Biofools
Among the many dumb, focus-group-driven policies in the late budget -- revoking the deduction for interest on debt incurred to finance foreign takeovers; providing a rebate for some fuel-efficient cars, but not others (and taxing some gas-guzzlers but not others); etc. -- the $2-billion handout for the biofuels industry stands out. A study by a Library of Parliament researcher calculates the precise acreage of its stupidity...:
"In fact, if 10 per cent of the fuel used were corn-based ethanol (in other words, if the E-10 blend were used in all vehicles) Canada's greenhouse gas emissions would drop by approximately one per cent," says the study, dated March 8.Nor will biofuels have much impact in reducing dependence on oil and gas: "Global production is still too small and the need for raw materials is still too high for biofuels to have a significant impact on the fuel market and be able to compete with fossil fuels."
It cites an article in New Scientist as concluding that Canada would have to use 36 per cent of its farmland to produce enough biofuels to replace 10 per cent of the fuels now used in transportation.
4/02/2007
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"Among the many dumb, focus-group-driven policies in the late budget -- the $2-billion handout for the biofuels industry stands out."
Brazil used government programs to get its ethanol production off the ground and its ethanol production is now cheaper than the price of gasoline. If government spending now, leads to some sort of tangible value later, I can't say I'm totally outraged. Are you equally outraged that we subsidized, and still are subsidizing, the tarsands development?
Yes. Actually, no: the tarsands were subsidized by people who profess to believe in subsidies. Ethanol, aerospace, etc are being subsidized by people who professed themselves opposed to subsidies -- and who still profess themselves to be opposed. It's not just cynical, opportunistic, regionally divisive, economically destructive and so on. It's incoherent. It's dada.
Hmmmm. Debbie wants to make canada the greenest country on the planet, one must assume this would generate even more such stupidity, and you and her agree that she'd make a great MP. Ok, got it. Carry on.
One of the links I enjoy posting in discussions like this is;
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2043727,00.html
Written by George Monbiot, surely one of the cardinals in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church of global warming, and published in the Guardian. As close as one can get to a papal bull.
It also makes me leery, when I see lobby group for thses schemes associating themselves with the CPC, using ads showing 'Prime Minister Harper's promise', and spnsoring hotel rooms at the Conservative convention, buying ads in the Western Standard for years, etc.
Much is made of the liquid fuels self-sufficiency of Brazil. This ignores the fact that Brazil has _giant_ oilfields off its coast which provide 80% of the energy for its transportation, the largest hydro-electric plant on earth, a standard of living a fraction of that of Europe or N.America, and one of the greatest rich-poor gaps in the world.
It strikes me odd (no, actually it doesn't) that very little was said, until recently, in the 'MSM' on the environmental costs of these bio fuels. George Bush declares himself in favour, and almost overnight, ethanol and biodiesel, previously oh-so-green are associated with all sorts of terrible things from depletion of aquifers to drowning polar bears.
I think AC makes an excellent point.
When the Liberals (or NDP) extol these kind of subsidies as a tool of public policy, one can at least believe that THEY believe that these subsidies will have some tangible benefit (or at the very least that they COULD believe that to be so, in theory). You can argue that they're misspending taxpayers' money on shemes that will have little or no effect on the problem they purport to have an effect on; you can even argue that they KNOW their subsidies will have little (or no) effect on the problem. At the very least you know they believe that, in theory, subsidies COULD have an effect, on some problem, somehow, theoretically.
To me, when a party philosophically opposed to this type of thing, does this type of thing, I just don't know what to think. Especially when they're using a scheme they philosophically oppose to address a problem they used to say didn't exist. It all smells entirely too much to me like pretending to work on a problem you don't really believe in, using methods you don't really believe in, which will arguably have no effect on the problem you don't really believe in. It's just easier in that scenario to believe that the WHOLE POINT is to have no effect. That it's all just smoke and mirrors (especailly when the Tories basically say "hey look at this smoke", and "over here, check out this mirror!").
It's not just that they're cynically proposing solutions to a problem one suspects they still don't believe in. It's that they're cynically proposing solutions one suspects they don't believe in, to a problem one suspects they don't believe in. This is how all the "hidden agenda" talk starts, as the Tories do things we all know they don't think are a good idea, to address problems they don't think are problems, while all the while they're supporters say "this is what you need to do to get a majority".
In other words, use policy X to get people to vote for you so you can get your majority and implement policy Y.
Certainly there are elements within the Conservative Party which are opposed to subsidies as a tool of public policy, but I don't think one could prove that the Conservative Party itself is so universally opposed.
Just as there are elements within the Liberal Party which are opposed to certain subsidies. Policies are held by consensus, not by unanimous agreement.
As for Ethanol, the best argument I've heard in its favour is its carbon neutrality: the carbon released completes a cycle with the crops required to grow it, and it therefore represents close to zero net global warming impact. (Yes, the production, not relying solely on ethanol, is not carbon neutral. Today.)
Beyond that, arguments about the acreage required to completely replace today's oil consumption (with today's ethanol production methods) are as misplaced as the arguments about "peak oil" (which only admits proven reserves using conventional production methods and ignores new techniques, new sources such as the Tarsands, and the fact that the argument has been proven wrong for more than thirty years).
This is just another unnecessary farm subsidy. If the government thinks an answer to GHGs is biofuels, just mandate their use - the oil companies rather than the taxpayers will pay the farmers. Right now I can't buy biodiesel within 150km of my home unless I want it in 45 gallon drums. This subsidy does nothing to change that.
I think it's misleading to compare Brazil's ethanol production with ours, since the main ingredient in Brazilian ehhanol is sugarcane. It would have been nice to see some of the 2 billion put towards improving the efficiency Canadian ethanol instead of just subsidizing the E-10 blend.
It would have been nice to see some of the 2 billion put towards improving the efficiency Canadian ethanol instead of just subsidizing the E-10 blend.
Yes, but it would have been nicer to see none of that 2 billion wasted on ethanol. AC is dead right about this. The way the Conservative Party and its supporters have contorted their views would be amusing if it wasn't so depressingly hypocritical.
regulate a 55mph speed limit and we would save enough gas we wouldn't need to subsidize farmers, use ethanol and we would make huge strides and meeting theCO2 targets ( even though that is an entire waste of time & money)
Think Canadians are up for double nickel speed limits ??
Ya right and I have a nice bridge for sale
nobody has ever mastered a consistent approach to the politics of business subsidies. Quebeckers, western oil-savvy conservatives, Ontarians, etc. rather unfortunate.
The whole biz stinks. From greedy farmers and middlemen, hypocritical consumers who wax on about the environment but don’t want to shoulder anything more than token costs, shameless lobbyists and of course phoney politicians wrapping themselves in the green flag to harvest the maximum number of votes while avoiding all hard choices. And a Conservative Party which once – in some distant half-forgotten decade – claimed to believe in fiscal sobriety, and now detects wheels that squeak beyond the normal range of human hearing and rushes to grease every single one. Some poster out here put it all too well recently: they used to think Ottawa was a cess-pit, now they’ve decided it’s a hot-tub.
As usual, we don’t need subsidies (a polite word for corruption). The Americans are subsidizing ethanol already – they’ll be happy to sell to us at market price plus a rebate courtesy of the US taxpayer, which means that we don’t need a domestic “industry” at all, except for purposes of flag-waving. If the business was economic it wouldn’t need to be propped up; if it is going to be profitable at some time in the future, well, there are billions if not trillions in venture capital controlled by investors with long-term horizons (certainly longer than those of the present government). Let them build the industry and reap the rewards. If the government absolutely has to spend money in the name of the long-term national interest then let it spend on basic research instead; but of course a few dozen scientists don’t balance tens of thousands of farmers in the electoral scales, so advancing the frontiers of knowledge isn’t anything like as important as spreading joy on the farm. So sad.
Andrew
maybe if Canadian companies weren't so worried about taking over foreign companies on Canadian taxpayers dime, they might look for opportunities in Canada instead - Inco, Falconbridge, HBC... oops, sorry, all bought already.
The whole Global Warming thing is a creative demand for subsidies. I have yet to hear of an alternative that will actually work without huge investment.
What do you expect from a political party?
Its the public's own fault for wanting these things.
The major shortcoming of ethanol is that the crops used to make it are grown using industrial farming practices: fossil fuel burning machinery and pesticides that consume more oil (and release more carbon) than simply burning oil in our cars as normal. Plus more air pollutants as well. And if we switched to low-intensity farming, we wouldn't have enough land area on planet earth to grow our fuel, feed our people and leave enough room for forests to absord all our carbon. Ethanol is not the solution to the global warming problem - nuclear, solar, and above all massive conservation is.