It's bloomin' idiotic

Can words describe how bad corn ethanol is?

Posted by Joseph Romm (Guest Contributor) at 8:15 PM on 02 Mar 2008

Read more about: agriculture | energy | biofuels | ethanol

Well, maybe my words can't describe how bad corn ethanol is, or Mayor Bloomberg's, or those of top scientists, but I think I have found someone's words that do: Opus's from Bloom Country.

First, however, the lastest grim news from Fortune: "The ethanol boom is running out of gas as corn prices spike." Yes, "plans for as many as 50 new ethanol plants have been shelved in recent months." Why?

Spurred by an ethanol plant construction binge, corn prices have gone stratospheric, soaring from below $2 a bushel in 2006 to over $5.25 a bushel today. As a result, it's become difficult for ethanol plants to make a healthy profit, even with oil at $100 a barrel.

If you can't make money with oil at $100 a barrel, you are not much of an alternative fuel.

But I know what you're thinking -- if corn ethanol is so bad, what's wrong with plants being scrapped? Well, the corn ethanol business is here to stay. The corn ethanol mandate from the most recent energy bill requires doubling supply from current levels. Fortune explains what that means:

What probably has changed permanently are ethanol economics. The days of cheap corn are over, and the industry's new, lower profit margins clearly favor ethanol leader Archer Daniels Midland over all the smaller producers like Verasun, privately held Poet Energy and the many, many farmer-owned ethanol cooperatives. ADM's massive 200 million-gallon-a-year ethanol plants simply have better economies of scale than their 50-million-gallon-a-year rivals. And the fact some of ADM's big plants run on coal instead of natural gas makes ADM's cost advantage that much greater.

Just what we need, a shakeout that makes ADM richer and corn ethanol even dirtier.

So just how bad is corn ethanol? As bad as a movie reviewed by Opus:

George Phblat's new film, 'Benji Saves the Universe,' has brought the word 'BAD' to new levels of badness. Bad acting. Bad effects. Bad everything. This film just oozed rottenness from every bad scene ... Simply bad beyond all infinite dimensions of possible badness ...

Well maybe not that bad, but Lord, it wasn't good.

One last thing, as Tom Philpott makes clear, the blame for this mess rests first and foremost on a certain big company. Rather than naming names, let's just say its initials are an anagram for M.A.D.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

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4 Comments | Post a Comment

so what is the story, Jim?

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer long had ADM as one of its sponsors; and other smelly sponsors, such as the coal industry consortium, are still around. I cannot help thinking that such sponsorship has stifled the independence of those otherwise fine reporters.

As for Opus:
<<
Numerous strips indicated that [Bill the Cat's] persistent near-catatonic state was the result of drug use or brain damage resulting from once being legally dead and then revived after too long of a period. He's been a cult leader ("Bhagwan Bill"), televangelist ("Fundamentally Oral Bill"), perennial Presidential candidate (for the National Radical Meadow Party), heavy-metal rock star ("Wild Bill Catt"), and, in the last months of "Bloom County", had his brain surgically replaced with Donald Trump's.
>>

Possibly that last clause indicates what could be considered "jumping the shark." To say nothing of the species-indeterminate Portnoy. "Pogo" was never so loosey-goosey.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 9:52 PM on 02 Mar 2008

Crack

Corn Ethanol is the crack cocaine of alternate fuels.

Not just the cost, not just the failure of it to even deliver on it's bloated promises, but the genocidal effects of massive food price increases to a world already in stress.

How long before the first crack ethanol war? (err, corn).

(After Bloom County retired, and Calvin and Hobbes went away, I like Boondocks... though that seems to be in reruns as well.)

patrick in Beijing

by bookerly at 3:12 AM on 03 Mar 2008

It's more like Methamphetamine

In that it appeals to rural america while at the same time destroying it. It also allows people to continue to do things they want to do, drive big SUV's, far past the time when they should have stopped.

Yeah, America is tweaked and mainlining ethanol while the babies cry in the corner.

Put the Carbon Back

by Pangolin at 3:30 AM on 03 Mar 2008
[ Parent ]

corn subsities

Ethanol makes beer more expensive! This is a crime against beer drinkers everywhere!

Grow corn.
Just for food.
Not cars.

The NYT has an editorial about this today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/03/opinion/03mon1.html?_r= ...

by cheflovesbeer at 8:26 AM on 03 Mar 2008

ADVERTISING POLICY

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