The Oil Drum

76 comments on More thoughts on ethanol after the State of the Union...what will farmers do, and have they read the research?

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beggar on January 29, 2007 - 12:22pm

I agree that the ethanol focus in public policy is absolutely the wrong thing to do in terms of facing the Peak Oil and Global Warming problems.

The real focus ought to be on conservation, followed by conservation, and then a bit more conservation. Lower the ecological footprint of the average US consumer dramatically. It will happen sooner or later, one way or the other.

After focus on this significant cultural transformation -- ELP -- we can make our next priority to fund more research and implementation of renewables. We should focus on generating electricity from wind and solar and biomass plants, and also should focus a bit on liquid fuels, although I don't see any sustainable way to get liquid fuels.

Somehow the whole energy plan seems tailored to bolster American car companies rather than to make positive changes with regard to energy security.

Energy security includes the sustainability component. Extraction of energy from plants that deplete soil and use massive amounts of water will not be helpful for very long, especially at considerable scale.

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Jack on January 30, 2007 - 2:50am

The problem seems to be that people love to throw around the word conservation, but much less frequently get into "how".

I think that a uniform global carbon tax, or even oil tax, would spur conservation. A tax in the US would create some conservation, but there could be partial "Jevon's Paradox" related offsets in other countries if the US conservation drove prices down.

Voluntary conservation is a nice idea, along the lines of "let's just be nice to each other". But it is hardly a policy prescription for one of the largest problems facing mankind.