Saturday, March 29, 2008

Conventional Wisdom: Ethanol Is A Complete Scam

Time Magazine now joins the Christian Science Monitor, NYTimes, WSJ, IBD, Reason, and Rollingstone Magazine, in coming out against ethanol and biofuels in its most recent issue:

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.

But the basic problem with most biofuels is amazingly simple, given that researchers have ignored it until now: using land to grow fuel leads to the destruction of forests, wetlands and grasslands that store enormous amounts of carbon.

Comment: As Reason Magazine points out "You know that something has achieved the status of "the conventional wisdom" when Time magazine finally latches onto it."

5 Comments:

At 3/29/2008 9:13 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hello, anybody home?

 
At 3/29/2008 10:07 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

yahoo! Great! What are the odds of reversing teh big government Ethanol boondoggle? I guess it's possible, but I'm not holding my breath....

 
At 3/30/2008 1:35 AM, Blogger Libertas said...

"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."

Maybe if we can get Bush to support other idiotic liberal ideas then they will no longer be popular either.

 
At 4/02/2008 10:41 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it's dramatically accelerating global warming,

It would seem rather hard for studies to show "dramatically accelerating global warming" as a result of the ethanol boom.

In that, you know, the globe hasn't gotten warmer since the ethanol boom started.

 
At 4/07/2008 9:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hmm...

I am going to guess these studies were funded by Shell Oil, Exxon, and the rest of the crew. Ethanol has proven to be a great source of renewable fuel especially when cars are engineered to run off of it. The fuel economy soars when this occurs. We need to stop listening to "false" research and look at the facts.

 

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