Why and How Willard M. Romney doesn't get it.
And some fun facts about fuel economics
According to the Villages Daily Sun front page today, September 21, 2012, average Villagers' household income rose 1.5% to just over $46,000 annually. Since this is only 23% of the $200-250 k which Mitt Romney defines as "middle income," certainly no one in the Villages could support someone so far out of touch with their situation, could they? This is simply one more example of a long list of exemplars of people blindly supporting a candidate who represents much of what is actually in opposition to their (the voters') best interests. No candidate since George H. W. Bush's amazement at a bar code scanner has demonstrated such a total lack of understanding of the average American family's situation. "Trickle down" economics has failed to produce at every turn when tried, but Mitt loves the idea. Romney decries "excessive regulation" as too costly at a time when corporate cash reserves are at an all time high and Financial Institution CEOs are being sentenced for defrauding customers. On the one hand Republicans scream "drill baby, drill" while subsidizing ethanol production from corn, a boondoggle of monstrous proportions. Corn is the top crop for subsidy payments. The (Bush-Cheyney) Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandates that billions of gallons of ethanol be blended into vehicle fuel each year, guaranteeing demand, but US corn ethanol subsidies are between $5.5 billion and $7.3 billion per year. Producers also benefitted from a federal subsidy of 51 cents per gallon, additional state subsidies, and federal crop subsidies that can bring the total to 85 cents per gallon or more. US corn-ethanol producers were shielded from competition from cheaper (and far more efficiently produced) Brazilian sugarcane-ethanol by a 54-cent-per-gallon tariff, accounting for a higher than necessary automotive fuel cost while Republicans blamed President Obama . I suppose when you can't even say for sure how many cars and houses you own, 85 cents more at the pump isn't really your concern, is it Mitt?
According to the Villages Daily Sun front page today, September 21, 2012, average Villagers' household income rose 1.5% to just over $46,000 annually. Since this is only 23% of the $200-250 k which Mitt Romney defines as "middle income," certainly no one in the Villages could support someone so far out of touch with their situation, could they? This is simply one more example of a long list of exemplars of people blindly supporting a candidate who represents much of what is actually in opposition to their (the voters') best interests. No candidate since George H. W. Bush's amazement at a bar code scanner has demonstrated such a total lack of understanding of the average American family's situation. "Trickle down" economics has failed to produce at every turn when tried, but Mitt loves the idea. Romney decries "excessive regulation" as too costly at a time when corporate cash reserves are at an all time high and Financial Institution CEOs are being sentenced for defrauding customers. On the one hand Republicans scream "drill baby, drill" while subsidizing ethanol production from corn, a boondoggle of monstrous proportions. Corn is the top crop for subsidy payments. The (Bush-Cheyney) Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandates that billions of gallons of ethanol be blended into vehicle fuel each year, guaranteeing demand, but US corn ethanol subsidies are between $5.5 billion and $7.3 billion per year. Producers also benefitted from a federal subsidy of 51 cents per gallon, additional state subsidies, and federal crop subsidies that can bring the total to 85 cents per gallon or more. US corn-ethanol producers were shielded from competition from cheaper (and far more efficiently produced) Brazilian sugarcane-ethanol by a 54-cent-per-gallon tariff, accounting for a higher than necessary automotive fuel cost while Republicans blamed President Obama . I suppose when you can't even say for sure how many cars and houses you own, 85 cents more at the pump isn't really your concern, is it Mitt?
A Semi-Scholarly
Monograph On Ethanol
Even more mystifying
is the fact that the money diverted to
corn producers as subsidies directly controverts the free market capitalism
heralded by Conservatives as the savior of the economy. If corn were the only possible source of ethanol, this
would be troubling, but the truth is
worse. Corn ethanol takes food and turns
it into fuel, while better cellulosic ethanol techniques can turn any cellulose
bearing plant (corn cobs,. wood, wire grass, weeds, etc) into ethanol with far higher
yields and less energy consumption to produce. On January 14, 2008, General Motors announced a partnership with Coskata,
Inc. The goal was to produce cellulosic ethanol cheaply, with an eventual goal
of US$1 per US gallon ($0.30/L) for the fuel. The partnership planned to begin
producing the fuel in large quantity by the end of 2008, and by 2011 to have a
full-scale plant on line, capable of producing 50 million US gallons (190,000 m3)
to 100 million US gallons (380,000 m3) of ethanol a year. ] In October 2011, an article on the
Coskata website stated that a "semi-commercial" pilot plant in
Madison, Pennsylvania, had been running successfully for 2 years and that a
full scale facility was planned for Alabama. While this technology is still
developing there is no doubt about its feasibility.
For every unit of energy delivered at the pump, corn ethanol
requires 0.76 units of fossil energy, and gasoline requires 1.22 units. Simply
put, ethanol production per gallon expends 76% of the energy derived from the
corn in the production process. The use of ethanol thus results in the
consumption of only about 35% less fossil energy than the gasoline it replaces. in
Brazil, sugar cane waste, known as “bagasse,” is used for boiler fuel. Thus
Brazilian ethanol contains eight times more energy than was required to make
it. Again, simply speaking, Brazil produces ethanol and uses only 12% of the output energy value
in the production process (and that input energy is not from fossil fuel!) The US could buy Brazilian ethanol and
transport it here for less that US production costs (without even adding in the
punitive cost of subsidizing the corn growers price!) Cellulosic Ethanol (produced
from any cellulose source, not food crops) is expected to have a similar fossil energy
balance to Brazilian ethanol. If the money BP spent to clean up their hideous pollution of the Gulf of Mexico (and still kept making money!!!) had been spent on Cellulosic Ethanol production and wind based energy production, we'd be miles ahead today. Plant matter (weeds) grown on land unfit for productive agriculture could be producing fuel, instead of reducing foodstocks and fattening the wallets of a few via corn subsidies. Wind produced energy could reduce greenhouse gas production as well. Yes, it requires money and a national comittment. So did the space effort of the sixties. Bear in mind, that this initiative would also produce jobs here in America, not in China!
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