Hybrids, ethanol efficacy, tarriffs ...energy legislation...= a big mess...

Cheap Shot at Toyota
October 24, 2007; Page A20
Never underestimate the value of hypocrisy, which makes the world go around and the lives of social animals livable. But there's hypocrisy and hypocrisy. Herewith, a defense of Toyota and a slam of the ethanol lobby.

Toyota suddenly finds itself in a position as whipping boy for environmental groups (its usual allies) only because it makes the Prius, sold as a "green" car, never mind that it burns gasoline like any other car. Brand imagery is hostage-giving, and the Natural Resources Defense Council and fellow rabblers now find it convenient to promote the storyline "Toyota = hypocrite" because the company recently signed up with GM, Ford and Chrysler to oppose a Senate bill mandating higher fuel mileage targets in favor of a House bill with somewhat less demanding targets.

You can find evidence of the green campaign at truthabouttoyota.com or by thumbing through the collected works of Tom Friedman. Angry Prius owners even staged a rally two weekends ago in Portland, Ore.

Toyota is a hypocrite all right -- for supporting any mileage standard at all.

As car companies do, it sold Prius customers a car that met their needs and/or flattered their vanity. For other customers whose hot buttons lie elsewhere, Toyota has the Tundra, its giant, fuel-consuming pickup. Auto companies only achieve efficient scale by appealing to different consumer appetites. The profitless Prius wouldn't exist if not for the non-hybrids that keep Toyota in business. Indeed, Toyota supports the House bill over the Senate bill only because it would let auto makers continue to make big vehicles that happen to be the ones Americans, with their dollars, show they actually want.

But the 32-year-old CAFE rules have become a fetish of environmental groups, a talisman of their clout, a ticket to a seat at a table in Washington. The policy itself has no value: It doesn't reduce oil imports. It doesn't meaningfully curb fossil-fuel use.

In the nature of things, auto buyers amortize their forced investment in fuel economy by driving more miles, burning more gas. The impressive reliability gains of the auto makers over the past 30 years are in part a reflection of this consumer demand for more miles. Ditto the conspicuous increase in vehicle size and comfort, partly a function of the increased time motorists spend in their cars.

For an example of truly pernicious hypocrisy, forget Toyota and consider the ethanol lobby. It endlessly invokes global warming and energy security for a program that positively obstructs both, while enriching an industry that wouldn't exist except by government handouts.

Two years ago, Congress was debating a new law forcing motorists to buy more ethanol. Lobbying for the change was venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, who told legislators he had received confidential warnings from oil executives that "Big Oil" would drive down prices to put ethanol out of business. Ergo, the industry needed Congress's help.

Two years later, oil has hit a near-record high of $90, but ethanol still can't stand on its own feet. Far from it. The industry is plagued by a glut and falling prices, while costs have gone through the roof because of the surging price of corn.

Dozens of new bio-refineries built amid signs of congressional and White House favor now are losing money. The solution? Up has geared a new campaign for a larger mandate to soak up the excess supply created by the last mandate. A recently passed Senate bill would require motorists to buy 36 billion gallons a year by 2022, up from 7.5 billion gallons under current law.

At least this would benefit the atmosphere, right? Think again. A research team featuring Paul Crutzen, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on ozone depletion, recently showed that the intensive cultivation of biofuels in the U.S. and Europe produces up to 70% more greenhouse effect than the fossil fuels they displace (nitrous oxide, a byproduct of the fertilizers used, has nearly 300 times the heat-trapping properties of carbon dioxide).

Passenger cars can burn fuel consisting of 10% ethanol. If our goal were really to displace conventional gasoline, we'd open our coastal markets to sugar-cane ethanol from Brazil and other Southern Hemisphere countries, produced by less intensive methods that result -- irony alert -- in a genuine reduction in greenhouse emissions.

But Washington blocks imported ethanol with a 54-cents-a-gallon tariff to protect domestic ethanol profits. So let's sum up the ways you're paying to prop up an industry that's bad for energy security and bad for climate worries: higher taxes, higher gas prices and higher food prices. Did we mention the 3% mileage penalty that comes from burning gasoline with a 10% ethanol content, thanks to ethanol's inferior BTU value compared to gasoline?

Ethanol lobbyists like to pretend they're the front line against OPEC and Middle Eastern terrorists. Their real goal is to create a high-cost outpost of OPEC in the Midwest -- call it "Cornistan" -- dependent on high oil prices and an endless conveyor of subsidies and protectionism delivered via the clout of rural interests in the U.S. Senate.

Energy "independence" is a mischievous pipedream; energy security is not. America's real interests would be served by free trade in biofuels. But instead we've ended up with an uneconomic domestic ethanol industry that will forever have its hand out no matter how high oil prices go.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119318418447069173.html

__________________
No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor

It amazes me how powerful the agricultural lobby is. I can understand why a country might want to maintain a stable food supply but the taxation of imported ethanol is an unwarranted trade barrier. Not only is the environmental case for sugar cane better, so is the economic case for it. The cost of production is much lower. Paying much more to secure a domestic source of energy doesn't make any sense.

It’s nice to see articles written saying this. Hopefully we will start to see a little more sense in policy making.

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How about the EV!

General Motors EV1 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Do we have the full story ?

I am curious because I dont know. How tough would it be for corn growers to convert to sugar producers? It seems one is better than the other. If the US wants to get off oil, wouldnt one be be proven more effecient through stats?

The only farmers in America that receive more subsidies than the corn farmers are the sugar farmers.

US sugar production is not 'world competitive'.

As it stands, ethanol made from corn uses more energy than it allegedly saves in gasoline. The process actually increases the amount of green house gases produced.

Ethanol is a massive agricultural subsidy program. It is not a smart enviornmental policy and it is not a smart energy policy.

No, we don't - otherwise, people would stop carrying on about the EV1.

The EV1 was a very useful vehicle in it's particular niche, but the problem occurs when people try to tout it as a universal solution.

If you live in a temperate climate where you only make short trips, the EV1 could be very practical.

But if you live in a more rural area, particularly one where it gets cold, the EV1 would be all but completely useless.

Matt

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De duobus malis, minus est semper eligendum

yaarrrRRRRR!

a good read mighty imperator matey.

i've felt fer a long time that using corn-based ethanol was a big waste 'o time, and a fine way to see presidential candidates embaress themselves in iowa every four years.

meself, i've always been a fan 'o trying to maximize the efficiency 'o renewable sources 'o energy. *points to his pirate sails hanging from the masts 'o his vessel*

sadly, me parents, who both be scientists, tell me that solution isn't even a speck on the horizon. what i don't understand is, is this because there be not the political/fiscal will to pursue this solution, at all costs, or is it just plain 'ol impossible?

i do remember readin' that there be efforts to use agri-based alternative fuel in south america that be far far far far more efficient that the ones used here in america. be thar a reason that the united states doesn't employ these methods?

aye?


-meadhallPirate

That would be Brazil and they are the world's most efficient sugar producers.

Sugar used for making ethanol is highly efficient and is a good environmental and good energy policy.

But the US is not well suited for sugar production (thus, the heavy subsidies to US sugar producers - mostly located in Florida).

The US corn growers are a much larger and politically powerful group.

The prevailing attitudes among Americans at the time was not condusive the success of a car like this. Even amid high gas prices the demand for "gas guzzlers" is still fairly high. For example, Chevrelet has yet to release the Optra in America despite the high prices. The reasons Matt mentioned are also significant factors as to why GM may have canceled the EV1.

I have heard decent things about the prospects for electrical veichles but there are still major obsticals that need to be overcome to make them commercially viable.

thank you pirate....whats more is;

a snippet
Ethanol plants consume roughly four gallons of water to produce each gallon of fuel, but that's only a fraction of ethanol's total water habit. Cornell ecology professor David Pimentel says that when you count the water needed to grow the corn, one gallon of ethanol requires a staggering 1,700 gallons of H2O. Backers of the Senate bill say that less-thirsty technologies are just around the corner, which is what we've been hearing for years.

Ethanol's Water Shortage - WSJ.com

anyway, other than subsidizing and enriching midland-richards the worlds largest agricultural consortium, ethanol is a joke. Ethanol bills in congress and the presumptive passing of such, has already pushed commodities prices regards ANYTHING related to soy, corn etec. to new highs....

further- the economist has an article called; “ethanol schmethanol”....railing against its use as well.
check this...

Advanced biofuels | Ethanol, schmethanol | Economist.com

__________________
No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor

Having been to Hawaii more than a few times, I know there is quite a lot of sugar cane grown there. Does the US have the capacity to make even a dent in what would be needed for sugar ethanol? Is it possible to be cost effective through sugar imports?
I know the model works well for Brazil, its number of autos is much less than the US and they have the correct climate and enough space to grown enough sugar to make it effective.

*waves to Bunz*

yarrr, master bunz! i did me a wee bit 'o readin', for i was askin' meself the same question you were. apparently, the climate in the USA is not the best kind for growin' these sugar cane plants, so thar be no hope here fer us.

grrrrr.

*shakes his fist angrily at the climate*

-meadHallPirate

Right, and transforming land in the contiguous 48 for sugar cane (or even beet) is bad for eco-systems in the climates friendly for cane (Florida, LA, etc.). That doesn't seem too environmentally sound, either - fertilizer runoff, irrigation, etc. Ethanol should be dead in the water. It is an inefficeint fuel compared to higher hydrocarbons and an environmentally unsound fuel to process, whether from corn or cane/beet, at the current demands.

Even if it didn't have its relative inherent chemical deficiencies as a fuel and was a feasible solution, the best approach would be to design ethanol production by tooling for sugar and easing import restrictions from sugar producers who do have favorable climates for growing cane. Not only would that help lower the cost of feedstock for EtOH production from sugar, it would give some South American and Carribean farmers more incentive to grow cane rather than coco or other illegal drugs. Too bad it's a pretty moot point with respect to fuel efficiency and environmental concerns.

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I am an American. That's the way most of us put it, just matter of factly. They are plain words, those four: you could write them on your thumbnail, or sweep them clear across this bright autumn sky. But remember too, that they are more than just words. They are a way of life. So whenever you speak them; speak them firmly, speak them proudly, speak them gratefully. I am an American. ...a tradition

I guess one must weigh the enviromental damage done by farming compared to the damage done by burning fossil fuels. Any chance ethanol could be made from other veggies? Potatos or something?

Oh, most definitely. Vodka comes from potatos, so, sure. However, as fermentation is the enzymatic process used to produce EtOH from plant material, the most efficient feedstocks for that production would be those high in glucose. Glucose is the substrate in the feedstock that the enzymes convert to EtOH. As potatos and other veggies produce less of the least-complicated glucose per gram of material, they are less desirable feedstocks than cane, beet, or corn in EtOH production.

And, other processes would have to be added to production facilities to allow for a different enzymatic breakdown of the complex carbohydrates in other plant materials, thus using even more energy to produce EtOH.

__________________
I am an American. That's the way most of us put it, just matter of factly. They are plain words, those four: you could write them on your thumbnail, or sweep them clear across this bright autumn sky. But remember too, that they are more than just words. They are a way of life. So whenever you speak them; speak them firmly, speak them proudly, speak them gratefully. I am an American. ...a tradition