Energy policy: waste, corruption
Last Updated on 12/1/2008
Published on 8/27/2008
By R.H. Gruy
The collective sigh of relief heard around the world recently was from all of the oil-exporting countries. The sheiks of the Middle East and the dictators of Africa, the puppet masters in the Kremlin and Venezuela's buffoonish Hugo Chavez all applauded as our elected representatives left for vacations without passing any energy legislation!
Let's have a look at what our so-called "leaders" have accomplished energy-wise in recent months. Here's something: Senate Bill 380, a ludicrous, farm lobby-inspired piece of junk that mandates the use of ethanol in gasoline. When you say "ethanol" in America, that means "corn ethanol" (for reasons that will be explained shortly). This stuff may be the most wasteful and inefficient product ever conceived. Allah himself could not have wished a greater curse on America. Even the most optimistic thermodynamic energy balance shows that corn ethanol is a loser, a zero-sum game in which the energy required to produce a gallon of ethanol from ears of corn is equal to or greater than the energy the ethanol will produce (this calculation from the USDA, incidentally). In a nutshell:
* We use an efficient product -- gasoline -- to operate equipment to produce a not-so-efficient product -- corn ethanol. (Pure ethanol will only achieve about 75 percent the miles per gallon as regular gasoline.)
* We then mix the corn ethanol with the gasoline as mandated by the government to produce a not-so-good product known as "gasohol."
* We subsidize this lunacy!
Additionally, the manufacturing of corn ethanol consumes about four gallons of fresh water per gallon of ethanol, and the diversion of acreage for ethanol production has driven up the price of all foods from beef, pork, poultry and farm-raised fish to milk, eggs, bread and pasta. The massive applications of fertilizer (made largely from natural gas) are creating unbelievable environmental disaster headlined by the 1,000-mile long "dead-zone" in the Gulf of Mexico.
In summary, corn ethanol is the "perfect storm of dumbness," a policy of waste so obvious to anyone paying even slight attention that we must wonder why our congress is supporting this lunacy. The only possible answer is the farm lobby. They must have "obligated" enough congressmen and senators to keep the corn ethanol scam alive! These lobbyists are so powerful (they make big oil's guys look like Boy Scouts) that they were even able to compel Congress to enact a tariff to prevent the importation of sugar cane ethanol from Brazil. It should be noted that unlike the corn product, sugar cane ethanol is a viable, energy-efficient product that delivers about eight times more energy than it takes to produce it.
If you think the congressional circus ends here, you haven't been paying attention and you missed the "splash-and-dash" biofuel scam. This awesome thievery stems from -- you guessed it -- a government tax subsidy that equals one dollar for every gallon of biodiesel fuel that is blended with regular diesel in the U.S. As reported by Fox News, a typical tanker-load of about nine million gallons requires just nine thousand gallons of American diesel to qualify for the subsidy which is calculated on the entire nine million gallons! Congress claims they can't figure out who's doing this, since it's a tax subsidy and the IRS won't reveal the information. One wonders whose wealthy constituents this legislation benefits.
While House Democrats under the "leadership" of Nancy "I'm just trying to save the world" Pelosi were busy blocking any commonsense legislation that would have allowed the development of our own, vast domestic oil and gas resources, Senate Republicans were busy stopping a bill (S. 2058) that would have closed the so-called "ENRON loophole" and ended crazed speculation in the crude oil market. That this so-called loophole even exists is such a shining testament to government corruption that it is included in this discussion. Several years ago, under the guidance of then-Sen. Phil Gramm, S. 3283 was slipped into a huge appropriations bill late one night. Called "The Commodity Futures Modernization Act," it crippled the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) that had controlled speculative excesses.
Foreign energy exchanges such as the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) could now operate outside of CFTC oversight. Unbelievably, this act also permitted the deregulation of financial instruments, which resulted in the now-infamous "collateralized debt obligations,," or CDOs, which ignited the subprime mortgage meltdown. Predictably, after the bill was passed, Sen. Gramm's wife, who was head of CFTC, left for a lucrative board position at -- you guessed it -- ENRON.
I wish I could tell you that the travesties already discussed -- i.e., corn ethanol, mandated gasohol, high food prices, the sugar ethanol tariff, "splash-and-dash," blocking development of our own resources and stopping legislation -- that would have ended speculative excesses were the end of this litany of horribly misguided legislation, but I'm afraid that they pale in the shadow of what portends to be the greatest scam in the history of mankind: carbon trading.
Carefully concealed under the guise of manmade global warming and championed by visible celebrities like the notorious windbag Al Gore, this insidious concept is a huge first step toward worldwide socialism. The pending legislation is called the Climate Security Act. It would permit the government to sell permits and set allowances for all industries that use conventionally generated electric power! Talk about scary. The same gang of idiots that brought us corn ethanol will be deciding which of their constituents gets to compete and on what basis. It is an open invitation to corruption on an as-yet unimagined scale, and in today's global marketplace all countries will have to get onboard. You can almost hear the politicians rubbing their hands in glee! The cost to each one of us for this environmentalist inspired madness cannot be calculated.
One of America's main strengths has always been the absence of corruption. It set us above most developing nations and countries with autocratic rule. It seems like those days are numbered -- if they're not gone already. America, we have got to wake up and take back our country from the farm lobby and the environmental lunatics. The only obvious answer is to cause a complete housecleaning in Washington. Since we will never be able to enact term limits, or set a reasonable retirement age, or put limits on committee chairmanships, we must do it at the ballot box. Let's get busy, America, and reclaim our government.
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Robert Gruy is a resident of Pawleys Island.
