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The Ethanol Debacle Hating so-called "fossil fuels", coal, oil, and natural gas, with a passion, the environmentalists have perpetrated every deception possible and, among them, is the notion that Americans can avoid destroying the Earth if they just fill up the tanks of their automobiles with ethanol. As I have pointed out in the past, the world is not running out of oil and, here in the United States, we have enough reserves of coal to provide electricity and other needs for centuries to come. So who has the new Democrat majority in Congress declared persona non grata? The oil industry. Their proposed "answer" to our transportation energy needs is ethanol. Instead of pandering to the environmentalist’s obsession over fossil fuels, Congress should be making areas in and around the United States more accessible to exploration and extraction of known oil and natural gas supplies. That is the true definition of "energy independence."
That’s enough natural gas to supply all of America’s households for the next 39 years. In terms of oil, it is comparable to more than 30 years of current imports from Saudi Arabia. Currently, Congress permits access to just three percent of onshore federal oil and 13 percent of onshore federal gas under standard lease terms. While the Democrats in Congress proceed toward anointing ethanol as the "answer" to our transportation energy needs, 5l percent of the oil and 27 percent of the natural gas known reserves are completely off-limits to use. On January 10, the Senate Agriculture Committee convened to discuss two proposed bills, the "American Fuels Act" and the "BioFuels Security Act." They are aimed at creating artificial markets for ethanol and biodiesel. Their advocates will tout them as providing "energy independence." What they won’t tell you is that they will wreak havoc on the economy, needlessly raising the cost of food, and will, in the process, ignore the real solution, tapping America’s known reserves of oil and natural gas in the now-famed ANWR area of Alaska and off the long, Eastern and Western coastal continental shelf of the nation. One of the great ironies of the ethanol bandwagon is that a leading environmentalist, Lester R. Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, understands better than most how bad an idea it is. Brown recently called for a moratorium on the building of ethanol plants in the United States "so we can catch our breath and determine how much we want to harvest our corn for ethanol." Brown finds himself sharing the same pew as Tom Tanton, vice president of the Institute for Energy Research and host of www.factsonEnergy.org. There are many reasons why ethanol is not the answer to our need for gasoline to fuel our automobiles. Here are just a few: Ethanol contains about 34 percent less energy output than gasoline. Thus the miles traveled per gallon on ethanol are greatly reduced. Ethanol increases the price per gallon by 20 to 80 cents and, at the same time, requires more stops to refuel. Ethanol is so corrosive it must be transported by truck or rail because it will damage pipelines. Imagine what it does to the engine of your automobile? Ethanol, when transportation, refining, and farming costs are factored into its production for fuel, provides negligible energy gains. Ethanol, thanks to the subsidies and mandates by Congress, has driven the price of corn to 10-year-highs. This increases the cost to feedlot owners who feed corn to cattle and pigs, forcing the cost of these food stocks to rise. Ethanol production has doubled from 2001 to 2005 and could double again by the 2008 harvest season, providing 15 billion gallons or approximately six percent of U.S. auto fuel needs. Let me repeat that, six percent! And all the time this is occurring, the price of everything else that involves corn production goes up with no appreciable increase in energy value. Finally, as Brown points out, since U.S. corn accounts for one-fourth of all grain exports, a rise in the price "could create food riots in low-income areas around the world." There is, based solely on these facts, no good reason to build a single new plant for the production of ethanol, nor for any Congressional mandates to force every driver to fill their tank with a mixture of ethanol and gasoline. It is an energy debacle of enormous proportions and it exists because global warming doomsayers in Congress have imposed the worst possible "answer" on everyone and are likely to compound that mistake knowing that most Americans haven’t a clue about the true facts. There is an effort in Congress—mostly thanks to the Democrat leadership—to strangle the energy baby in the cradle. Why they and some addled Republicans would want to do this defies an answer beyond the hatred environmentalists have for all forms of energy other than windmills, solar panels, and crops which should be eaten instead of poured into one’s gas tank. (See "The Ethanol Debacle" below). Let’s start by understanding there are now three hundred million Americans. More people increase the need for more electricity. America currently must generate 15.43 trillion kilowatts of electricity and is in immediate need of more. This is why, following every winter storm, the very first piece of news reported is how many people are without electricity. To put it another way, no electricity means an instant return to the days when heat come exclusively from a fireplace or wood-burning stove. Light came from candles or lanterns burning whale oil. Nothing ran on electricity because there was no electricity. Try to imagine getting through your day without electricity. Most of the nation’s electricity is produced in coal-fired plants and in mid-January a coalition of environmental groups was demanding that banks reject loan requests for projects that might produce greenhouse gas emissions; projects like the eleven new pulverized-coal power plants that a Texas utility, TXU Corporation, plans to build at the cost of about a billion dollars per plant. A pollution-free alternative for new electricity generation is, of course, nuclear fission. While the cost of natural gas and oil will remain volatile, between 1990 and 1999 the cost of nuclear fuel decreased 46 percent. The environmentalists, of course, have little to say about nuclear power plants that these days provide some twenty percent of our electricity needs. If we put aside the issues surrounding electricity, the other major factor of the nation’s economy is transportation and that runs on gasoline and diesel. Anything that affects the cost of these fuels has an immediate impact on everyone’s life. The nightly news gets apocalyptic every time the cost of oil, i.e., gasoline, increases. The fact that the cost per barrel has dropped precipitously of late is not being reported with equal fervor. Wall Street, however, has taken notice and is bullish on America. All of which brings us to the "Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act." Let me say this is probably the most stupid title attached to a piece of legislation in the long history of Congress. Humanity, let alone Americans, are not "stewards"—those responsible for—the climate and not likely to provide any "innovations" beyond what now exists. In short, we are not in control of the climate. It is in control of us. Six U.S. Senators, including at least two 2008 presidential contenders, revealed their plans to, as Reuters so delicately expressed it, "force power plants and industry to curb heat-trapping greenhouse gases, seeking to cut emissions to one-third of 2000 levels by 2050." Over in the House, more than a dozen environmental groups gathered on January 17 to lobby for the "Clean Energy Act", the keystone of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s mad schemes to punish Big Oil for providing the fuel that keeps all of us on the road. This bill would actually require oil companies to "invest in renewable energy research" as if the U.S. government hasn’t already spent billions without much to show for it. The "Clean Energy Act" not only will do nothing to encourage oil companies to explore for and then extract the oil and natural gas we know exists offshore the continental shelf of America—thus providing greater energy independence—but will force up the cost at the pump for every gallon of gas Americans will purchase. On January 18, however, the House passed the "Clean Energy Act" on a 264-123 vote, creating in the process, the "Strategic Energy Efficiency and Renewables Reserve" that will divert royalty payments to investments in ethanol, wind, hydrogen, and biofuels technologies, as well as energy conservation programs. It costs billions to find new sources of oil and billions more to extract and refine it. Where does Speaker Pelosi think that money is going to come from if she punishes oil companies for what she and other environmentalists deem record profits? And there were record profits, but the cost of a barrel of oil has fallen precipitously to around $59 a barrel from $70. A global commodity, the price is set by the marketplace. When you attack Big Oil, you are attacking every single driver of every single car and truck in America because you are rendering these companies less competitive in the global marketplace. This explains why we are told from morning until night that global warming is happening, the oceans will rise, the glaciers will melt, and we will surely all die. This is "science" based on computer models. If the U.S. weather bureau, using the most sophisticated existing computer models, cannot accurately predict next week’s weather anywhere in the nation, why oh why does anyone believe these same computers can predict it fifty years from now? The real problem is now and it comes in the form of these Senate and House pieces of legislation based on nothing but the vivid imaginations of environmental fear mongers and the unbelievable ignorance of politicians, some of whom want to be your next president. The real energy needs of America will not be met by Congress. They are set to impose new costs and new obstacles to the generation of energy, whether it is electricity or whether it is fuel for your car or truck. They propose to do this by mandating "renewable" fuels and increasing the taxation of energy companies. Why we elect such people to public office is one of those vexing questions, but the least we can do to protect ourselves against them is to write, phone or fax to tell them to leave energy to the people who know something about it or to pray to a just and merciful God that President Bush vetoes these very bad laws. You can come to the Center’s web site every week to learn the true facts about energy, the Middle East, and other issues of importance, but to continue providing them costs money. That’s why your donation is critical. Any amount is welcome. If you prefer to send a check, please make it payable to The Caruba Organization, 28 West Third Street, Suite 1321, South Orange, NJ 07079. Thank you!
©
2007 Alan Caruba. |
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This has not occurred because most of America’s onshore energy is in the West and Alaska where more than half the land is under federal control. We are talking about estimates, according to the U.S. Interior Department, of 187 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 21 billion barrels of oil, representing 76 percent of onshore federal oil and gas resources.