Gassed by ethanol

If Greens want to start making changes, especially as regards green house gas emissions, one way is to pop the corn lobby out of Washington. There are two distinct, but related issues we need to fight: subsidies for commodity crops including corn and renewable fuels standards that mandate the use of ethanol.

Most ethanol is manufactured from corn. That process is neither economic nor ecologically sound. It takes too much water and energy to produce the ethanol for the benefit received.

Most of you probably did not realize that ethanol was such an issue in California, but industry is at work lining their pockets with yet another bad idea. Haven't you heard of the California Ethanol Vehicle Coalition? Now, they even have announced a partnership between NASCAR and American Ethanol, all for the promotion of ethanol as a "healthy fuel."

Note, the featured photo is of the President of the National Corn Growers Association. This is very good. We subsidize corn production and then mandate the use of 45 cents/gal. subsidized corn based ethanol in our fuels. It would be a humorous sidelight of Washington Politics if it were not that Energy Secretary Chu has a very different opinion.

“Ethanol is not an ideal transportation fuel,” Chu said during a question-and-answer session at the National Press Club. Chu said synthetic fuels don’t require the specialized infrastructure, such as pumps and pipelines, that are needed for ethanol.

Green need to support policies that end both commodity crop subsidies and the support of dead-ended technologies.

Ideas that never come to pass

I have a history of bright (blindingly so to my mind's eye) ideas that never come to pass. Here is one.

After getting an email update from George Stephanopoulos about the upcoming This Week program on ABC, I sent back a suggestion that he have Energy Secretary Chu on next week. After all, energy, climate change and the latest version of a stimulus package are all top news now and who better to address them. If so, then I am sure that he would have George Will on his panel but they need a journalist who actually knows something about science. Will has proven that he doesn't. I then suggested that the ask Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science to be there as a balance to George Will.

What will we eat when California Ag disappers?

The title is a serious question that should concern all Americans. California is the largest agriculture producer in the United States. According to the California Department of Food and Agriculture:

With 88,000 farms and ranches, California agriculture is nearly a $36.6 billion dollar industry that generates $100 billion in related economic activity.

In a story in today's LA Times, Energy Secretary Steven Chu is quoted as saying that "'We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California." This, in a state that can not even find enough money to pass a budget. When you take away the number one industry in the state, what future does it have?

What is our legislature doing about it? Not a damned thing. Even a normally progressive State Assemblymember, Jared Huffman (D - 6th AD) has introduced AB-39 that seeks to implement the very flawed Delta Vision Task Force Recommendations that, unfortunately, do not consider the impact of what Dr. Chu is saying.

I am too irate to write a plausible plan for what we should be doing. I just know it is not what we are doing now.

What to make of the DOE nomination?

The nomination of Steven Chu as Energy Secretary became official today. It has been rumored, written about, etc. for weeks. There are several items worth noting.

To begin with, every scientist I know, including one who works in DOE, are elated with Chu's nomination. It will be the first time that a scientist heads the department of government that has the most to do with science. It seems to many to be a final vindication for all that they suffered as they endured the Republican War on Science, as author Chris Mooney called it. Chu was one of the very active Nobel Laureate who supported and worked for a Science Debated 2008 as part of the presidential nomination process. It did not happen, though it should have. Mooney comments at DeSmogBlog.

There is another group of global warming activists, like Joseph Romm of Climate Progress, who are also laudatory, given the fact that Chu has always been very active in research for sollutions to global warming and energy. He gives us 5 reasons he thinks Chu is a great pick.

Yet I find the most vocal members of the EcoAction Committee of the Green Party to be adamantly against Chu for his being actively pro Nuke. Very few are looking at this objectively. Perhaps this post by Mark Flanagan is one. We have to consider that the previous name for the Department of Energy was the Atomic Energy Commission. So, it is worth watching.

It is my opinion that the story has yet to be written about Steven Chu. It would be nice to see a scientist work from the facts of the physical world rather than the political calculus of what is possible as they consider what needs to be done.

I look for Chu to do more work on nuclear storage. That is necessary in any case, especially if we move to decommission weapons. I would be very surprised to see even one new nuclear reactor break ground while he is Secretary. Then I have been wrong many, many times.