According to an article in The Economist, food prices are near all-time highs in nominal terms, and above recent highs in real terms. This is due to an ensemble of disastrous farm policies encapsulated in The Farm Bill and our obsession with corn-based ethanol. Leaving aside the other glaring problems with The Farm Bill, corn-based ethanol is a monster that needs to be scared away.
While Iowa, Bush, Congress, and the campaigning Presidential candidates are pressing ethanol as our energy security panacea, those of us who don't have to win Iowa know better, including the Wall Street Journal in this article, which spells out the disillusionment with ethanol. Corn is a crop that is hungry for water and fertilizer, and therefore not very efficient, as fertilizer production is one of the dirtiest industries in the world in terms of GHG production. According to various estimates, it takes between 0.78 and 2.2 units of energy from oil to get 1 unit of energy in ethanol. Even according to the optimistic estimate, we aren't doing very well. Worse yet, every dollar we spend to subsidize ethanol is a dollar that can't be spent to develop a more promising technology.
Ethanol, in competing with food as a use of corn, is driving food prices up, which hurts the poor most. According to one estimate, modest ethanol substitution for gasoline will cost the US $1 billion per year. Even if we use all corn production for ethanol, it will only displace 12% of our gasoline usage. At the same time, current Congressional funding for ethanol results in subsidies for oil refineries--is this the industry we should be subsidizing in our pursuit of renewable energy?
I have been in dozens of energy conferences, and I have yet to hear a scientist say a good word about corn based ethanol. The production of ethanol from corn is an inefficient process. A scientist from Eastman went so far as to say that we'd be better off from a carbon-sink standpoint if we grew the corn and buried it rather than turned it into ethanol. Switchgrass and hybrid poplars are popular plants for carbon sinks because they grow quickly and with very few inputs. But corn is way down the list of something we ought to be growing on a global scale to solve our climate change problems. Before we overhaul our farm system and energy economy, oughtn't we consider the options and pick a rational one?
Join me in telling Congress and the Presidential candidates to refuse pandering to Iowa, especially now that their caucus is over.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
The Ice is Melting
Nasa released an alarming animation of the melting Arcic ice this year. In their animation they show the extent of ice in the Arctic from January to September of 2007.
Luckily, the Arctic ice floats on water, so the melting ice doesn't raise our sea levels. However, when Greenland melts like the Arctic is melting, watch out.
Luckily, the Arctic ice floats on water, so the melting ice doesn't raise our sea levels. However, when Greenland melts like the Arctic is melting, watch out.
Energy intensity
Bush's favorite way to discuss energy is in terms of "energy intensity" of an economy, that is, the amount of energy used (or pollution output) per unit of GDP. When I went looking for stats, I was surprised to see that as of 2004, China's economy was actually more efficient than the US (ref 1). I'm sure that has changed in the last few years, but we're still not talking about huge differences between China and the US, just fractions. And this is despite the fact that all of China's recent economic growth has been based on construction and manufacturing, while ours has been in services--consulting, i-banking, dot coms--that are far less energy intensive industries.
I can only account for this because of our horrible leadership. Bush is probably the most backwards leader on the planet regarding energy. None of the candidates for 2008 are anywhere near as bad as he has been. We have stood in the way of climate change agreements (ref 2), and our standards for efficiency are lower than even China's (ref 3, p. 9). At least China and India have the excuse that they have hundreds of millions of people living without access to electricity, and they should be able to expand their infrastructure enough to get those people the bare minimum. Our excuse is that, as the richest economy in the world, we can't afford to adapt? That we developed the Hummer, and aren't about to stop driving it?
Furthermore, I have a philosophical disagreement with the concept of energy intensity. As we learn in high school econ, GDP is made up of government expenditures + investment + net exports + consumption, with consumption being the majority. Why then should we be allowed more emissions since we consume more than other countries? Our standard of living is the highest, our consumption is the highest, why should this give us the right to pollute more?
Finally, the common argument that we can't afford to adapt our economy to be more energy efficient is backwards. Many conservation measures, for example green buildings, will have a net positive effect on our economy. They pay for themselves within a year or two, and then save money for their entire lifetime after that, which, for a building, could be 100 years. Second, developing the skills and technologies to conserve and use renewable energy will be a huge growth factor in whatever economy takes on the challenge. If we let Germany or Japan build the best solar cells, then we are sacrificing a market that is potentially worth trillions of dollars. Shouldn't we try to be the world leader in these new industries? We have seen what happens to our auto industry when they fail to innovate--they become overtaken by more efficient Japanese cars. Let's not let this happen to the rest of our economy.
References
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Energy_Intensity.png
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/opinion/17mon1.html?ex=1355634000&en=890e7680d210f8c4&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
3. http://theicct.org/documents/ICCT_GlobalStandards_20071.pdf page 9
I can only account for this because of our horrible leadership. Bush is probably the most backwards leader on the planet regarding energy. None of the candidates for 2008 are anywhere near as bad as he has been. We have stood in the way of climate change agreements (ref 2), and our standards for efficiency are lower than even China's (ref 3, p. 9). At least China and India have the excuse that they have hundreds of millions of people living without access to electricity, and they should be able to expand their infrastructure enough to get those people the bare minimum. Our excuse is that, as the richest economy in the world, we can't afford to adapt? That we developed the Hummer, and aren't about to stop driving it?
Furthermore, I have a philosophical disagreement with the concept of energy intensity. As we learn in high school econ, GDP is made up of government expenditures + investment + net exports + consumption, with consumption being the majority. Why then should we be allowed more emissions since we consume more than other countries? Our standard of living is the highest, our consumption is the highest, why should this give us the right to pollute more?
Finally, the common argument that we can't afford to adapt our economy to be more energy efficient is backwards. Many conservation measures, for example green buildings, will have a net positive effect on our economy. They pay for themselves within a year or two, and then save money for their entire lifetime after that, which, for a building, could be 100 years. Second, developing the skills and technologies to conserve and use renewable energy will be a huge growth factor in whatever economy takes on the challenge. If we let Germany or Japan build the best solar cells, then we are sacrificing a market that is potentially worth trillions of dollars. Shouldn't we try to be the world leader in these new industries? We have seen what happens to our auto industry when they fail to innovate--they become overtaken by more efficient Japanese cars. Let's not let this happen to the rest of our economy.
References
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Energy_Intensity.png
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/opinion/17mon1.html?ex=1355634000&en=890e7680d210f8c4&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
3. http://theicct.org/documents/ICCT_GlobalStandards_20071.pdf page 9
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