NEWS: Jimmy Fucking Carter

Actually, that source (if you are referring to the Truthout article "Corn Ethanol and its Consequences" by Juliette Anthony) notes that ethanol from corn is 5 to 6 times less efficient than cellulosic ethanol. You are confusing switchgrass with sugar cane.

Of course, the problem with the increase in efficiency is the volume of water needed.

I got my statistic on the ton:gallon ration of corn and sugar cane from one of the articles I provided.

I should note that I didn't include anything on the ratio of energy expenditure to energy output obtained or productivity of sugar cane to corn per hectare. Admittedly, I don't know enough about the factors involved (climate/geography, cultivation techniques, fertilizers, etc.,) to be able to make educated evaluations of how efficient each is this regard. High efficiency per unit of energy in Brazil may be due to climate, for instance. It seems that the information readily available to us suggests that Brazil's efficiency is higher, but the sources disagree on how much (ranging from 1.8 to 8 times as high) and why. If you can find some sources that could navigate this topic better for me/us, I'll happily read them.

No, I don't think you are. Actually, switchgrass looks awesome from everything I have seen as well. From what I have read, the only limitations on cellulosic ethanol like switchgrass is that the lack of interest in it has ensured that a market hasn't yet developed (as it has for corn-based ethanol), it remains water intensive, and that the technology involved in cellulosic ethanol production is as of yet underdeveloped. These limitations, however, can easily be overcome (in the case of the technology/market) with government assistance or remain problems for alternative ethanol sources (corn/sugar cane), so I think switchgrass is a very, very promising avenue.

Again, though, given the underdeveloped status of cellulosic ethanol, we have to rely on a more substantive energy source for the present time. Given this reality, corn-based ethanol seems to be a valid energy source and Obama's championship in favor of corn-based ethanol should not be subject to allegations of corruption.

I think that this is the real argument that you want to get across. I suspect that the rest of the discussion is superfluous to you.

Also, I should refer you to a source provided by roubles: NY Times.

It says:

and

Emphasis added.

In case the point isn't absolutely clear: Obama supports switchgrass and other forms of cellulosic ethanol, which are seemingly better than either corn or sugar cane ethanol.

so what you're saying is that Obama just plain likes alternative energy sources in general?

that's always good.

You need to prove that Obama is protecting an interest group at the expense of the US, rather than asserting it on the basis of your ideology and then assuming that we will accept it without support. If Obama's support for the ethanol tariff is just a special interest group move, why did the 2008 Farm Bill (which upholds the tariff) pass through the House and Senate twice with enough bipartisan support to override a presidential veto even when Obama was not present to vote?

More importantly, I am not claiming that corn ethanol can compete easily with Brazilian ethanol. I don't fetishize competition. Instead, I am arguing that the intention (if not the result) of the tariffs are to protect our developing ethanol industry.

I didn't say we had to choose between the two nor did I say sugar cane was a miracle cure. Please argue against what I wrote instead of setting up straw men. I advocated removing the tarifs on sugar cane ethanol. Anything that could lower fuel prices should be done. You didn't address the much bigger problem I mentioned which that current fuel prices will cause high inflation and push up interest rates that will damage a housing market that is already the worst since the Great Depression. With large banks and Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac losing billions and facing insolvency, the first priority is to not acclerate the housing downturn by letting inflation and rates go higher than they are now.

Not to repeat myself, but the much bigger and possibly catastrophic problem for the US NOW is housing and whatever can be done to stabilize housing should be done. If you read my previous posts elsewhere, you'll see I place blame for the current economic situation on BOTH parties so the fact the farm bill received support from both parties does nothing to change my mind.
I don't care about the 2 major parties and I support whatver I think is best for the US and on this issue I think John McCain is right.

You are welcome to provide some evidence that suggests that Brazilian excess ethanol production is sufficient to lower American fuel prices in a meaningful amount (specifically, enough to offset the damage caused to our domestic ethanol industry). One source suggests that eliminating all of the US tariffs on ethanol would drop the price of corn by 14.5% while driving down domestic ethanol production by 11.5%. I can't seem to find a solid number of how much we would save at the pump per gallon if all the tariffs were removed, but I will try to do the math. That same source listed that removing the tariffs would cause a $3.5 billion loss for gasoline producers (by which I assume that they mean annually). The EIA says that the US consumes 20,687,000 barrels of petroleum per day (in 2006). If both of these numbers are correct, we would see a savings of $2.16 per barrel if the tariffs were removed (and no price gouging kept oil prices up).

Now, my numbers may be completely off, but if my calculations were right, then the drop in oil prices dropped more than that amount last Wednesday alone (and the change in price at the pump was an average of $0.01). Again, I could be looking at the numbers in the wrong way, but it appears that the drop in prices would not be sufficient to warrant slashing our domestic ethanol production. Perhaps it comes down to a question of values on the issue of the tariff, but I don't think that Obama is selling out the interests of the public over that $0.01 per gallon price difference.

If anyone else can find a more reliable estimate, I would welcome it. I am only doing the math myself in the absence of published estimates (that I could find).

Ok, let's look at your original argument. You wrote:

Your argument was that sugar cane ethanol is more energy efficient and clean than corn-based ethanol and therefore Obama must be corrupt to continue to support corn-based ethanol.

Now your argument is that Obama is hurting America by opposing lifting the ethanol tariff.

I will argue against your argument when you decide to settle on one. The only consistency in your argumentation is that you are trying to disagree with Obama no matter what the cost.

Sorry about the delay; I am going through your posts in sequence...

Arguing that the current economic system has something to do with the Farm Bill is quite different than saying that one could only support it if they were the pawn of interest groups. In that post I was asking if you were still willing to maintain your assertion that Obama is serving special interests (AG business), given wide support for the bill from people without such interests? In other words, not only those with AG business interests supported the bill, so the burden of proof falls on you to give reasonable grounds for belief that Obama's specific reason for supporting the bill is his link to AG business.

Yes, that is exactly what the source that roubles posted says. Obama supports corn-based ethanol and cellulosic ethanol. He does, however, support the tariff on Brazilian ethanol because he believes that America should pursue energy independence and not just shift from dependence on foreign petroleum to dependence on foreign ethanol.

Corn ethanol made here is not the same as sugar cane ethanol made in Brazil. Nothing inconsistent about my posts. Obama shouldn't oppose lifting tariffs on sugar cane ethanol from Brazil.

it would provide cheaper ethanol for consumers

That's your prediction about what effect sugar cane ethanol would have. Lower prices is what's needed to lower inflation and mortgage rates and help housing. The energy market doesn't exist in a vacuum. If you're interested in discussing the WHOLE INTERCONNECTED economy, let me know. Further discussion of energy without discussing how it's related to the whole economy (especially housing) is pointless.

/shrug

Well, you decided to participate in a thread that is about the role of Carter and Reagan in advocating/hindering alternative energy sources and energy independence. You chose to derail it to make accusations about Obama. If these aren't the discussions you wish to have, then please link some material that could serve as the basis for the actual discussion you would like to have. Alternately, you could even start a new thread on the issue that you think is worth discussing.

If you don't wish to do that, then I don't know what to tell you...

I'm just throwing this out there, as it's pre-coffee, pre-cigarette time.

But what's the important thing about sugar cane that allows it to be made into ethanol? Sugar, right?

So why not use beets instead? A tremendous amount of sugar is made from beets, and they can be grown in more parts of the US than sugarcane.

I'll have to look into it. It's not even a hypothesis as of yet.

One of the downsides of any form of Ethanol is that the energy and resources needed to produce it can potentially outweigh the benefits of using it. Ethanol is at best a short term solution, I think we would be better off in the long term investing in other forms of alternative energy that could be potentially less resource intensive.

Did the talk of coal make anybody else think steampunk automobiles?

No, it makes me think of trains.

Green crude production.
Uses algae.
Does not use farmland.
Does not use agricultural crops.
Can be refined, stored, and transported using existing facilities and infrastructure.
Produces 0 sulfur emissions.
Carbon neutral.

I discuss fuel prices with other issues because fuel prices have effects on other economic issues. I have explained repeatedly to you the effects of fuel prices on the economy as a whole but you are unable or unwilling to see the connection between energy prices to inflation, interest rates, housing or anything else. Making decisions about fuel without considering effects on other parts of the economy is foolish. I don't what else to tell you except to give the best site IMO for economic news and anlysis.

Calculated Risk
Calculated Risk

+1

May require some other adjustments. E.g. fewer cars, more transport-oriented. But that would not be a bad thing.

I like it. Algae fuel, I mean.

The website is incredibly uninformative. What is it? How do algae make fuel? How do cars run off of whatever is produced? And things like

are just misleading. Unless these people have created some entirely new process.

But the processes I know of use algae to produce oils, and the oils are turned into biodiesel*, biogasoline, SVO, and other synthetic fuels.

End chemical makeup is the same, just the source that's different. So I guess, technically, they aren't petroleum-based, in that they weren't made from crude oil pumped from the ground. But they're still the same hydrocarbons, and they're going to produce the same greenhouse gases. That may not be an issue, but it's an something that shouldn't be glossed over.

Then again, I realize the website is a promotional thing.

*Diesel fuel made by the transesterification of vegetable oil, or algae oil in this case, rather than by refining petroleum.

IIUC, and without looking at Shiny_metal_ass's source, the algae would be photosynthetic; so their primary energy source is solar.
That should overcome the main greenhouse-gas-emission problem.

They might be nitrogen-fixing; I'd hope so. If not, nitrogenous compounds might have to be added; human urine would probably work OK.

No one, myself included, is denying that high fuel prices have a negative effect on the economy as a whole. The issue under question is the amount of impact that removing the ethanol tariff will have. If you can show (through solid information/sources) that removing the tariff will have a noticeable impact, then you have a case. Otherwise, you are wasting your time and ours.

The first site you linked does not directly discuss the ethanol tariff.

The second site you linked does not provide any figures to back up its advocacy of eliminating the ethanol tariff. I just looked over every blog he has on ethanol. His desire to abolish the tariff is only backed up by ideology, not any statistics or estimated effects. If you would like me to consider those sources (mind you, I did just read every blog on ethanol they had), then direct me to a place where he gives some actual substantive data on the impact that removing the embargo would have. In the absence of such data, the site doesn't help your argument much.

Despite the lack of real data (on the potential of removing the ethanol tariff), I did see one blog where he mocked Bush's plan to utilize our strategic reserve to lower fuel prices (link). In his post, he called the 0.25% reduction (from the additional 25,000 barrels per day) "statistically irrelevant."

The post got me thinking and I decided to see how many barrels we could possibly get from Brazil...

Brazil is expected to produce 6.97 billion gallons of ethanol in 2008 (which is 165,952,381 barrels), they consume at least 280,000 barrels per day (assuming that they haven't increased consumption since 2006) - or 102,200,000 barrels per year, which means that we could potentially import 63,752,381 barrels per year. That comes to 174,664 barrels per day. Since ethanol is only 0.66 as energy-rich as petroleum, we would could potentially import the (ethanol) equivalent 115,278 barrels of petroleum per day in 2008. That number, however would assume that the US received every drop of ethanol not consumed domestically in Brazil. We, in fact, only receive 26.4% of their imports, which would be 30,433 barrels of what is equivalent to oil per day.

Of course, if the tariff was removed, perhaps we could import 1/3 to 1/2 of their ethanol exports (in an estimate that is pretty generous to your position). If this were the case, we could get as much as maybe 60,000 barrels per day. If so, we would still be only meeting a number roughly 2 to 3 times as much as what goes into the strategic reserves (or 0.5 to 0.75% of our daily petroleum consumption).

Note: As before, something could be wrong with my methodology or math, but it looks solid.

So, I am left with the question: If your source claims that a 0.25% reduction is "statistically irrelevant," would a 0.5 or 0.75% reduction (in an estimate that is incredibly fair to you) constitute anything that is statistically relevant? Even if that 0.75% was applied to a general reduction in rent, food costs, transportation costs, etc., would it make a meaningful impact on the entire economy?

To emphasize a point: you correctly identify a problem (high fuel costs) and then propose a near-term solution (removing the ethanol tariff). I agree with you on the problem. I disagree on the solution. It does not seem that removing the ethanol tariff will bring in enough ethanol to reduce fuel prices in an amount that will have meaningful impact on the economy. The cost for reducing the price of fuel even this much would be to risk losing much of our domestic ethanol production (and thus our energy independence). That site had an article on the bankruptcies in our domestic ethanol production.

Plus, we can get a larger reduction through diplomacy. The drop in oil prices we saw last week came from confidence in the Iranian production stemming from diplomacy. Your buddy Ron Paul argues that a "sensible approach toward Iran could quickly lower oil prices by $20 per barrel." Even if Ron Paul is being overly optimistic, Obama is in favor of dialogue with Iran and his leadership would remove fears of a US invasion. McCain pursues an aggressive policy in the Middle East (particularly in regard to Iran) and would have the opposite effect. Supporting McCain on the issue of ethanol tariff removal is counter-productive if you are going to have to deal with the impact of McCain's foreign policy on fuel prices.

Are you seriously willing to argue that the increase of ethanol imports will offset the increase of oil prices from McCain's hard-line stance on Iran?

Be rational here and consider all factors. The tariff is one thing that you might not like (I do because it protects an industry that clearly needs it and can't compete, yet we need), but McCain is far more dangerous to our economic health because of his foreign policy.

Quite right about the greenhouse gas emission problem. Any carbon dioxide produced through the combustion of the fuel would be reused by more algae to produce more fuel. Thus it being carbon-neutral.

Which is why it may not be an issue.

However, it's still not something that should be glossed over; the "information" on the website could possibly be construed as meaning no greenhouse gases are produced at all, which isn't true. It may be of concern if greenhouse gas emissions are a local health topic, for example.