This one made me laugh.
Fidel Castro recently penned an op-ed critical of America’s efforts to develop crop-based alternative fuels. According to news accounts, the dictator claims doing so would deplete food stocks in developing nations “condemning to premature death by hunger and thirst more than 3 billion people of the world.”
Good to see the ailing dictator worried about the little guy.
I’m not at all dismissing the concerns facing citizens of developing nations, of which there are many. And Castro’s an easy straw man: most people have a hard time taking seriously a two-bit tyrant whose own citizens live in a kind of freedomless Fifties-gone-feckless, a state of suspended deprivation.
Because of America-haters like Castro, Venezuela’s Chavez and Iran’s Ahmadinejad, the United States must build our energy independence. Development of biofuels is one good way. As you may recall, President Bush has set a goal of reducing America’s gasoline consumption by 20 percent over the next 10 years. And he has highlighted scientific breakthroughs that will help make it possible to produce ethanol from sources other than corn. There are other technologies and America should pursue them all, though I’m strongly on the record favoring market-based mechanisms over government subsidies or new taxes. We should let America’s marketplace develop new energy technologies, innovations and practices that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
Fortunately, we’re not dependent on Cuba for our energy needs.
We’d do well to reduce the hold on us by his kindred spirits, Chavez and the mullahs.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007 at 10:06 am and is filed under Uncategorized . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 3rd, 2007 at 1:34 pm
I think that when the food “shortage” argument is raised as it concerns current geo-politics, it really means food “price increase”. The upward price pressure ethanol puts on corn futures has made corn very expensive in the rest of the world. People in Mexico are rioting, and US farmers who raise animals are complaining that feed costs are going up too much, quickly leading to declining profits and increased prices for consumers.
I agree that there will not be a food shortage on our end, but as we produce more ethanol that uses up available corn, corn futures will continue to rise and make it harder for the rest of the world to afford the corn-related food products.
This does open the playing field for a corn substitute. There are many other grains that can be used in place of corn, and as corm prices rise, they will seem more and more attractive. If the demand is there, someone will create, and profit on the supply. I think we should stop worrying about what corn is doing and figure out the alternative. The US is pretty much set in developing its domestic ethanol industry based on corn. I dont agree with it, but there are alternatives and its to the investors/entrepreneurs to get it done.
I comment regularly on the business/investor side of alternative energy on Energy Spin: Alternative Energy Blog for Investors-Served Daily
Cheers,
Francesco DeParis
April 4th, 2007 at 4:48 am
Since when do we Americans have an obligation to the rest of the world to not utilize our crops to our best interest so that they can have cheap food? When farmers were getting a lousy $1.50/bu a few years back nobody shed a tear for them. If the value of crops rises maybe we can get rid of the stupid farm subsidies. If we get rid of the sugar subsidy, maybe sugar cane would be a viable alternative to corn. If ethanol turns out to be our alternative fuel of choice, I believe that the lions share will be made from cellulose in the near future. There is a lot of research going into cellulose. There is not enough corn to make enough ethanol to replace gasoline. At some point corn prices will rise enough to make other fuels or other ethanol feedstocks more viable.
April 4th, 2007 at 9:45 am
“there isn’t enough corn to make enough ethanol to replace gasoline”
Why is this such a common argument, and why does it lead to people saying that ethanol isn’t a viable alternative fuel? No one is saying that ethanol needs to replace 100% of the gasoline used in this country. Use it to replace only 5% and we still come out on top.
And it’s not necessarily such a bad thing if corn shifts away from being a cheap food source. Michael Pollan’s book “An Omnivore’s Dilemma” makes a pretty strong case that we use and eat far too much corn as it is.
April 7th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Heather, I did not mean to criticize ethanol. I am a big ethanol proponent, I am looking to build my own plant and have experimented with cellulose. But even proponents agree that there is not enough corn to replace gasoline. You are absolutely correct to say that ethanol doesnt have to replace 100% of the gasoline. As far as I am concerned, every barrel of oil we dont have to buy from the jihadists is a step ahead. I agree that its not a bad thing if corn shifts away from being a cheap food source. Further, if corn gets to be too expensive for fuel use, other feedstocks will become competitive.
Now there are ethanol detractors out there who make this argument and others such as its immoral to be using food for fuel or that it takes more energy to make ethanol than you get from it (which is false), or that it pollutes. These arguments are being made by the oil industry and New Age environmentalists as excuses to impede ethanol development in order to further their agendas. I am not one of them.