Biofuels Part of Obama Secure Energy Future

Biofuels, including ethanol, are part of the Blueprint for A Secure Energy Future outlined Wednesday by President Obama.

“In an economy that relies on oil, rising prices at the pump affect everybody – workers and farmers; truck drivers and restaurant owners,” said the president during a speech at Georgetown University. “The only way for America’s energy supply to be truly secure is by permanently reducing our dependence on oil.”

Obama voiced support for biofuels as an alternative to oil, “not just ethanol, but biofuels made from things like switchgrass, wood chips, and biomass.”

“That’s why we’re investing in things like fueling stations and research into the next generation of biofuels,” he said. “Over the next two years, we’ll help entrepreneurs break ground on four next-generation biorefineries – each with a capacity of more than 20 million gallons per year. And going forward, we should look for ways to reform biofuels incentives to make sure they meet today’s challenges and save taxpayers money.” Obama also urged the expansion of alternative vehicles in the federal fleet and announced that he is directing agencies to purchase 100% alternative fuel, hybrid, or electric vehicles by 2015.

At one point, the president seemed to channel Jon Stewart in a bit he did last June about America’s goals for energy independence. “We’ve known about the dangers of our oil dependence for decades,” Obama said. “Richard Nixon talked about freeing ourselves from dependence on foreign oil. And every President since that time has talked about freeing ourselves from dependence on foreign oil. Politicians of every stripe have promised energy independence, but that promise has so far gone unmet.”

“The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” piece shows all of the past eight presidents, from Nixon to Obama, talking about moving “beyond a petroleum-based economy,” first playing clips of both Obama and George W. Bush saying almost the exact same words. He follows up with Clinton, Bush 42, Reagan, Carter, Ford and Nixon making similar statements and talking about ideas like solar, natural gas, fuel cells and even “gasohol.”

It’s very funny and worth seeing again even if you have already. Watch it here:

Ethanol to Keep Me Warm Inside and Out

A long-time Volvo devotee, I eagerly anticipated the release of the new electric edition of my beloved Volvo C30.  Now, I am more excited than ever as it was announced this cutting-edge model will use ethanol to heat the passenger compartment.  Dreams of being warm, utilizing one of our nation’s greatest renewable resources and sticking it to big oil are dancing in my head.

Aside from the fact that my driving abilities necessitate a safety-oriented automobile, I love my car for its heating abilities.  Manufacturers from climates more bitter than St. Louis this late March understand the need to keep passengers toasty and, as someone who wears a coat well into a seasonable June, my shaking limbs are grateful.

Until now, many alternative fuel vehicles haven’t focused as carefully on the delicate disposition of their desired drivers.  But when testing a car’s true drivability in Northern Sweden, the importance of reliable, continuous cabin heat becomes vastly apparent.  So like so many auto manufacturers looking for a fuel source that would provide an affordable, effective, sustainable alternative fuel source, Volvo found ethanol.

When my next Volvo arrives to provide me with welcome relief from the thuggish prices big oil extorts on a weekly basis, I can rest assured knowing that I will be able to snuggly tuck myself into a warm car for the trek to work every cold winter morning.  Knowing that the heat comes from American family farms makes me feel a little warmer inside too.

Physicians, Heal Thyselves

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) appears to have publicly taken the position that production of biofuels is killing people.

According to a release sent today by AAPS, U.S. and European biofuels policies have “added to the global burden of death and disease.”

Increased production of biofuels increases the price of food worldwide by diverting crops and cropland from feeding people to feeding motor vehicles. Higher food prices, in turn, condemn more people to chronic hunger and “absolute poverty” (defined as income less than $1.25 per day). But hunger and poverty are leading causes of premature death and excess disease worldwide. Therefore, higher biofuel production would increase death and disease.

This giant leap of logic was made by Dr. Indur Goklany in an analysis published in the spring 2011 issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Most of his assumptions are based on 2008-09 World Bank working papers that have since been refuted by 2010 World Bank working paper conclusions regarding the impact biofuels had on food prices in 2008. Goklany qualifications are that he was “associated with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) off and on over a 20-year period as an author, expert reviewer, and U.S. delegate.”

Based on a 2009 paper that predicts “the increase in biofuels production over 2004 levels would push more than 35 million additional people into absolute poverty in 2010″ Goklany determines that this would lead to “at least 192,000 excess deaths per year, plus disease resulting in the loss of 6.7 million disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) per year,” which is more than what the World Health Organization attributes to global warming – and you have to wonder how WHO attributes deaths to global warming!

It is difficult to wrap my mind around how people and/or organizations come up with theories and equations to quantify the amount and causes of human suffering, and I have a real hard time figuring out why the AAPS sent this release. According to their website, the AAPS is a “national organization of physicians in all specialties, founded in 1943 to protect the practice of private medicine and the sanctity of the patient-physician relationship.” Perhaps their reasoning is because they, as physicians, are concerned about the health costs of hunger and poverty – although it says nothing about any particular political position regarding biofuels that they take as an organization. Neither biofuels nor even poverty are listed on the AAPS issues page, although they are concerned about healthcare reform, illegal immigration, medical privacy and ethics.

I found a blog written by a surgeon who has done work in Kenya, which is titled “Physician, Heal Thyself.” His description says the title of the blog “alludes to a biblical verse (Luke 4:23), but also reminds me to examine my motivations, perceptions, and biases from time to time.” AAPS might take that advice.

NASCAR’s Transition to New E15 Fuel Going Smoothly

Originally printed in the Bristol Herald Courier – Written by Nate Hubbard:

http://www2.tricities.com/sports/2011/mar/18/nascars-transition-new-e15-fuel-going-smoothly-ar-913499/

Not even five-time Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson will be able to best a new entrant on the NASCAR scene this season.

The winning car each week on the three national NASCAR circuits in 2011 will be powered by American-produced ethanol.

“We’re guaranteed a spot on Victory Lane in every race,” said Darrin Ihnen, a farmer from Hurley, S.D., and the chairman of the National Corn Growers Association, one of the many groups behind NASCAR’s new six-year partnership that is putting a literally home-grown fuel into its vehicles.

The new fuel – Sunoco Green E15 – is NASCAR’s answer to its environmental critics – and ethanol’s answer to its own doubters about the fuel’s capabilities.

“If their product can withstand a duration of a Sprint Cup race … it can certainly last in your daily drive,” said Cup driver Clint Bowyer, whose No. 33 car will have American Ethanol as its main sponsor for one race later in the year. “That’s putting it to the test in a NASCAR.”

Sunoco Green E15 is a mix of unleaded gasoline and 15-percent ethanol produced by corn grown in the United States. Once the corn is harvested, it is processed into grain ethanol and then refined and blended at a Sunoco facility in Marcus Hook, Pa.

NASCAR will use approximately 450,000 gallons of the fuel throughout the year as every car and truck in its three national series will chase the checkered flag while running on the mixture.

While Bowyer said the ethanol blend, which has a higher octane than pure unleaded gasoline, has helped boost the cars’ horsepower, he said the mark of its success so far in the young season has been its inconspicuousness.

“It’s such a good product that it kind of goes under the radar,” he said.

Bowyer grew up in Emporia, Kan., a small community in the heart of America’s heartland. He said supporting a product that supports rural farmers fits in well with his background.

“That’s where we’re from, that’s what we do,” Bowyer said. “… It’s a good tie for me. It’s something that I was proud of right off the bat.”

While many of Bowyer’s backers may already be proponents – or even producers – of ethanol, Ihnen said NASCAR’s strong influence in the South gives the fuel a chance to gain a foothold in a new region.

“We think it’s an opportunity to get the true message out [about ethanol] to a very patriotic group of fans that are typically outside the Midwest,” Ihnen said.

As a component of its partnership, for which financial terms were not disclosed, the American Ethanol name and logo are on the green flag waved at each race. The group’s green stamp also surrounds the fuel port on each NASCAR vehicle.

In addition to serving as the major sponsor on Bowyer’s car for a future race, American Ethanol is also a secondary sponsor on his car all season.

Ethanol producers had long had wanted to join forces with NASCAR, said Tom Buis, CEO of Growth Energy, which promotes the use of ethanol and helped cement the new partnership.

“In my opinion there’s no sport more American than NASCAR and there’s no more American fuel than ethanol,” he said.

Ethanol’s new presence in NASCAR coincides with its increasing prominence at gas stations around the country. Many pumps now come with stickers saying their fuel may contain 10-percent ethanol and the Environmental Protection Agency earlier this year gave its stamp of approval for the suitability of the E15 blend in all cars manufactured since 2001 – a ruling that will likely lead to the 15 percent mixture becoming more common.

While some critics still question the use of croplands for fuel instead of food in the production of ethanol, Buis said Growth Energy didn’t have to sell NASCAR officials on the green – and performance – benefits of ethanol.

“I think they understood both what it does for America and for their sport,” he said. “They obviously did their homework, extensive testing to see how it would work.”

And so far, so good.

The Coburn Effect

From NCGA First Vice President Garry Niemeyer, a grower in Auburn, Ill.:

For years, there has been discontent with ethanol policy and it finally came to a head in the Senate this week with Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma proposing to eliminate the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit. Now this comes at a very interesting time in our society, when we are facing rapidly rising energy costs and a senator from an oil state making the proposal.

Who would invest in any new energy venture with this type of attitude in our Senate? We have not built a nuclear power plant in over 30 years, coal fired power plants are not acceptable, drilling for oil in the Gulf and elsewhere has been curtailed in many locations due to environmental laws. Given this scenario it critcal that we make development of domestic energy a priority in all its forms. Alternative energy like ethanol is fundamentsl to avoiding an increased dependence on foreign oil. After observing several countries in Northern Africa to Saudi Arabia in social conflict, why would a U.S. senator want to make us more dependent than we currently are, at over 60 percent?

Sen. Coburn’s need to reduce the federal budget may be the excuse he is using to promote his ideas, but let’s look into that budget discussion for a second. Currently, we are spending $4 billion more than we take in on a daily basis. If the total $5.6 billion VEETC were eliminated, that would erase a little over one day’s worth of our budget deficit here in the United States.

Now, I am not sure, but cutting off your nose to spite your face seems a little overreaching and not appropriate. So, Senator, how are you going to resolve the other $1.595 trillion and bring the budget back in line? One could argue that Sen. Coburn, now in his second term in the Senate, is more responsible for our US economic problems than ethanol is.

Cooler heads need to prevail and understand that there are no perfect forms of energy and we do not live in a perfect world. We are going to have to work together to reduce the costs of all forms of energy to resolve our two problems, lack of domestic energy and elimination of all subsidies on all forms of energy on an even basis.

If Sen. Coburn is willing to be known as the senator who made us more dependent on foreign oil, he should rethink where he is taking this country.

The Cruelty of Missouri’s Prop. B Hypocrisy

A sad story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch this morning tells how one of the area’s animal shelters was raided and 195 dogs and cats were rescued for the second time in their miserable lives. In today’s economy, donations are down at shelters and more pets are being abandoned and dropped off, creating a bad situation for people who want to help animals.

But at the same time here in Missouri, Proposition B, the so-called “Puppy Mill Cruelty Prevention Act,” which passed by a narrow margin in last year’s election, is under review by a state legislature anxious to take a fresh look and lawmakers are being attacked in the local media. While animal rights activists are calling foul, they are ignoring a simple fact most voters were unaware of … shelters like the one raided are exempt from the new law.

If Proposition B was just simple language all about the welfare of dogs, why did those forces pushing for it last year exempt themselves?  If the Missouri legislature cannot dilute or delete Proposition B, perhaps lawmakers should take the opposite approach — try to remove the exemptions and force the shelters to explain why they should not be held to the same scrutiny they impose on others.

Thanks to this morning’s paper, I can think of 195 silent witnesses for the prosecution.

The 88% Solution

The USDA now tells us that farms and agribusinesses represent less than 12% of each food dollar. When will folks start looking at the other 88% as a possible cause of higher food prices?

More information here from the USDA.

Symbiotic Virus Could Cut Smut

With a name like smut, it just has to be bad – and it is.

Smut fungi are agents of disease responsible for significant crop losses worldwide, especially in corn, where the airborne fungus is found most frequently on ears, tassels and nodes. According to the National Corn Growers Association, corn smut accounts for approximately $1 billion in crop losses annually. Sweet corn is more susceptible to smut than field corn with annual losses often as high as 20%.

Researchers with at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center have been working on a project to develop a smut-resistant variety of corn, specifically corn smut caused by the fungus, Ustilago maydis.

Dr. Thomas Smith and Dr. Dilip Shah explored an approach using a naturally found killer protein, KP4, made by a virus that lives in one specific strain of corn smut. “This is the only symbiosis I know of in the virus world,” said Smith. “Viruses like the common cold and the flu infect the host cell and destroy it after they have reproduced. In contrast, these corn smut viruses cannot leave the cell and the viruses ‘know’ that the host has to live if they hope to survive. To make sure its captive host lives, this virus, UMV4, makes a protein that is exported from the host cell and will kill off the other strains of corn smut trying to infect the same ear of corn. It’s an infection of an infection; the corn smut infects the corn, the virus infects the smut, and virus produces the KP4 protein to kill competing fungi, and thus insuring the host will outcompete other corn smut strains. With our genetically modified corn, the plants are producing so much KP4 protein, that the corn smut strains commonly found in the field are killed by the plant before they get a chance to establish an infection.”

Toxicity studies have shown that the KP4 proteins are safe for humans and animals to consume. Smith and Shah will continue to explore KP4 and other antifungal proteins ability to control other pathogenic fungi.

Commodity Classic Sets New Records

The 2011 Commodity Classic is one for the record books.

Attendance at the annual meeting of corn, soybean, wheat and sorghum growers shattered previous records. Total attendance was more than 4826, breaking the previous record at Nashville three years ago by almost 300. Total number of growers was over 1600, compared to the previous record of 1513 in 2009 in Grapevine.

Interesting demographic information gathered from pre-registered growers showed that the average acreage for a grower attending the Classic was 2,326 total – over 1,000 of that in corn. That is also a new record.

Next year, Classic is back in Nashville, maybe to smash even more records!

Burritos Without Integrity

Chipotle’s newest campaign to make a buck once again serves up an attack on farmers with a phony newspaper filled with self-promotion and at least one glaring error. At the risk of repeating a negative, they significantly downplay the role of family farms in an attempt to perpetuate a make-believe distinction between “family farms” and so-called “factory farms.” Their non-sourced stat provides a much lower number than reality; according to the USDA, family farms of different sizes account for 98 percent of farms and 82 percent of production.

And it really is nice they offer a column called “Ask Chipotle” but they really should provide contact information so we can send in questions.

In the end, this newspaper proves useful – for providing a placemat to soak up all the drippings of their thousand-calorie burrito.