Ethanol !

Was wondering just the other day about the fact that we hear so little about biofuels these days.  A decade ago, they were all the rage, with governments pushing them as a more environmentally-friendly, more sustainable alternative to fossilfuels, and stories showing up all the time in the media about people filling up their cars with chipfat or other leftover oils from restaurants.

Those who pointed out the potential environmental consequences of turning over more land to development for fuel, never mind the impact on food-supply for humans in redirecting the output of swathes of agriculture were pooh-poohed or ignored.

Anyways, this led me to Google News, and these two recent headlines:

Confused ?  Can both these headlines be true ?  Apparently, they can.

As I understand it, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is increasing year-on-year the requirements for, 'renewable fuel' percentages in the United States, but is doing so at levels, below the targets set by Congress.  For the simple reason that there isn't enough supply.  Or, as the EPA puts it:

The Clean Air Act provides EPA with the authority to reduce the volume requirements from their statutory targets under certain conditions, and we are proposing to use these authorities in this action. EPA has evaluated the availability of qualifying renewable fuels and factors that in some cases constrain the supply of those fuels to the vehicles that can consume them. EPA has also considered the ability of the market to respond to the applicable standards by producing changes in production, infrastructure, and relative pricing to boost the use of renewable fuels.

Based on these and other considerations, EPA is proposing volumes which, while below the volumes originally set by Congress, would increase renewable fuel use in the
U.S. above historical levels and provide for steady growth over time.

This is the kind of thing BTW likely to cause a freakout on the right in the US over Barack Obama's 'tyranical' abuse of executive power.  Except for the fact, that it's a relatively obscure wonkish issue that most people don't understand or care about.

And so anyway, the end-result is that no-one is happy with these proposals, whether it be boaters worried about ethanol destroying their engines, or those calling for the abolition of this idiotic mandate that should never have been put through for stupid political reasons by the Bush administration in the first place (What, should I pretend not to be biased ?), or the agricultural groups with a vested interest in maintaining artificial government subsidies for their crops.

Speaking of which, here's a nice quote:

The president of the The Iowa Corn Growers Association, Jerry Mohr, pointed out that farmers have the capabilities for increased ethanol production. "Iowa farmers have rallied to the challenge and been asked to produce corn, and we have. We just need a way to get rid of it. And ethanol has been a great one. And it's great for our country, and it cleans the air."

Never mind the crap about it cleaning the air (is he talking about photosynthesis ?), 'we just need a way to get rid of it.' ?  Seriously ?

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that about 805 million people of the 7.3 billion people in the world, or one in nine, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2012-2014. Almost all the hungry people, 791 million, live in developing countries, representing 13.5 percent, or one in eight, of the population of developing counties. There are 11 million people undernourished in developed countries (FAO 2014; for individual country estimates, see Annex 1.

This insane law is one of those things Obama could have set out to have repealed from early on in his presidency.  And although there is, of course, an instinctive resistance on the part of Republicans to go along with any the Obama administration's proposals, I suspect that there is actually some bipartisan agreement on this issue, the agri-lobby in Iowa aside, given that this law does interfere with the market, does impose bureaucratic governmental standards on business, and was pushed in the name of pseudo-environmental concern against the interests of fossil-fuel-based business.  The United States should be repealing this stupid legislation ASAP, and the EPA increasing the Ethanol-mandate not a jot.


* Relevant Links below:
http://www.examiner.com/article/corn-growers-rally-over-epa-s-rule-to-cut-ethanol-production
http://counton2.com/2015/07/14/epa-proposes-increasing-ethanol-in-fuel-supply/
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/fuels/renewablefuels/regulations.htm
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/fuels/renewablefuels/documents/420f15028.pdf
http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm#Number_of_hungry_people_in_the_world

** BTW, news-sites, the only thing worse than auto-play embedded video, is embedded video programmed to re-start automatically every five minutes or so, despite the fact that you've repeatedly expressed your disinclination to watch/listen to said video.  I am of course, not including in this comparison, video which is set by default to 100% volume.  WHICH IS SHEER EVIL !!!

Tony Abbott is an Asshat Part MMMCCXLVIII

If, as the environment movement contends, fossil fuels are the new tobacco, then Australia has cast itself as a sort of swaggering Marlboro man, puffing away contentedly as the rest of the world looks on quizzically.

As other countries look to transition to low-carbon alternatives with one eye on crunch climate talks in Paris later this year, Australia is pushing ahead with an expansion in coal extraction that its conservative prime minister Tony Abbott insists is “good for humanity”.

A series of huge mines planned for outback Queensland would, at capacity, produce nearly enough coal to match Germany’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

The federal government has just approved another mine, further south, on the fertile farming plains of New South Wales. It will be allowed to operate until 2046, a full 26 years after the point when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests the world should stop emissions rising to avoid disastrous global warming.

The mine, to be operated by Chinese state-owned firm Shenhua, has caused consternation among farmers, with agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce rebelling against his own cabinet colleagues by branding the approval “absolute madness” and “dopey”.

Both mines will liberate coal to further escalate Australia’s huge export industry, predominantly to India and China. The government’s rationale is clear – coal is here to stay and there is a moral imperative to provide it to the world, ideally reigniting Australia’s fading mining boom in the process. Any contrary view, such as the Pope’s, has been branded “unchristian” in the Abbott-friendly, Rupert Murdoch-owned press.

“For the foreseeable future coal is the foundation of prosperity,” Abbott said late last year. “Coal is the foundation of the way we live because you can’t have a modern lifestyle without energy, you can’t have a modern economy without energy.

“So if we are serious about raising people’s living standards in less developed countries, if we are serious about maintaining and improving living standards in countries like Australia, we have to be serious about making the best use of coal.”

Indeed !  Why do you hate poor people, environmentalists ?  Stupid Malthusian Marxist Big-Government Bureaucrats standing in the way of basic human progress and prosperity !  Why shouldn't developing nations be allowed to play as much a part (full knowingly) as we played (somewhat knowingly, perhaps) in destroying the ability of the planet to support advanced ecosystems, and human civilisation ?  And while we're at it, we should also encourage every nation to develop nuclear weapons.  Why should the developed nations have a monopoly on the power to destroy all of humanity at the touch of a button ?

According to recent polling by the Lowy Institute, 50% of Australians agree that “global warming is a serious and pressing problem” – up 14% since 2012. Asked what Australia’s primary energy source should be in 10 years, 43% of respondents cited solar power. Coal was selected by only 17%.

But it is doubtful whether Abbott will be swayed, either by scientific or economic evidence or, despite his undoubted ability as a political survivor, poor polling.

As he wrote in his book Battlelines: “To a conservative, intuition is as important as reasoning; instinct as important as intellect. A way of life has far more demonstrative power to a conservative than a brilliant argument.”

Earlier, in the article, Abbott is referred to as a 'a poor man’s George W Bush'.  Bush was never so eloquent, but that sentiment in bold, scares the shit out of me.  That kind of anti-rational bullshit might well serve as the epitaph on our species' tombstone.

Tony Abbott is an Asshat Part MMMCCXLVII

Government pulls the plug on household solar

The Abbott government has opened up another front in its war on renewable energy by pulling the plug on investments in the most common form of alternative energy, rooftop and small-scale solar.

As a storm raged over the government's directive to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to no longer back wind energy projects, it emerged that it has also put a stop to solar investments other than the largest industrial-scale projects.

The solar industry has been left fuming by a letter to the CEFC by Treasurer Joe Hockey and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann in which they direct investments in household and small-scale solar to be "excluded" from the $10 billion fund in future.

The draft investment mandate calls for "mature and established clean energy technologies … to be excluded from the corporation's activities, including extant wind technology and household and small-scale solar".

Currently, about a third of all CEFC investments involve small-scale solar. The corporation, which has produced more than a $1 profit for the government for every $1 invested, was assessing $500 million in finance for solar projects valued at more than $1 billion.

There are 1.3 million rooftop solar systems in Australia and most households receive publicly-backed rebates to install, but the CEFC has made a priority projects that help people who do not own their own homes, those who live in apartments and community groups to invest in solar panels.

...

Australian Solar Council chief executive John Grimes accused Tony Abbott of playing "cynical politics" after the Prime Minister insisted on Sunday that his government "supports renewables" but wants to "reduce the upward pressure on power prices".

Mr Grimes said the CEFC had made it possible for low-income people and retirees to invest in solar and take advantage of the power bill savings that flow.

"Tony Abbott is keeping people trapped paying higher electricity prices," Mr Grimes told Fairfax Media.

The government tried and failed to abolish the profit-making CEFC after failing to get Senate support and its latest strike against wind and solar is expected to further scare renewable energy investors away from Australia, Labor and the Greens claim.

..

Shadow environment spokesman Mark Butler said: "These proposed changes go well beyond Tony Abbott's opposition to the aesthetic values of wind farms - it's a wholesale attack on renewable energy.

"Tony Abbott is broadening his assault on renewable energy technologies putting thousands of Australian jobs and billions of dollars in investment at even further risk."

Maybe it's an Anglo-Saxon thing.  Here we are in 2015, decades after we were first warned about global warming, and at a time when even the PRC in China are embracing renewables, we have governments in the US*, Canada, the UK, and Australia all actively working against renewable projects, such as windfarms & solar, and championing greater investment in fossil-fuels.

And in this case, it would seem it isn't even about money.  $1 profit for every $1 invested sounds like a pretty good investment to me.  This is just being an asshole for the sake of it.  It's the politician's equivalent of those assholes in the US, who 'roll coal', ie modify their vehicles to release black smoke on demand, then wait till a Prius shows up in their rearview and blast them.  I really do despair for humanity.


* I'm referring here of course not to Barack Obama, but to the Republican assholes in Congress and elsewhere.