No Free Environmental Lunch

Bubba over at Noteworthy wrote yesterday about the recent studies, discussed in the Wall Street Journal, that are making it clear that from a greenhouse gases standpoint the switch to ethanol is not what is often hoped for claimed. The Wall Street Journal article is based on two recent studies released in Science Magazine. NPR, MSNBC, and Forecast Earth have all run with the story as well.

Unfortunately this "revelation" comes after Congress's most recent energy bill. The fact is, people have been talking about this for a long time. It's not rocket science conceptually, just hard to model mathematically.

The prophet Amos wrote: "Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light, as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him,
or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him."

We think that we have finally fled Big Oil, only to Find Big Agriculture is there to get us, and just we escape him, we run into Big Environment. The more politicized these important issues are, and the more driven by the hype of climate change doom, the more impacted by moneyed interests, the more likely we are to go from one bad idea to another.

Greenhouse emissions aren't the only concern of course. We also have a national security interest to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Ethanol can help with the latter, a little, eventually.

But do we really want to say goodbye to millions of acres of forest land, with the biodiversity contained therein (as well as the effective carbon storage) and say hello to millions of acres of finely manicured heavily fertilized biological deserts of corn (or even switch cane) fields. I don't.

It is right to be thinking all along about emissions and pollutants on the one hand, and lowering our dependence on non domestic energy on the other. We need to find solutions that serve both ends.

Ethanol gives us a false security that as demand rises supply will rise with it. But perhaps it is better to start thinking about reducing demand through greater efficiency and through sustainable energy sources that don't increase greenhouse gases as much. We have barely begun to invest what we need to invest in solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal energies. We have hardly gotten off the starting gate with regard to approving higher mileage standards for cars and trucks (Oh, did I mention Big Detroit).

And, in my view, we have not gotten serious enough about new nuclear plants. Nuclear is a safer and better option environmentally. Just do a search on "new generation nuclear power" and you will see what I am talking about. Plants are not only much safer, they use different cooling systems, and require less land and water resources. No, we can't run our cars on nuclear energy, but we can replace much domestic oil and coal use by nuclear and thus free up more oil for automobiles and other industries where oil is a key energy source.

But even better still would be fund a vast research and development effort ti find clean sustainable energy sources - like a Marshall Plan for energy. We can do this! Ethanol is not the answer.

And we need to get serious about higher efficiencies for cars, houses, appliances and many other day to day things that need energy. It's hard to change habits. We need incentives to do so.

Joel