May 4, 2008
Corn For Bellies Vs. Ethanol For Cars
“Environuts” are ecstatic over subsidies for ethanol refineries that convert field corn into “clean” propellant for fancy automobiles.
The resulting shortage of edible corn has driven up the cost of food worldwide. This at a time when millions of people are starving in places like Zimbabwe, Africa; Haiti, Hispaniola; and Malaysia, Indochina.
We are reminded of the ethnic starvation in 1994 at Rwanda when a million Tutsi and Hutus succumbed.
Today, environmental-friendly corn-based high-priced ethanol is available for high-priced cars – as the United Nations World Food Program expects a hundred million people will be affected by the growing food shortage.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says:
“This crisis could result in a cascade of others --and become a multi-dimensional problem affecting economic growth, social progress and even political security around the world.”
Hobson Choice
General Motors hitched on to the ethanol bandwagon last week – announcing partnership with two ethanol companies. They are Mascoma at Cambridge, Mass., and Coskata at Madison, Pa.
Their aim is to create microbes that will make ethanol from grass. This is a “Hobson Choice” made famous 400 years ago by an English stable manager of that name who offered horses for rent in accordance with his rotation plan, or no horse.
Grass is not food for humans. However it is food for cattle that is food for humans.
In short, ethanol is inherently self-defeating. As this truism sinks in, the price of rice soars.
Lester Brown, president of Earth Policy Institute, a Washington research group, is quoted by the Washington Post: “The price of grain is now directly tied to the price of oil. We used to have a grain economy and a fuel economy, but now they’re beginning to fuse.”
This year, about a quarter of U.S. corn will go to feeding ethanol plants instead of poultry or livestock, according to Brown.
Thus, the prices of chicken, eggs, sausage, hamburger, pork chops and breakfast cereal have zoomed up.
Other Power Sources
Many gung-ho environmentalists are misguided about solutions to the world’s appetite for energy, but not all are stupid.
Many scientists and automobile engineers are struggling to perfect "hydrogen cells" that can drive the family chariot and over-the-road trucks.
Such power sources require charging with gobs of electricity that splits hydrogen from water. This is a “Devil’s Pact” – stoking shoebox size cells with hydrogen which yield electricity and distilled water.
Dams provide “clean” power to generate electricity, but there are only a few streams are suitable for dams. Engineers hope a two-foot ocean tide and gravity can be harnessed to lift water and produce electricity.
In the meantime, great hope is placed on super windmills and sun-activated “voltaic cells.” However, these are expensive, massive and dependent on irregular wind and sunlight.
Bring On Nuclear Power
courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory
The practical sources of electricity are nuclear power plants. But this makes people nervous.
Nevertheless, nuclear power is the only, practical solution. The United States has 65 electric power plants driven by nuclear energy. France derives 75% of its electricity from 58 nuclear power plants.
Iran is building such a plant. However, its capability also to manufacture weapon grade uranium as a byproduct gives Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt the heebie jeebies.
Drill More Oil Wells
A lot of pressure for iffy ethanol – and attendant food plants – would be alleviated by drilling more oil wells.
There are gobs of oil 30 miles off shore of Florida, but fear of a possible oil spill that might besmirch beaches has hog-tied folks.
Oil wells offshore and out-of-sight of Louisiana and Texas have operated for many years without incident. Except they have attracted schools of fish to the delight of sportsmen.
We are reminded of the hullabaloo raised by environuts when it was proposed to build the Alaska oil pipeline. Wipe out the caribou etc.
Just for fun, visit Anwr.org/photo gallery.
As we write, China is drilling an oil well 50 miles south of Key West with Cuba’s cooperation.
Someday we will get around to tapping into – and utilizing energy of -- the boundless source of methane gas off Florida coasts.
A Word Of Wisdom
Consider the words of Jeremiah in the King James Bible 5:21: "There are none so blind than those who will not see."
By Lindsey Wilger Williams, retired newspaper publisher and syndicated columnist
