Ethanol and Global Warming

WeatherJeff has a good post on ethanol as an alternative fuel and the potential impact.

Growing up on a cow-calf production cattle farm in Alabama, I've had an interest in this topic and it's potential effects. Any farmer will tell you that lower fuel prices are a good thing, but the problem with using ethanol from corn is that we already use corn for so much. It's basic economics: if the US uses corn as its source for ethanol, that will cause a positive shift in the demand for corn (for those familiar with intro. economic theory, I'm referring to a shift in the demand curve, not in quantity demanded), and this shift would more than likely be grater than the possible corresponding shift in supply. Net result: higher corn prices, and it's already starting to happen.

So, where's the problem? Corn is a staple of the American economy, so an increase in price has many so-called "ripple effects". The meat industries, both in processing and production, use corn in more than significant amounts at some point. Your sausage biscuit breakfast, hamburger lunch, or chicken dinner may not be so cheap (all of which may face this fate anyway thanks to the coming increases in the minimum wage).

According to WeatherJeff:

The nation is going to get yet another example on how government subsidy programs coupled with short-term political solutions distorts the marketplace and produces unintended consequences. Food prices are rising as more corn is diverted to ethanol instead of the food and the animal feed supply. Food costs are up; coupled with rising oil prices inflation pressure is starting to make its way into the economy.

So in brief summation we are all paying trice (the corn subsidy, the ethanol subsidy and the pump price) for a fuel additive that does not significantly reduce oil imports and but does raise our food costs.
(read the whole thing)

Meat Industry News posted an interview with USDA Secretary Mike Johanns, including a question about the ethanol issue:

Q. What specific things has the USDA done to fully gauge the impact of ethanol production on the beef cattle complex in terms of nutrient input costs tied to rising feed grain costs as well as the future demands on forage/roughage created by an increase in cellulosic ethanol production and how will you communicate it to the cattle industry?

A. We are fully aware of the tension that has arisen between food and fuel due to higher corn prices. Those are issues that are of concern to us because if you’re feeding cattle, you saw your input costs for corn go from $2.00 a bushel to the vicinity of $4.00 a bushel very, very quickly. It happened really within about a year’s period of time.

Still USDA economists calculate that ethanol production could rise to 10 billion gallons by 2010 without forcing us to choose between corn for food or for fuel. We believe that corn-based ethanol will be a part of our ethanol future. But the next generation is cellulosic ethanol. In our Farm Bill proposals, we ask for $1.6 billion in new funding targeted at cellulosic. We’re also giving a very high priority to research ways to make cellulosic feedstocks, such as grasses, and woodchips and agricultural waste, a cost-effective alternative to corn and soybeans.

We are also conducting research, as is the private sector, to make Distiller’s Dried Grain a better source of feed. Right now on one bushel of corn used for ethanol creates about 17 pounds of that by product. The goal is to develop a way to fracture the kernels before processing so that both high value feed and ethanol can be produced from the same corn.

The other thing I would say is the market works. The interest in corn for ethanol production is spurring research into increasing corn yields at seed companies. It’s also likely to cause producers to plant more corn. We’ll know more about that on March 30, when we release our report on farmers planting intentions for the 2007 crop.

We also believe that most cellulosic materials that will be used for ethanol production in the future will not compete for good pasture. These grasses and other biomass products do well on marginal ground.

Renewable energy is changing the face of agriculture and that involves a period of adjustment but it also creates opportunities for ranchers and rural America.
(read the whole thing)

Of course, the reason this is an issue in the first place is two-fold: the US needs to reduce is dependency on foreign and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions... but wait a minute, is global warming really that much of an issue?

I vividly remember about a year or two ago a broadcast of a meteorologists conference of some sort that the Weather Channel was trying to show bits and pieces of live as they could fit it into their program. I believe the speaker I saw was Dr. William Gray of Colorado State University's Tropical Meteorology Project. The speaker stated very bluntly that the global warming discussion did not have a reliable model to provide supporting evidence, even going so far as to say there just as many models disproving global warming as there are supporting, and that the science just isn't reliable yet. Unfortunately, the Weather Channel had to *ahem* cut him off short to go to commercial... this being the same Weather Channel that is now trying to gain viewers with the show The Climate Code, where you can see each week how the earth is going to hell in a hand basket because of global warming.

The global warming argument has become less about reason and more about sensationalism and alarmism, as Richard Lindzen points out over on the OpinionJournal:

To understand the misconceptions perpetuated about climate science and the climate of intimidation, one needs to grasp some of the complex underlying scientific issues. First, let's start where there is agreement. The public, press and policy makers have been repeatedly told that three claims have widespread scientific support: Global temperature has risen about a degree since the late 19th century; levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by about 30% over the same period; and CO2 should contribute to future warming. These claims are true. However, what the public fails to grasp is that the claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man's responsibility for the small amount of warming that has occurred. In fact, those who make the most outlandish claims of alarm are actually demonstrating skepticism of the very science they say supports them. It isn't just that the alarmists are trumpeting model results that we know must be wrong. It is that they are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't happen even if the models were right as justifying costly policies to try to prevent global warming.

If the models are correct, global warming reduces the temperature differences between the poles and the equator. When you have less difference in temperature, you have less excitation of extratropical storms, not more. And, in fact, model runs support this conclusion. Alarmists have drawn some support for increased claims of tropical storminess from a casual claim by Sir John Houghton of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a warmer world would have more evaporation, with latent heat providing more energy for disturbances. The problem with this is that the ability of evaporation to drive tropical storms relies not only on temperature but humidity as well, and calls for drier, less humid air. Claims for starkly higher temperatures are based upon there being more humidity, not less--hardly a case for more storminess with global warming.
(read the whole thing)

I think more people should heed the wisdom Oren Harari gleaned from Colin Powell:

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.
(from The Quotations Page)

Some folks have staked so much on their position that they can't face the possibility of being wrong.

-the Progressive Conservative

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