Durbin avoids cowpie on ethanol

I don't care what side of the aisle this idea came from...but it was not very well thought out at all. There was plenty of info out there that said the amount of energy it took to produce a biofuel with corn was higher than gas. It didn't take a genus to figure what it would do to foodprices which also affect food for livestock.

Mr. James:

Price increases owing to scarcity and greater demand do not equal inflation. Higher prices are the result of inflation only they result from the increase in the money supply, or the decrease in GNP in relation to the money supply, and the resulting devaluation of the currency.

The problem is not biofuel. The high prices should/would attract more farmers to increase the amount of farmland and take advantage of the prices while they are high. Eventually as more got into the game prices would fall. The problem is that arable land is decreasing because of extreme drought, especially across the Western US, shrinking reservoirs necessary to irrigate, increasing global temperatures, and a depleted ozone that allows more harmful UV to penetrate Earth's atmosphere and results in less efficient photosythesis and lower crop yields. To blame biofuel and ignore all of these other factors is just wrong.

Too bad we can't fuel our economy on hot air - otherwise Durbin would be able to provide energy to the whole state of Illinois. Durbin is almost as big an embarassment as Obama - with people like them in the Senate - no wonder this country is going downhill! Vote the Bums out!!!!!!!!!

The problem is and always, will be, Oil Corporations. The whole ethanol factor arose out of the oil corporations desire to extend the use of fossil fuels by way of diluting the oil product, and joining forces with Agra-business Corps., to form a monolithic Corporation-based entity. It takes one gallon of gasoline to make one gallon of ethanol. Where is the saving!!!!? The ethanol mix has proven to damage the internal parts of the engine, in vehicles. There are no proven studies that it is any less dirty, a burn, than gasoline. Real alternatives to fossil fuels are no longer just a liberal cause, they are a necessity, that better be pursued, instead of ripping up our beautiful lands that have been protected, all these years!! Price controls are another area to consider, after a record, 123 BILLION DOLLARS, IN PROFITS FOR THE OIL CORPORATIONS!!! Don't we think there is something wrong with that profit margin? Price gouging? Greed? Tax breaks for the Oil Corporations!!! Are we that crippled, mentally, that we, the voters, can't elect persons who will right these wrongs? I sure hope not. I think the Democrats should be given a chance to correct this pathetic picture of Greed, after all, it was on the Republican's watch, that this Greed flourished. Vote Democrat, if you want change!!!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE. NOW.

To blame biofuel and ignore all of these other factors is just wrong.

Posted by: sterling adamson | April 29, 2008 2:19 PM

It's not blaming biofuel, however, if it takes more energy to produce a gallon of biofuel than a gallon of gas, where is the benefit?

"The Senate's second-in-commade represents Illinois, after all, a state with large farm interests."
By the way, we're not talking about the hard scrabble family farm here. "Farm interests" means ADM, ConAgra etc.
They also help bankroll the Candidate of Hope. Check out Oprahma's position on ethanol.

if it takes more energy to produce a gallon of biofuel than a gallon of gas, where is the benefit?

Posted by: bill r. | April 29, 2008 3:04 PM
Biofuels are renewable unlike Petroleum and money goes into the pockets of farmers in the Midwest. Not some fat, terrorist supporting Sultan in the Middle East. Just off the top of my head

Bill r., finally makes some sense. Sterling adamson does not.
Sterling, the problem is not drought or the fantasy of increasing global temperatures. Bill r is correct in that it takes more energy to produce a gallong of biofuel, so what is the gain? You are wasting more energy to make something than the energy you are getting. Also ethanol is a very bad polluter.
Then we have Don Fitzgerald and his insane rant on the evil oil corporations. The comments from Sterling and Don show the Loony Left is completely incapable of playing a role in solving the energy problems afflicting not just the U.S. but the world.
You don't want energy money going to the sultans, then help get drilling going in ANWR, the Gulf and other places.

Biofuels are renewable unlike Petroleum and money goes into the pockets of farmers in the Midwest. Not some fat, terrorist supporting Sultan in the Middle East. Just off the top of my head
Posted by: sterling adamson | April 29, 2008 3:25 PM
Biofuels aren't only grossly inefficient (as billr rightly points out) but they're filthy. The entire process from planting to distillation to delivery dumps tons of pollutants into the air, ground and water. And then they burn dirtier than gasoline.
Furthermore, we have seen that they jack up the price of food across the board. Oh, and the "farmers" in the Midwest you refer to are mainly giant international corporations.
So I have to repeat billr's question: where is the benefit?

I'm with John D and Bill R on this one. There have been no conclusive studies that prove that corn ethanol burns cleaner than traditional gasoline and as they've already pointed out there is simply no gain in energy efficiency from them because they take just as much oil to produce.
Sorry Iowa and Turbin, the word is out and people know that ethanol's a crock.

How does using corn for ethanol increase the price of rice?

Diverting corn for ethanol drives up the price of corn. Faced with higher prices, people seek alternatives, other grains, including rice. The higher demand for rice drives up its price, just as the higher demand for corn occasioned by its use for ethanol as well as food increased its price.

Simple economics, which Sen. Durbin apparently has not been exposed to.

Simple economics, " DaveB " for simpletons??!!!! Senator Durbin has more on the ball, a sleep, than the entire Republican Party has, when they are all awake!!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE. NOW.

Subsidized food burning (biofuel) makes no economic sense and is bad for the environment. But it is clearly very good for ADM and other ethanol producers and for the economy of Illinois.

I like Durbin, but he and many of his colleagues in both houses, both parties as well as past and present administrations, are wrong on biofuel.

Energy problem? Dick Durbin and the people who think like him are the problem.

Solution? Fewer Durbins in the senate.

The Illinois combine is all about big agriculture--even while Obama quaffs those arugula smoothies.
Most people would not want to EAT the products of the agri=business folks--and yet note how the Illinois combine shoves this stuff down our peasant throats.

Thank you, Don Fitzgerald, for your constructive response to my post.

Now, what do you think about the effect of increased corn demand on the price of rice?

Only in America, can we rant about the price of rice, while our men and women in uniform are dying and being maimed in the dumbest war, the dumbest President, ever hoodwinked us into!! Only in America. God bless, all of us!!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE. NOW.

Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, Chicago | April 30, 2008 10:12 AM
So it doesn't bother you that the cost of rice has tripled for people around the world who are trying to survive on $2 per day?

Dickie Durbin wants to be quoted accurately. Well he is against drilling or building new refineries in America or ANWAR because he is controlled by environmental wackos like the Sierra Club. The whole Democrat Party talks about conservation and alternative fuels.
Yesterday, Chuckie Schemer was against drilling in

ANWAR because it would take 10 years to recover the oil. Well Bill Clinton as President vetoed drilling in ANWAR in 1994 so Dickie and Schemer if he had backed oil drilling we would have had the oil in 2004.
Instead this group of environmental socialists has kept America from succeeding.
Their energy policy is like Jimma Carters put on a sweater and turn down the thermostat this for the greatest nation on earth.
Right now as I type these words Communist China is drilling off the Florida Gulf and the oil is going to China.
The modern Democrat Party won't face the facts that until we develop a real solution there is plenty of oil in America and with all new technologies it could be safe for the environment to drill and refine. We haven't built a refinery in 30 years.
But, the liberal Democrat socialists don't want whats good for America they hate our capitalist system. Instead they hug the trees pretend to find global warming when temperatures haven't risen since 1998.
President Bush is right we need a comprehensive energy solution not half hearted attempts to join the Amish community by going back to the 19th Century.
Dickie is finally admitting that corn is food and he is a bit skittish coming from this farm state.
The Democrats and the environmental wackos are solely responsible for high gas prices.
They the government do not discover oil or drill for it or refine it or distribute it. Instead like parasites they confiscate taxes from all oil and gas production. Its stickem up. Were the government and were here to help you as President Reagan said.
Now they want windfall profits taxes on gas and oil that would only exacerbate the payment at the pump. The oil companies would pass these taxes onto the consumer.
Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Dickie Durbin and Chuckie Schumer are part of the problem they will never be the solution. Wakeup America! Jerry White, Springfield, IL:

What bothers me, is the fact that Americans would rather play tiddle-dee-winks, while our men and women are fighting and dying in Iraq and no one wants to discuss that, in hopes that it will just not be brought up. Let's worry about our own problems, than we can worry about the world's problems.
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE. NOW.

What bothers me, is people who continually try to hijack threads, on whatever subject, to post rants on their favorite single issues.

Southern Resurgence

Here is an idea that the Republicans, oil, tobacco companies will hate.

How about we plant sugar cane in the states of Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. We encourage them to stop planting tobacco which is killing millions. Sugar cane is 7 times more efficient than corn in making ethanol.

You want proof that it works? Just google Brazil and find out for yourself. Now, you won’t be using a food product or even displacing a food product……

Completely renewable and no one is hurt except for those purveyors of death the tobacco companies.

I would sure like to know the idiot who decided to use corn (a food product) and doomed ethanol to failure. Had to be an oilman!

OH! This could all be done in one year……….No more dependence on foreign oil.

Cars are already to go, made by Chevy! They are called flex-cars and burn any combination of oil and ethanol.

Here is an article from Bloomberg. Debunking common myths about ethanol.
May 27 (Bloomberg) -- Sometimes two things look pretty much the same, like a Cartier diamond and a Home Shopping Network cubic zirconia.
There's a world of difference between the two.
The same is true of ethanol made in the U.S., mainly from corn, and ethanol from Brazil derived from sugar cane. They look the same, though that's where the similarities end between what I like to call ethacorn and ethacane.
Although ethacane doesn't produce a fraction of the negative economic, environmental and social problems that ethacorn does, as international food prices soar and environmental concerns mount, both are being thrown into the same pinata to get hammered. Ethacorn deserves the beating, not ethacane.
It's hard to know whether those wielding the sticks are just temporarily blindfolded or whether they have an interest in defending the fossil-fuel industry or the agricultural subsidies of rich nations.
There are four main arguments against the wide use of Brazilian ethacane:
-- Food prices are being driven out of sight as farmers grow more-profitable sugar cane instead of other crops.
-- Amazon rainforest is being destroyed to make way for cropland.
-- Ethacane pollutes as much or more than oil-based fuel.
-- Cane production uses the equivalent of slave labor and is morally unjust since it takes food from the mouths of the poor to put in the gas tanks of the rich.
Myth Busting
Each of these points is a myth.
To start with, let's make a broad point. ``Brazil has the oldest, most advanced and efficient ethanol programs in the world,'' according to the report of an international conference on biofuels in February 2007 at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.
That brings up the first question: If ethacane were responsible for higher food prices, wouldn't food cost more in Brazil than elsewhere? It doesn't.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO, Brazil is one of the world's cheapest producers of corn, soybeans, beef, chicken, pork, milk and rice. In a clear sign of agricultural competitiveness, Brazil is also a leading exporter of food.
``When we talk about the influence of biofuels on the economy of grains, we are talking about the corn from the U.S., not the sugar cane from Brazil,'' said Abdolreza Abbassian, secretary of the Intergovernmental Group on Grains within FAO. A recent study by the International Monetary Fund shows that Brazil's ethacane hasn't been responsible for higher international food prices.
Room to Spare
Brazil also has all the room needed to grow sugar cane and increase agricultural productivity without tearing down a single tree in the Amazon. Five hundred years ago, the Portuguese learned that the Amazon isn't the best region to grow sugar cane, which requires a long dry season.
Out of 320 million hectares of arable land in Brazil, only 3.2 million hectares, or 1 percent, are used to grow sugar cane for ethanol. Moreover, Brazil has 100 million hectares of underutilized pastures suitable for agriculture. That's more land than France and Germany combined.
While every hectare, equal to about 2.5 acres, of Brazilian pasture feeds one cow, in many countries there are as many as six cows per hectare. If Brazilian ranching becomes slightly more intensive, the country could easily boost production of food and biofuels without destroying the forest.
Reverse Malthus
Proving economist Thomas Malthus wrong, in the past 15 years, Brazil increased the amount of land used to grow grains by 21 percent, while production soared 119 percent.
Arguing that ethacane pollutes more than fossil fuels is ludicrous. While oil already costs $130 a barrel and will eventually run out, ethacane is renewable, cleaner and more efficient.
In comparison with gasoline, ethacane reduces the emission of greenhouse gases by more than 80 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Department.
As for efficiency, ethacane produces 8.2 joules of energy per unit of fossil-fuel input, compared with 1.5 joules for ethacorn and less than 1 joule for diesel and gasoline.
Ethacane is twice as productive as ethacorn -- 6,800 liters per hectare for the former and 3,100 liters per hectare for the latter. It also produces 24 percent more fuel per hectare than the beet- or wheat-based ethanol common in Europe.
Manual Labor
The argument that ethacane pollutes the environment because the cane must be burned before being manually harvested is a nonstarter. In the state of Sao Paulo, which produces 62 percent of Brazil's ethanol, more than half of the cane is already harvested mechanically and manual cane-cutting will be abolished by 2014. That should also put an end to the argument that cane harvesting relies on the equivalent of slave labor.
Nor does ethacane take from the poor and give to the rich. Agricultural subsidies in wealthy nations do that.
Far more problematic than any of these issues is the U.S. Congress's refusal to eliminate a 54-cent tariff on each gallon of imported ethanol. This levy was introduced in 1980 to protect U.S. makers of corn-based ethanol from competitors such as Brazil, which can produce ethacane for 22 cents per liter, while U.S. ethacorn costs 35 cents per liter. Lifting this tariff would ease the demand for corn and take a step toward easing pressure on food prices.
Brazil is threatening to challenge the U.S. tariff at the World Trade Organization. Pascal Lamy, the director-general of the WTO, has already said Brazilian ethacane ``isn't competing with food'' and ``is more respectful to the environment than the corn-based ethanol in the U.S. and Europe.''
Sooner or later, the WTO might have the chance to decide whether the world can finally have a real substitute for oil. Until then, we'll have to live in a world where fake goods are passed off as the real thing.
If you want to end the oil shortage convince Congress to eliminate the tariff on imported ethanol until we get our own ethanol or ethacane operation going. Force Congress to allow the import of Chevy flex-cars as they would sell like hotcakes. Force Congress to force the oil companies to add an additional pump is gas station that would be for ethanol.
The solution is not to drill offshore, in this you are dead wrong and only playing into the hands of the oil companies.