The Oil Drum

"Gasoline will be free" is the slogan of the revolt she is describing. This is mainly a pro-biofuels piece. She is going to be performing at the Democratic National Convention and there is a big push on now to turn pale pink states into baby blue states using ethanol subsidies. The references to global warming are pretty clear: "And London sat in sweltering heat..." refers to European heat waves which have not crossed the Channel yet, but the main theme is a Willy Nelson-like pitting of farmers against oil companies. The oil interests are tied into Washington while the farmers are wrecking the local pumping station in Tennessee.

As we've been seeing here, biofuels don't really work in terms of scale and it is becoming clear that they will be leading to famine if they are not turned around quick. And, responding to that famine will cause more warming than continuing to use gasoline because putting marginal lands under cultivation around the world will release more carbon dioxide than biofuels grown on good croplands can displace. Democrats are nice people taken individually, but their politics tends to use science for advantage rather than be informed by it. We need conservation now and if they really do want gasoline to be free, they'd better opt for rationing before we go far into decline. Cutting oil use 8% a year through rationing should bring the price down to $15/barrel within a couple years. But, this has to be done with less fuel use, not one-for-one replacement. So far as I can tell though, they seem to want a market and cap-and-trade so that people can make money out of nothing. Imposing artificial scarcity should not be a path to artificial profits. That is why we use rationing rather than trading is such situations.

Chris