Obama - Just as much about big oil as Bush
Just code for petroleum?Watched the overly dramatized, although very fascinating, Food Inc. last night, and I was left with two over-whelming thoughts: 1.) Is health care reform a joke when high fructose corn syrup is subsidized by the government, and 2.) Isn't ethanol simply code for big oil?
In the US, most foods and many products can in some way trace some of their roots back to corn and, consequently, petroleum. Ultimately, America's corny economy isn't just killing the US health care system, according to Food Inc., it also uses vast amounts of petroleum. And, as many scientists have suggested, if it takes as much, or more, petroleum to displace petroleum via ethanol, what's the gain, aside from massive subsidies for the politically powerful corn lobbies, cheap fast food, and low-cost labor?
Yet, President Obama has been as big a proponent of ethanol as President Bush was of big oil, but is there really any difference? Isn't over-dependence upon ethanol just as bad, if not worse, than over-dependence upon petroleum?
Labels: Ethanol, Foreign Oil Dependency
posted by Dahcredyns at
8:47 AM
15 Comments:
What a surprise. That's why I didn't vote for him.
This whole "America took a huge step forward" BS in regards to electing an African American is just that...BS.
This crap was rigged as much as it was chosen to be.
Hogwash.
The proof is in the legislation.
Since Obama was elected we have added plug-in hybrid tax credits, increased fuel economy standards (for the 1st time in 30 years) and added renewable energy tax credits for solar & wind.
In one year we have seen more green legislation than in the previous eight years combined.
We would see even more legislation if not for all the fillibusters....
I'm not saying Obama has done everything we wanted, but let there be no doubt:
- Obama is with us on these issues.
- Bush was with his oil buddies.
You can't get much worse than Bush but for all practical purposes, Obama is the same when it comes to the status quo of who this country is helping, etc.
Democrats, Republicans. They're both in bed with special interests. There aren't that many energy sources that don't use another source of carbon based energy to be created. Hopefully, wind, solar, the ocean's tides, geothermal (it's supply is not inexhaustible) and nuclear (it's waiste is toxic) can continue to reduce our dependency on carbon based fuels. Personally, I think using farm land to produce ethanol is a very bad idea because of the subsidies and the effect it has on the cost of food and it pollutes on both the production end and end use. I realize I've greatly over simplified, but I hope there is a little reasoning in what I've written.
bush white house helped kill the last generation of EVs. obama white house will usher in the next generation within months from now. absolutely intentional and well-funded.
You don't need petroleum to produce ethanol. A company called Coskata can take water, electricity, and ANY carbonaceous feedstock, (old rubber tires, garbage, landfill), and turn it into ethanol for about $1/gallon. This way, corn, or any other food feedstock is not used. Since we will never run out of garbage, we will never run out of ready-to-process feedstock, to turn into ethanol. This is not pie-in-the-sky laboratory prototype stuff. This company is a privately owned company that has a 40,000 gallon per year semicommercial plant in Madison, PA. They are trying to get funding to build a scaled up 100 million gallon per year plant.
How quickly we forget....
Don't you remember Bush's Secretary on energy speaking before the Senate in 2008 explaining why hybrids and electric vehicles should not be part of the US strategy in reducing our foreign oil dependence? I remember being so frustated at listening to those guys back then.
I was thrilled when we passed the new fuel economy standards in 2009. Obama was the first President to increase fuel economy standards since Jimmy Carter!!!
Even Clinton, who had Al Gore as his VP, didn't do anything about fuel economy. In fact, it was under Clinton's watch that the SUV became popular.
Considering the behavior of our previous presidents, I have no major complaints about Obama in regards to his policies in this area....
Ethanol is not a solution to alleviating America's dependence of fossil fuels. You can make gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuel out of garbage. However, these processes waste about 80% of the renewable carbon dioxide. If you add hydrogen from nuclear and hydroelectric resources to the wasted carbon dioxide, urban and rural garbage could completely replace fossil fuels in the US.
What we simply need to do is to mandate that a certain percentage of all gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuel sold in this country must come from carbon neutral sources. That will get the industry started and we can continue to increase the percentage of domestically produced carbon neutral fuel over the next few decades until nearly 100% of our fuel is from carbon neutral resources.
Obviously, there are other ways to produce ethanol from sources other than grains. Do you really think that the big farm lobbyist are going to let that happen without a major fight though?
I think "regionally", ethanol from sugar cane can make a big impact.
Especially in places like Hawaii, where:
1. Every drop of oil has to be shipped in from somewhere else
2. Sugar cane grows like a weed...
Hawaii could become oil independent, just like Brazil...
The southeast US also has good climate for sugar cane....
but the gulf region also produces a lot of oil, and has most of the US oil refineries. I suspect that like the farming lobbyist, the oil lobbyists will work very hard to slow ethanol production in the southeast.
But in the end... overall, ethanol will only be small part of the solution in the US...
hogwash?
after watching Food Inc., i'm convinced that corn subsidies have resulted in the world's greatest military industrial complex.
think about it. about 4 companies now run the entire food supply of the US and many other parts of the world, greatly affecting US healthcare, immigration, salaries, energy, and foreign policy.
our entire food paradigm is now significantly owned and or dependent upon the chemical and petroleum industries. even the seeds of our food industry are GMO'd and controlled by only 1 company.
moreover, for at least a decade, if not for flex fuel credits, the big 3 would have been forced to pay many millions, if not billions, in CAFE violations. yet, most flex fuel vehicles have never used flex fuel. think of how much that has increased foreign oil dependence.
and those cafe credits still exist today, and will probably be increased if obama is to achieve his all cars must be flex fuel cars campaign promise.
as for CAFE. that had little to do with Obama. automakers practically handed CAFE to Obama because they were afraid of letting California set its own tailpipe emissions, and the most critical supreme court decision was made during bush's term.
solar tax credits, etc? going nowhere fast today according to the financial industry (of course maybe they aren't trustworthy).
likewise, almost every single objective study has called Obama's plug-in tax credits misguided.
as noz indicated, little under obama has changed. moreover, where he has pushed changed, there are many contradictions. mostly, we've just moved money around and created the perception of change. when gm used to do that, we called it greenwashing.
i remember obama long ago at a town hall meeting as a senator. the suv must go the way of the dinosaur, obama told his constituents. then he left and returned home in an suv.
of course, later his people assured the press it was a flex fuel SUV. of course, in Chicago, where obama spent most his illinois time, flex fuel gas stations were essentially non-existent.
i like obama better than bush, but that doesn't mean he's any less of a politician.
If you told me that ethanol was Obama's one and only solution to our energy crisis I would be concerned.
But Obama has allowed us to move forward in number of areas where only road blocks existed previously. Like the economy, it's like trying to stop a moving freight train to get anything done in this area.
Heck. Obama even helped to get the 1st license to build a Nuclear power plant in over 30 years.
OK. I exaggerated on the solar credits as these were part of the bailout, not the stimulus package. Since Republicans blame Obama for the negative stuff in the bailout, I'll give him props for positive stuff in the bailout (even though he had litle to do with it).
The key is that Obama is the first president to take a few steps forward on energy. Yes they are baby steps, but they are important steps in the right direction. After nearly 16 years of "brick walls" it is nice to see us moving in the right direction again.
Now I'm not a hard core liberal. In the last 20 years I've voted for both Democrats and Republicans.
One thing I am is a student of history.....
In 1994, when the Republicans took over the congress, all legislation regarding clean energy came to a grinding halt and has pretty much stayed that way until this year. If the Republicans regain control of either the house or the Senate in this next election, you can pretty much expect history to repeat itself. Clean energy legislation will once again come to a grinding halt.
For us folks that support clean energy and oil independence, this next elcetion could be one of the most critical in our lifetimes....
I don't really disagree, Smurf, and there is no doubt I was being a little facetious in comparing Bush to Obama. Still, not that much has really changed and if adding flex fuel technology to every auto becomes Obama's most significant energy policy, then I'm not very impressed.
Nonetheless, Obama's cap and trade ideas are light years ahead of anything Bush would have ever conceived. Bush was an energy dead end, Obama can still go down in history for making the key moves to change our energy paradigm.
Still, change is going to require bipartisanship. Certainly, one can't blame Obama for all the partisanship in Washington. It's the nature of Washington, but achieving bipartisanship is Obama's greatest challenge. So far, on that task, he has a long way to go.
Agreed.
I think the key to bi-partisanship is the end of the fillibuster.
Both sides are afraid to eliminate the fillibuster for fear that they may be in the minority and no longer have any control.
Without the fillibuster both sides will be more agressive to work with the other side in order to get some of their ideas incorporated into any legislation.
Unfortunately, neither side has the guts to eliminate the fillibuster leaving us in gridlock for all of eternity....
hopefully it's not that long!
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