008; Page A18
Speaking of energy (see here), we can’t help but give more attention to a recent press release from some of the Senate’s leading liberals. Charles Schumer, Byron Dorgan, Bernie Sanders, Bob Casey and Mary Landrieu are demanding that President Bush tell OPEC nations to increase their oil supplies or risk losing arms deals with the United States. The Senators say U.S. consumers need the price relief that only increased oil production can bring.
Yes, that Senator Schumer and that Senator Dorgan, both of whom voted against increasing U.S. oil production because they couldn’t abide drilling across 1% of Alaska’s wilderness. Yes, that Senator Casey, who has called for mandatory reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide. At least Senator Landrieu of Louisiana has fought to allow more offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
All of these Senate Democrats are willing to accept greater carbon emissions, as long as we can also outsource jobs in the petroleum industry to Middle Eastern dictatorships. The Senators do aver that “some of us have concerns in general about arming this region to the teeth,” but apparently cheap fossil fuel buys a lot of peace of mind.
A special word of concern about Mr. Sanders: He is the only avowed socialist in Congress, but the Vermonter appears to be losing his religion over $122-a-barrel oil. By signing this letter, not only is he officially recognizing the law of supply and demand; he’s also proposing a more crassly commercial trade of guns for oil than anything we’ve ever heard from the most candid realpolitician.
To top it off, the Senator whose Web site proudly proclaims that the first bill he introduced was to combat global warming now wants more fossil fuels ready for burning. We hope his friends are closely watching Mr. Sanders, in case he blows a gasket over all of this cognitive ideological dissonance.
Read More | Category: Energy Security, Featured Commentary
Posted by Marlo on May 8, 2008 A May 2008 report from USDA on recent rises in commodity prices, while emphasizing the greatly increased demand from developing countries as well as the decreased supply because of adverse weather in parts of the world, comments (p. 18):
“The data suggest that while U.S. corn used for ethanol production had only
a small effect on global markets in the 1980s and 1990s, the increase in U.S.
ethanol production over the past 5 years and the related significant changes
in the structure of the U.S. corn market have had a more pronounced impact
on the world’s supply and demand balance for total coarse grains recently.
Importantly, since the United States is the world’s largest corn exporter,
some of the higher prices resulting from increased U.S. demand has spilled
over onto world markets.”
Read More | Category: Food or Fuel?
Posted by Marlo on May 8, 2008 Brazil’s energy plan examined
By D. Sean Shurtleff, New York Times
May 7, 2008
With national security on everyone’s mind and the average retail price of gasoline nearing an inflation-adjusted high of $3.40 a gallon, analysts have touted Brazil as an example the United States should follow on the path to “energy independence.”
Unfortunately, the analysts and the public they mislead seem to misunderstand both the substantial differences between energy markets in the United States and Brazil and the underlying reason for Brazil’s success. On the latter point, Brazil’s success is often attributed to its thriving ethanol market, but this is at most only a small part of the story. (more…)
Read More | Category: Energy Security, Economics of Ethanol
Posted by Marlo on May 6, 2008 National Review Online, Planet Gore
May 5, 2008
Food for Fuel Is No Laughing Matter [Marlo Lewis]
Cliff May begins his NRO column, “The Hunger,” by retelling an old joke about astronomers discovering a giant meteor hurtling towards Earth and the Washington Post running a headline: “World to end tomorrow: minorities and poor to suffer most.” While it is fine to make light of the media’s tendency to paint any change in market conditions as a class issue, in this case the joke doesn’t work. When we are talking about substantial food price inflation, it is the poor who suffer. Rampant food inflation also increases the number of poor people.
I don’t usually quote eco-radical George Monbiot, but on this topic nobody has said it better: “Even when the price of food was low, 850 million people went hungry because they could not afford to buy it. With every increment in the price of flour or grain, several million more are pushed below the bread line.” (more…)
Read More | Category: Food or Fuel?, Featured Commentary
Posted by Marlo on May 1, 2008 ‘Let Them Burn Ethanol’
by Iain Murray (more by this author)
Human Events, April 30, 2008
American grocery stores are starting to introduce food rationing. Wal Mart is restricting the amount of rice customers can buy. In Mexico and Yemen, in Egypt and Indonesia, the poor are taking to the streets to protest massive rise in food prices as well as shortages. A short distance from our shores, the troubled nation of Haiti is in crisis again; Haitians, dependent on U.S. grain imports, have seen those dry up and have been reduced to eating cakes of dirt.
How did this come about? Because on top of rises in energy prices and some changes in the diets of developing world countries, we are burning a large portion of the world’s food crop in our cars’ fuel tanks, in the name of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and curing our “addiction to oil.” (more…)
Read More | Category: Food or Fuel?, Featured Commentary
Posted by Marlo on April 30, 2008 Biofuels Halt Would Ease Food Prices - Ag Group
by Missy Ryan, REUTERS NEWS SERVICE, April 30, 2008
WASHINGTON - A moratorium on global grain- and oilseed-based biofuels would help ease raging wheat and corn prices by up to 20 percent in the next few years, a leading agriculture research group said on Tuesday.
“Our models analysis suggest that if a moratorium on biofuels would be issued in 2008, we could expect a price decline of maize by about 20 percent and for wheat by about 10 percent in 2009-10. So it’s this significant,” Joachim von Braun, who heads the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), told reporters in a briefing. (more…)
Read More | Category: Food or Fuel?
Posted by Marlo on April 30, 2008 Food price hikes fuel anti-ethanol moves in U.S.
By Carey Gillam, Reuters, Mon Apr 28, 2008 6:35pm BST
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - Missouri is considering rolling back a mandate supporting ethanol production amid growing outrage over rising prices for food and livestock feed.
It was less than four months ago that ethanol supporters were celebrating the implementation of a Missouri law requiring gasoline sold throughout the state contain 10 percent ethanol. The law, passed in 2006, took effect January 1.
But now, in the face of growing criticism of the nation’s ethanol-friendly policies, Missouri may be among the first to back away from ethanol supports. (more…)
Read More | Category: Food or Fuel?
Posted by Marlo on April 24, 2008 The World Bank has an informative–and very disturbing–Web page devoted to the rapidly unfolding global food crisis. Among other facts:
- Since 2000, global food prices have increased 75% and wheat prices 200%.
- The food crisis imperils 100 million people.
- 36 countries are in a food crisis (Food and Agriculture Organization).
- A quarter of the U.S. corn crop (11% of world production) went into biofuels this year.
Read More | Category: Food or Fuel?
