Archive | Ethanol


Obama One Year Later — A Legacy of Lies and Broken Promises

It’s been a year since the president was elected, and he’s already piled up an impressive list of lies and broken promises.

The broken promises include his pledge to enact a “net spending cut,” his promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year, and his promise not to sign bills without first giving the public five days of notice.

The Congressional Budget Office says that Obama’s proposed budgets will explode the national debt through massive spending increases, increasing the already large deficits…

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Posted in Agriculture, Economy, Energy, Environment, Ethanol, Global Warming, Healthcare, Insurance, International, Legal, Natural Resources, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Sanctimony, Stimulus to Nowhere, TradeComments (0)

Cap-and-Trade Global Warming Bill Is A Scam, Experts Reveal

Cap-and-Trade Global Warming Bill Is A Scam, Experts Reveal

Two EPA lawyers criticized the cap-and-trade energy bill passed by the House as a scam, noting in The Washington Post that it will be manipulated to profit politically connected corporations and reward certain kinds of pollution, while not cutting greenhouse gas emissions.  A similar scheme enacted in Europe in the name of fighting global warming enriched polluters, while not reducing emissions, which actually rose faster in most of Europe than in the U.S.

The Washington Examiner explains how the bill will lead to deforestation, and thus increase greenhouse gas…

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Posted in Agriculture, Energy, Environment, Ethanol, Features, Global Warming, Natural Resources, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Sanctimony, ZeitgeistComments (0)

“Advanced” biofuels lag behind mandate

“Advanced” biofuels lag behind mandate

In today’s ClimateWire (subscription required), reporter Jessica Leber describes a biofuel industry still totally dependent on government handouts and still pleading for more special favors.

First a bit of background.

In December 2007, Congress passed and President Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA). Among other things, EISA boosted the existing (2005 Energy Policy Act) Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) from 7.5 billion gallons a year by 2012 to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022. Of those 36 billion gallons, 21 billion gallons must come from…

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Posted in Ethanol, Features, Global Warming, ZeitgeistComments (0)

Will climate change cause water wars? Will Waxman-Markey enhance U.S. energy security? No and No.

Last week, on the free-market energy blog MasterResource.Org, I posted a two-part column on climate change and national security. In a nutshell, I argued that global warming is likely not an important geopolitical or military “threat multiplier,” and that the national security risks of climate change policies likely outweigh those of climate change itself.

One of the great things about “publishing” on the Internet is that readers can quickly and easily share other insights and information the author had not considered.

Climate scientist and fellow blogger Chip Knappenberger called my…

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Posted in Energy, Ethanol, Global WarmingComments (0)

Will Support for Cap-and-Trade Energy Tax Melt Away?  It’s Costly and Won’t Help the Environment

Will Support for Cap-and-Trade Energy Tax Melt Away? It’s Costly and Won’t Help the Environment

People aren’t willing to pay much to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases to fight global warming, according to a Washington Post-ABC News Poll. 52 percent said they would support a law that “significantly lowered greenhouse gas emissions” — but only if it cost them less than $10 a month. Only 39 percent said they would support such a law if it cost them $25 a month — which is vastly less than it would actually cost.

In the name of…

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Posted in Agriculture, Energy, Environment, Ethanol, Features, Global Warming, International, Legal, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Sanctimony, ZeitgeistComments (8)

Liberal Congressional Leaders Buy Luxury Jets, Trash the Environment

Liberal Congressional Leaders Buy Luxury Jets, Trash the Environment

Congress plans to spend $200 million on luxury jets for liberal House leaders, even though it earlier denounced the automakers for having corporate jets, and even though the luxury jets the House plans to buy emit vast amounts of pollution and greenhouse gases. Now they’ll be able to go on foreign junkets and hob-nob with wealthy lobbyists in style.

As Victor Davis Hanson notes, this excess and hypocrisy is typical of a House Speaker “Pelosi who rails about carbon footprints, but wants the…

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Posted in Energy, Environment, Ethanol, Global Warming, Healthcare, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony, Stimulus to Nowhere, TradeComments (2)

California’s Biofuels Policy: Yes, No, or Both

California’s Biofuels Policy: Yes, No, or Both

The Los Angeles Times‘ Judith Lewis relates an amusing example of how government can undermine its own harebrained schemes.

It was a fine June day in 2007 when a senator from Illinois, then a long-shot for the presidency, stood beside the pumps at Conserv Fuel in West Los Angeles and congratulated the heroes of the biofuel revolution. Conserv Fuel was one of the first fueling stations in the country to offer biofuel at the pump, and Barack Obama was looking to establish…

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Posted in Energy, Ethanol, Politics as UsualComments (1)

Obama Health-Care Plan Would Take Away 5 Important Freedoms, CNN Says; Obama Would Also Raise Taxes, End Affordable Plans, and Break Promises

CNN notes that there are “5 freedoms you’d lose in health care reform” as promoted by the Obama Administration: the freedom to choose your doctors, the freedom to choose what’s in your plan, the freedom to keep your existing plan, the freedom to be rewarded for healthy living, and the freedom to choose high-deductible coverage.

Earlier, we described how Obama’s health-care plan would destroy many affordable health-care plans, raise taxes on the middle class, and break Obama’s campaign promises, as…

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Posted in Energy, Environment, Ethanol, Global Warming, Healthcare, Politics as Usual, Stimulus to Nowhere, TradeComments (0)

Obama Health-Care Plan Destroys Cheap Health-Care Options, Raises Taxes, Breaks Promises

In 2008, Obama promised not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. But he is now breaking that promise by proposing to tax some middle-class families to pay for health care. Obama has also falsely pledged that if you like your health insurance, you will be able to keep it under his plan. But the Congressional health-care bills he backs would destroy countless inexpensive health-care plans by gutting a federal law called ERISA that makes it possible for employers to offer…

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Posted in Agriculture, Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Employment, Energy, Environment, Ethanol, Global Warming, Healthcare, Insurance, International, Legal, Nanny State, Natural Resources, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Regulation, Sanctimony, Stimulus to Nowhere, TradeComments (11)

Put Rocket Fuel, Not Corn in Your Tank

Put Rocket Fuel, Not Corn in Your Tank

As the ethanol industry sees its prospects flounder, it has sought the help of an actual general to stem the public backlash against its uneconomic, environmentally harmful product. Reports Fortune:

Reporting for duty in ethanol’s counterattack: Wesley Clark, the retired four-star general and former NATO commander, who signed on in February as co-chairman of an upstart ethanol trade group called Growth Energy. Clark, 64, has fully embraced the private sector since ending his run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004.…

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Posted in Energy, EthanolComments (1)

Does the ethanol mandate increase CO2 emissions?

That may seem counter-intuitive, because burning ethanol merely puts back into the air the carbon dioxide (CO2) that corn crops recently pulled out of it, whereas burning gasoline liberates carbon that had been stored in geologic deposits for millions of years.

But other factors come into play, such as the fossil energy inputs required to produce the corn, turn it into ethanol, and deliver the ethanol to market. 

In addition, as EPA argues in its proposed rule to implement the renewable fuel standard program established by the…

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Posted in Ethanol, Global Warming, Odds & EndsComments (0)

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