Mar 09 2007
Energy
According to the Toronto Daily News:
President Bush arrived in Brazil last night, greeted by about 6,000 environmentalist protesters, to finalize an agreement today with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to try to expand ethanol production and use in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Naturally, the farm lobbies are upset:
Tom Buis, president of the National Farmers Union, which represents smaller U.S. farm interests, warned that Bush’s proposal would redirect resources that could be used to feed a nascent boom in ethanol production at home.
“Using U.S. taxpayer dollars to encourage new ethanol production in foreign countries will only directly compete with production right here at home,” Buis said in a statement.
“This agreement is the wrong step in the wrong direction at the wrong time,” he added.
Interestingly, that same article also points out:
Growing production of ethanol, which in the United States is made mostly from corn, has shaken up U.S. agriculture, driving up corn prices and squeezing other crops like soybeans.
It has also prompted cries from livestock owners who are paying more for cattle feed.
I personally believe that subsidizing ethanol production in the United States, especially of the corn-based variety, is nothing more than pork designed to line the pockets of Midwestern voters and agribusiness interests. R-Squared has a good article that mirrors an article from Popular Mechanics from May 2006 - the gist of both articles is that corn ethanol, if it’s a net energy gain at all, is a small enough one that it would take more corn than we can grow right now to make a serious dent in our oil dependence. Furthermore, there are other, better sources of ethanol (sugar beets, sugarcane, sorghum) that don’t immediately impact the cost of staples like meat and corn tortillas.
In short, I think that energy policy is far too important to use as an excuse to line the pockets of large agribusiness so they can provide the most wasteful method of production possible. It also is too important to use as an excuse to engage in protectionist posturing while we embrace this failed idea that national self-reliance is a good thing. Real energy independence is getting our energy from a variety of sources, both internal and domestic, and varying out in as many directions as practically possible, so that market movement in one sector or country doesn’t dictate our energy supply.
