Thread: The secret, dirty cost of Obama's green power push

Wow. This corn ethanol idea is even worse than I thought, and I thought it was pretty bad.
The secret, dirty cost of Obama's green power push

With the Iowa political caucuses on the horizon in 2007, presidential candidate Barack Obama made homegrown corn a centerpiece of his plan to slow global warming. And when President George W. Bush signed a law that year requiring oil companies to add billions of gallons of ethanol to their gasoline each year, Bush predicted it would make the country "stronger, cleaner and more secure."

But the ethanol era has proven far more damaging to the environment than politicians promised and much worse than the government admits today.

As farmers rushed to find new places to plant corn, they wiped out millions of acres of conservation land, destroyed habitat and polluted water supplies, an Associated Press investigation found.

Originally Posted by Harold14370

The secret, dirty cost of Obama's green power push

Wow, no one knew anything about the problems with corn ethanol before Obama created the industry from scratch, and he's been trying hard to keep the information secret to protect his kingdom! It's a scandal.

Next thing you know someone will reveal the terrible, damaging secret that the government is trying to keep from you - pizza makes you fat. Why does Obama think he can get away with this? Does he think we're stupid?

The price of corn shot through it's old ceiling making corn a much more valuable crop.
When the farmers plowed under the shelter beds and buffer zones to plant every last available acre in corn, the time bomb started ticking.
Then came the rains of 2008, and it rained and it rained and the river flooded over-topping the dams spillway by over 15 feet. Meanwhile the university had build cofferdams toward the downstream side of Iowa City, which narrowed the channel, and backed up the water flooding much of the riverfront, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars of damage.
All that planting in the buffer zones let the rains wash millions of tons of topsoil downriver, and our bay silted in making our trek to the river to kayak or canoe a hundred yards longer. And the floods brought down all manner of noxious weeds and vines.

One hell of a plan.
Does nothing to slow "global warming" but may lessen our oil imports just a bit.

Politicians should stay the hell out of commerce. They suck at it.

Politicians should stay the hell out of commerce. They suck at it.

And commerce does such a good job of commerce?

When it comes to environmental consequences of commercial activities, I'd suggest that the examples of commerce mucking things up are a lot more common than those of government. Start with a few examples like, destroying the Los Angeles public transportation system in the 20s and 30s, the Cuyahoga River - and any other river infested with unrestricted commercial activity for that matter, the pesticide factory at Bhopal.

Of course, the worst examples are when commerce and government get together in some way. The massive government subsidies all round the world for fossil industries and their products are a good example of this kind of thing. In fact, the catastrophic loss of quality soil and water from this so-called green fuel production looks very like the destruction of soils and water catchments / rivers associated with coal mining and coal-based power plants. Call it black, call it green, either way getting the government to subsidise or promote outdated ways of doing things is a guaranteed way to make a worse mess than you started with.

There would have been no need to subsidise ethanol production at all if industry had adopted more fuel efficient car designs 30 odd years ago when the Europeans and Japanese started down that path.

unregulated commerce is bad enough
but when government gets into bed with commercial interests, it gets worse damned quick

As long as we have lobbyist, were gonna have crap for governance, and with citizens united we're royally screwed.

Originally Posted by Harold14370

Wow. This corn ethanol idea is even worse than I thought, and I thought it was pretty bad.
The secret, dirty cost of Obama's green power push

With the Iowa political caucuses on the horizon in 2007, presidential candidate Barack Obama made homegrown corn a centerpiece of his plan to slow global warming. And when President George W. Bush signed a law that year requiring oil companies to add billions of gallons of ethanol to their gasoline each year, Bush predicted it would make the country "stronger, cleaner and more secure."

But the ethanol era has proven far more damaging to the environment than politicians promised and much worse than the government admits today.

As farmers rushed to find new places to plant corn, they wiped out millions of acres of conservation land, destroyed habitat and polluted water supplies, an Associated Press investigation found.

A press investigation, so basically those are wild claims with no real evidence. And it sounds crazily exaggerated to me.

pyoko
You want evidence?
I have a river out my back door, 2 kayaks, 2 canoes, and a rowboat. I'll be glad to drop you off 50 miles upstream and you can see for yourself (take samples of any point source polution for the dnr and we'll all thank you for it.)
I have seen woods bulldozed into piles and set on fire to make more room for corn. And, most of the ethanol plants failed to turn a profit, and suck on the government tit until they finally go under.

Originally Posted by sculptor

pyoko
You want evidence?
I have a river out my back door, 2 kayaks, 2 canoes, and a rowboat. I'll be glad to drop you off 50 miles upstream and you can see for yourself (take samples of any point source polution for the dnr and we'll all thank you for it.)
I have seen woods bulldozed into piles and set on fire to make more room for corn. And, most of the ethanol plants failed to turn a profit, and suck on the government tit until they finally go under.

Eye witness events? Not really evidence in scientific terms.

And please don't flame me for wanting actual evidence on a scientific forum. Press releases and "what's in my back yard" are not good enough. I think most people here would agree.

I detest Bush and Obama, but I am trying not to make this political (however it seems it already is).

The reason I am asking for evidence on this is because of all the bullshit I see in the media and from people too hotheaded with politics to confer accurate information without either twisting it or at the very least exaggerating.

Originally Posted by sculptor

You want evidence? I have a river out my back door, 2 kayaks, 2 canoes, and a rowboat. I'll be glad to drop you off 50 miles upstream and you can see for yourself (take samples of any point source polution for the dnr and we'll all thank you for it.) I have seen woods bulldozed into piles and set on fire to make more room for corn. And, most of the ethanol plants failed to turn a profit, and suck on the government tit until they finally go under.

Sounds like private industry run amok.

Smells like a thread to confirm someones's political bias. Can't wait for the next thread about how the Obama Administration created the concept of farm subsidies, oil subsides, and is funding smaller less costly nuclear reactors (he's in the pocket of Big Nuke).

I detest Bush and Obama, but I am trying not to make this political (however it seems it already is).

The reason I am asking for evidence on this is because of all the bullshit I see in the media and from people too hotheaded with politics to confer accurate information without either twisting it or at the very least exaggerating.

Well, in this particular case it seems not to matter what your political perspective is. It's bad and it'll soon get worse if it continues.

Here's a piece from a source with entirely different politics from Harold. But it also includes some stuff from Fuels America disputing the AP report. Breaking Down The Numbers On Ethanol: Inside The Associated Press Biofuels Report | ThinkProgress

Originally Posted by MrMojo1

Smells like a thread to confirm someones's political bias. Can't wait for the next thread about how the Obama Administration created the concept of farm subsidies, oil subsides, and is funding smaller less costly nuclear reactors (he's in the pocket of Big Nuke).

And finding out that rock was turned over in the 1980s.....

Originally Posted by MrMojo1

Smells like a thread to confirm someones's political bias. Can't wait for the next thread about how the Obama Administration created the concept of farm subsidies, oil subsides, and is funding smaller less costly nuclear reactors (he's in the pocket of Big Nuke).

I did include the part that says Bush signed the law in 2007. Are you going to discuss the environmental impacts, or just reflexively defend Obama?

All of our gas in Hawai'i is 10% ethanol and has been for well at least the starting on 11 years I have lived here.

Originally Posted by MrMojo1

Smells like a thread to confirm someones's political bias. Can't wait for the next thread about how the Obama Administration created the concept of farm subsidies, oil subsides, and is funding smaller less costly nuclear reactors (he's in the pocket of Big Nuke).

The ethanol push preceded Obama's election to the presidency. He was elected after the silting and flood and loss of topsoil.
So, political?
Not from my perspective.

pyoko
Observation is indeed a very valuable part of scientific inquiry.
Especially when dealing with the environment, experimentation rarely enters into accumulation of knowledge.

Originally Posted by Harold14370

Originally Posted by MrMojo1

Smells like a thread to confirm someones's political bias. Can't wait for the next thread about how the Obama Administration created the concept of farm subsidies, oil subsides, and is funding smaller less costly nuclear reactors (he's in the pocket of Big Nuke).

I did include the part that says Bush signed the law in 2007. Are you going to discuss the environmental impacts, or just reflexively defend Obama?

Sounds to me as if Sculptor has it right. The problem is US pork-barrel politics, not any particular party or executive. When I was in the US oil industry over a decade ago it was an open secret that the ethanol push had far more to do with votes in farming communities than it did with the environment. So trying to lay this at Obama's door is insulting the intelligence, which is why people are indignantly commenting on that aspect of it. Are you really surprised?

….But then, I am clearly in the pocket of "Big Oil", so you can discount what I say too .

Originally Posted by sculptor

Originally Posted by MrMojo1

Smells like a thread to confirm someones's political bias. Can't wait for the next thread about how the Obama Administration created the concept of farm subsidies, oil subsides, and is funding smaller less costly nuclear reactors (he's in the pocket of Big Nuke).

The ethanol push preceded Obama's election to the presidency. He was elected after the silting and flood and loss of topsoil.
So, political?
Not from my perspective.

pyoko
Observation is indeed a very valuable part of scientific inquiry.
Especially when dealing with the environment, experimentation rarely enters into accumulation of knowledge.

It is about politics of course, a menage a trois between farming corporations, who wanted to increase demand and thus profit from corn, rural heartland votes, and urban votes through a series of compromises to trade corn growing subsidizes for various food stamp programs. Legislation for corn ethanol trade protections, tax exemptions and subsidize go back to the early 80s,
History of Ethanol Subsidy Legislation: 1978-2005 | Intellectual Takeout (ITO)
Flagging bipartisanship in the past few years started to break down this love triangle.

From an energy point of view its return is usually about 20%, which is not bad for a business margin. Environmentally it's somewhat shaky, with a bit less carbon emissions traded for more difficult to quantify impact on regional ecosystems.

Overall I've always been against using corn for ethanol--especially when any number of the Caribbean nations could become much more efficient sugar cane ethanol producers is we stopped artificially raising its cost with import tariffs.

Ethanol from crop (and hydrogen for that matter) are not good and imo red herrings, specially for land transport.

This said, as a side note, imo, Urban design that makes cars a necessity is a problem imo (and a symptom) that might be overlooked/not-realized by most people. Humans have the technology to create cities where commuting can be convenient and electric when it is required, and to reduce the need for/amount of commuting and transport in the first place.

Imagine if you had to use your car to get water(go back and forth using energy to move you, plus 1 ton of car), or had water delivery instead of tap, and had to crap in a can and put it on the side of the road so that the shite truck could go house to house to pick the crap cans, to all houses, twice a week. If this orgy of waste and inefficiency were in effect, I assure you people would find it normal and be oblivious to the magnitude of the ridiculous waste it represents, and if someone would propose aqueducts and sewers, it probably would be dismissed as utopian fantasy and crazy idea.

I went to a city where it was almost impossible to safely walk from one place to other place WITHIN SIGHT, you literally had to use your car from one commercial centre to another that would have been a minute or so away if you could walk. And people dont realize how much they are conditioned, I also literally saw someone drive around and around in a parking lot to find a place that was less than 60 paces away from a gym, to avoid walking to the gym and extra 30 paces, then when inside the gym proceed to walk on a thread mill! I wish I was telling a joke, but Im not making it up, to me its so flabbergasting (I will never forget that, and Ill tell this story over and over and never tire of it )

but, to get back to ethanol, yes, potential-food-crop-for-ethanol in friction-festival-and-parts-galore internal combustion engine is not the way to go.

cheers

if I understand what I read, we(USA) export oil, and we import oil.
inefficiency seems built into that little dance.

Would it be fair to include the costs of our middle east wars into the cost of oil?
If so, then ethanol begins to look like a bargain.
True?

Do we get less CO2 from one of these 2 fuel sources?
Is that worth considering?

Do we still have a tarrif on imported ethanol?
Do we have tarrifs on oil imports?

Originally Posted by icewendigo

Ethanol from crop (and hydrogen for that matter) are not good and imo red herrings, specially for land transport.

This said, as a side note, imo, Urban design that makes cars a necessity is a problem imo (and a symptom) that might be overlooked/not-realized by most people. Humans have the technology to create cities where commuting can be convenient and electric when it is required, and to reduce the need for/amount of commuting and transport in the first place.

Imagine if you had to use your car to get water(go back and forth using energy to move you, plus 1 ton of car), or had water delivery instead of tap, and had to crap in a can and put it on the side of the road so that the shite truck could go house to house to pick the crap cans, to all houses, twice a week. If this orgy of waste and inefficiency were in effect, I assure you people would find it normal and be oblivious to the magnitude of the ridiculous waste it represents, and if someone would propose aqueducts and sewers, it probably would be dismissed as utopian fantasy and crazy idea.

I went to a city where it was almost impossible to safely walk from one place to other place WITHIN SIGHT, you literally had to use your car from one commercial centre to another that would have been a minute or so away if you could walk. And people dont realize how much they are conditioned, I also literally saw someone drive around and around in a parking lot to find a place that was less than 60 paces away from a gym, to avoid walking to the gym and extra 30 paces, then when inside the gym proceed to walk on a thread mill! I wish I was telling a joke, but Im not making it up, to me its so flabbergasting (I will never forget that, and Ill tell this story over and over and never tire of it )

but, to get back to ethanol, yes, potential-food-crop-for-ethanol in friction-festival-and-parts-galore internal combustion engine is not the way to go.

cheers

Agree I had similar experiences in Houston. I thought, being from London, here was a place actually designed to get around efficiently by car. But I found people had just the same commuting time as in London - they just allowed the city to sprawl out sufficiently far for the commute to be as long by car, there, is it is here by underground or bus! And you're right people thought we were mad to walk round the block instead of driving. Cities designed in the era of the horse actually have some environmental advantages: you HAVE to use public transport as, if you don't, the place gets gummed up. And you walk which keeps you a bit healthier. But it's less convenient, no doubt of it, unless you find a way to make something valuable to you out of the walking and the transport (good for reading the paper for example).

Originally Posted by sculptor

if I understand what I read, we(USA) export oil, and we import oil.
inefficiency seems built into that little dance.

Not necessarily. It is more efficient to ship oil from Alaska to Japan than Alaska to Florida, for example.

It seems to be an invariable that the denser the population is packed, the lower the cost of infrastructure(water, sewage, roads, rails, power and communication lines, etc...)

Suburban sprawl seems a disease born of the cold war fears, and cheap fuel.

Originally Posted by billvon

Originally Posted by sculptor

if I understand what I read, we(USA) export oil, and we import oil.
inefficiency seems built into that little dance.

Not necessarily. It is more efficient to ship oil from Alaska to Japan than Alaska to Florida, for example.

Quite so. You also have to bear in mind that "oil" is not just "oil". The proportions of gasoline, middle distillates and residual feedstock (for products such as bitumen and lubricants) depends on the crude type. Things such as sulphur level (for legislative compliance of fuels) are also important. And the "diet" that various refineries can process efficiently is another factor.

Optimising the oil industry is quite complicated. It's not at all surprising that the optimum might involve some international trading, even for a country that is nominally in balance.

Originally Posted by sculptor

It seems to be an invariable that the denser the population is packed, the lower the cost of infrastructure(water, sewage, roads, rails, power and communication lines, etc...)

Suburban sprawl seems a disease born of the cold war fears, and cheap fuel.

…and, let's not forget, a search for that elusive quality of life that everyone understandably wants. Perhaps the problem is what we perceive as giving us that quality of life is often bound up with private green space, i.e. big gardens, even when it involves living in a cardboard cutout house in a smart but soulless neighbourhood.

Originally Posted by exchemist

Originally Posted by Harold14370

Originally Posted by MrMojo1

Smells like a thread to confirm someones's political bias. Can't wait for the next thread about how the Obama Administration created the concept of farm subsidies, oil subsides, and is funding smaller less costly nuclear reactors (he's in the pocket of Big Nuke).

I did include the part that says Bush signed the law in 2007. Are you going to discuss the environmental impacts, or just reflexively defend Obama?

Sounds to me as if Sculptor has it right. The problem is US pork-barrel politics, not any particular party or executive. When I was in the US oil industry over a decade ago it was an open secret that the ethanol push had far more to do with votes in farming communities than it did with the environment. So trying to lay this at Obama's door is insulting the intelligence, which is why people are indignantly commenting on that aspect of it. Are you really surprised?

….But then, I am clearly in the pocket of "Big Oil", so you can discount what I say too .

I didn't make up the headline, AP did. This is Obama's sixth year in office. He owns it, now. Am I really surprised? No.

Harold
don't confuse the legislative and executive branches of government.

It just muddies the water

As it is, it's already muddled up enough.

Originally Posted by Harold14370

I didn't make up the headline, AP did.

Well, if they were to publish a more accurate, less sensationalist headline (like "ethanol production down since 2011") fewer people would frequent their advertisers. It behooves people to be careful about which headlines they believe, IMO.

Originally Posted by sculptor

Harold
don't confuse the legislative and executive branches of government.

It just muddies the water

As it is, it's already muddled up enough.

I'm not confusing it. According to the AP report, the EPA and Agriculture department (part of the executive branch under Obama) was pressured to revise their yield estimates upwards to get past the 20% threshold.

Inefficient, impractical and compromised energy programs are a consequence of lack of bipartisan commitment to emissions reductions. You won't get effective and loophole free emissions reductions policies in the USA or anywhere else until it's an uncompromising goal across mainstream politics - perhaps on the basis that our long term future is deemed worth it?

I suspect that much of the Democrat appearance (as it looks to someone from outside the USA) of taking the climate problem seriously only looks that way in comparison to Republican opposition and obstructionism. Like Australia's Labor party appears to be serious, but only because the conservative Liberal/National coalition policies are so clearly obstructionist. In reality Labor look more interested in keeping up appearances to avoid alienating Australians who think climate is important than in making hard choices and pushing them through into effective policies that lead to results. Our Australian conservatives have mostly ditched open rejection of climate science but it looks more like a political tactic to avoid having to explain themselves than any genuine change of heart. No actual commitment to long term emissions reductions is intended even if it's unmistakeably implied; going by actions rather than their ambiguous and contradictory statements they look to be just as opposed to doing anything, but by being opaque or ambiguous about what they think of climate science they can avoid that debate and get straight to enacting a climate action obstructionist agenda. Of course that makes it look a lot like the Australian public and democracy is being treated with paternalistic contempt.

I suspect Australia has a lot of elements in common with climate politics in the USA, although corn ethanol isn't one. Some sugar cane ethanol has been encouraged but I'm not aware of it as either successful in emissions reductions or as being so heavily subsidised that an artificial boom has been created.

Originally Posted by Ken Fabos

I suspect Australia has a lot of elements in common with climate politics in the USA, although corn ethanol isn't one. Some sugar cane ethanol has been encouraged but I'm not aware of it as either successful in emissions reductions or as being so heavily subsidised that an artificial boom has been created.

I don't understand your statement. Pretty much EVERY study shows corn ethanol as a minor but effective means to reduce carbon emissions. Sugar cane ethanol cuts emissions per energy output by more than half. It's not really a question is it can save emissions...it's more a question if its worth all the other environmental impacts for converting millions of acres to more farm, and the ethical question of fuel crops competing against food production.



http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/...7_2_024001.pdf

Surely the best way is to target the total fuel use regardless of its source rather than quibbling about secondary issues like ethanol.

See Reduce Climate Change

Reduce your greenhouse gas emissions by choosing a car with better gas mileage.

Using a vehicle that gets 40mpg rather than 20mpg is an instant 50% hit to ghg emissions from any travel. The availability of fuels that emit less will be a further improvement rather than a substitute for really effective action.

Internal combustion is archaic.

Originally Posted by billvon

Originally Posted by Harold14370

I didn't make up the headline, AP did.

Well, if they were to publish a more accurate, less sensationalist headline (like "ethanol production down since 2011") fewer people would frequent their advertisers. It behooves people to be careful about which headlines they believe, IMO.

I tend to not follow them at all. Headlines are deceiving!