Posted By Mark August 16, 2010
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has long been notorious for singleness of purpose but more so for many of its outlandish publicity stunts. Many of these inane stunts have gone a long way to hurt their credibility.
However, despite some of these goofy antics, many individuals and companies have given in to their demands rather than face any bad press. So it was refreshing to see their latest potshot at Dodge did a huge belly flop.
Dodge recently found itself in PETA’s crosshairs after the carmaker aired a commercial starring a monkey dressed up like Evel Knievel. PETA screamed monkey abuse and demanded the commercial be pulled. But, unlike many who draw the ire of PETA, Dodge fought back in a most amusing way.
Enter the invisible monkey and a new creative and comical way to deal with our animal rights brethren who are wound a bit too tight.
Posted By Mark August 13, 2010
We are officially in the dog days of summer and as such many people are vacationing and that often means lots of driving and time with family.
With all the exposure to gas stations you may have noticed the word ethanol on pumps. It is pretty much everywhere these days as a 10% blend in gasoline and it is increasingly showing up in E85 formulations for flexible fuel vehicles or FFVs.
In fact, GM recently announced their continued commitment to E85 ethanol as “our best near-term solution. In fact, last month, we announced that we’re increasing annual production of Flex Fuel Vehicles (FFV) to more than 850,000 – that’s a 55 percent increase from the 2006 volumes,” said Candance Wheeler, a Gm Technical Fellow.
GM’s 2010 lineup represents the most FFV models on the market, providing drivers with multiple options to fuel their vehicles – E85 ethanol, petroleum, or a combination of the two. And with many new stations opening up, especially in the south and south central regions, it’s becoming easier find a place to fill up.
The latest development is something called a “Blender Pump,” but I like to call it a consumer pump because it allows you to choose what gas or ethanol mixture you want; unleaded gasoline, or 10%, 20%, 30% or 85% ethanol. If you have an FFV you can pick whichever one is the best bargain or whichever blend works best in your car.
Despite all for proven benefits of ethanol some detractors continue to spread misinformation regarding ethanol fuel. As the attached charts show, ethanol is a great fuel and an even better idea if you believe we should rely more on farmers and less on imported oil from hostile nations.
Posted By Ken August 11, 2010
Posted By Ken August 10, 2010
A new video offers a farm-level view of the importance of atrazine for no-till farmers. At a time when people are wanting to learn more about sustainability on the farm, going no-till where you can is one of the most environmentally friendly practices a farmer can do. Frankly, I’m surprised that the popular Farmville game on Facebook still requires tilling.
The importance of herbicides in no-till fields is important, and atrazine has proved to be safe, affordable and effective for growers, as the farmer in the video makes clear.
On the other side of the issue, recent news has been made about a California professor who has been considered the foremost anti-atrazine research expert in the country. Apparently, his e-mails to atrazine proponents have not been the most suitable for publication and Syngenta has even filed a complaint with his employer.
As one online columnist puts it:
What do you do about a professor who sends employees of a company he dislikes a lengthy series of bizarre, rambling emails including one containing a graphic threat of sexual violence? If you’re NRDC, you support his nomination to EPA’s FIFRA Science Advisory Panel by saying that he “is pleasant to work with” and “tireless in his efforts to reach the highest scientific standards possible.”
I will not repeat the content of Hayes’s e-mails. I don’t care what e-mail address they were sent from and to whom they were addressed. They were beyond unprofessional and unethical. They were uncivilized and unstable and should lead everyone – even atrazine opponents – to shun his work.
On this issue, I’ll stick with farmers and their allies.
Posted By Ken August 5, 2010
In the documentary Food Inc., an impoverished family talks about how it needs to rely on cheap McDonald’s dinners because shopping for healthier, fresher food is cost-prohibitive. The argument the show makes here, and others make elsewhere, is that we need to find a way to make good, healthy, even organic food cheaper.
Michael Pollan appears to disagree. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal today he argues that, on the contrary, food needs to be more expensive because, after all, we can eat less of it. “Eight dollars for a dozen eggs sounds outrageous, but when you think that you can make a delicious meal from two eggs, that’s $1.50. It’s really not that much when we think of how we waste money in our lives.”
Of course, you can make a delicious meal from two eggs, as long as you add a few other things that might increase the cost a little.
Further, Pollan’s dissection of the cost of a box of strawberries is appropriate, but would leave some folks wondering whether he is in favor of pesticides:
“We’ve been conditioned by artificially cheap food to be shocked when a box of strawberries costs $3. But it’s important to know that farmers aren’t getting wealthy. When you see strawberries being sold for $1 a box, picture the kind of labor it takes to pick those strawberries and the kind of chemicals it takes to produce those kinds of strawberries without hand weeding.”
Posted By Mark August 2, 2010
A recent study attempted to make the case that if the U.S. government allowed the ethanol tax credit to expire it would have very few adverse consequences for the U.S. industry. The fact the study was funded by the Brazilian sugarcane ethanol industry was dutifully avoided.
Anti-ethanol folks, who have been receiving a lot of attention on this blog of late, made sure the study got plenty of media splash because it helped them further their own causes. Interesting they didn’t showcase the source of the funding for the study or point out how badly Brazil’s sugarcane ethanol industry lusts after access to the world’s largest ethanol market…the USA.
And in today’s budget conscious environment in Washington, DC their efforts are getting some traction. The direct cost of the ethanol incentives is being reviewed independently without any comparative assessment to savings in farm bill costs, how much we spend militarily on protecting our petroleum shipping lanes, or the economic fallout from depending on foreign oil. Federal tax revenue generated by the production and use of U.S. ethanol totaled more than $8 billion in 2009, $3 billion more than the value of the tax credit.
It is amazing how quickly some of our elected officials have forgotten the core rationale for putting the US ethanol tax credit in place. President Ronald Reagan, who was not exactly a political Dove, regularly noted it is in America’s best interest to reduce the world’s dependency on oil from unstable regions of the world.
That’s why Reagan and virtually every president since has asked domestic alternative energy producers like ethanol to step up. He also noted the expense related to America’s foreign oil addiction and how helpful bringing these energy jobs and the billions of dollars ($1 billion day) we send overseas could be for the U.S. economy.
Despite this clarion call the aforementioned detractors, which mysteriously enough include some environmental groups, like to preach the benefits of sugarcane ethanol; sometimes called “slash-and burn ethanol.”(See attached photo). It’s even more amazing some U.S. regulatory agencies actually tout Brazilian ethanol as an “advanced biofuel over the American made corn product. In case you were wondering the photo shows a burning cane field in Brazil. The Sao Paulo area alone burns 8,000 sq miles of field producing incredible amounts of volatile compounds and particulates.
To make harvesting easier, which reduces manual labor costs, sugarcane fields are burned prior to harvest to remove the plants’ leaves. Considering the near slave labor conditions in some cane fields I guess this burning might seem a gift for the machete wielding masses, despite the obvious environmental costs of the massive burning.
If critics are truly concerned about our fuel needs and specific environmental and economic consequences consider the following:
Data from the Brazilian sugar organizations clearly shows they are planning, by 2020, to export 63% more sugar and export 336% more ethanol – all at the expense of increasing the land area required for sugarcane by 78%. Corn based ethanol is being provided with increased corn yields on the same acreage and using modern production processes throughout the production chain.
Sugarcane ethanol provides primarily ethanol, with some electircal cogeneration. Corn based ethanol provides ethanol, high protein feed for livestock, corn oil, and even captured CO2 from the fermentation process to carbonate soft drinks.
Sugarcane ethanol provides jobs that don’t meet subsistence level incomes, while jobs in the ethanol production chain are highly skilled jobs that provide long term employment and taxable income for local schools etc…
And the next time you want to get on a soapbox promoting sugarcane ethanol consider the following items below which are being ignored to make Brazilian product look better than it is:
- Ignoring direct and indirect emissions from crop residues;
- Use of inappropriately low fertilizer rates;
- Failure to account for energy inputs for dehydration of hydrous ethanol;
- Failure to accurately assess transport of ethanol from Brazil to U.S.
- Failure to assess actual cane harvesting practices and processing in Brazil
At the end of the day if the U.S. ends up importing more ethanol, then we will once again lose a domestic growth industry, export American jobs, and become dependent on foreign energy producers.
Posted By Mark July 29, 2010
Dear New York Times…Your editorial today regarding corn-based ethanol is superficial, either uninformed or malicious, and a disservice to the citizens of this nation looking for real energy solutions we can implement today.
Before addressing some of the onerous points in your piece, please take a look at the attached photo. This is not from the BP spill in the Gulf but rather the latest incident in Michigan which has dumped a million gallons of oil into a river and is now 80 miles from polluting Lake Michigan. Oil is and always has been a loaded gun from an environmental perspective. From leaking tanks at service stations to oil tankers grounded on coral reefs in storms. No more explanation needed on this one.
However, perhaps the biggest point you fail to address is wind, coal, and geothermal don’t make your car go. Natural gas can be used as an automotive fuel but it too is not renewable and has other issues I won’t go into here today. Solar….I’ll race you with my bicycle.
Will ethanol be made from other sources some day? Undoubtedly. Other biomass sources show real potential and will come with the proper research and development, but corn-based technology and infrastructure is the very launching platform for this effort. Yet opponents would have us build our domestic energy house without a foundation.
Ethanol…dubious environmental benefit? Line up the hundreds of studies regarding ethanol, look at the funding sources and consider what is left. What you will find is a long trail of reputable scientists and institutions public, private and governmental that clearly shows the environmental benefits of ethanol.
When compared to petroleum especially, ethanol is a rock star in regard to cleaning the air, maintaining water quality, and soil management. On the oil side think tar sands.
Your reference to the land use issue is also comical. Incredible productivity on our existing corn acres is easily supplying the growing ethanol industry while also meeting the needs of other markets. And yield growth is accelerating.
And finally, I think we must aggressively pursue all forms of renewable, domestic energy given the finite nature of petroleum and do so in good conscience because of the legacy we stand to leave future generations. To suggest we put our entire energy investment in “maybe someday” sources while ignoring a viable and tested source like ethanol is shortsighted at best.
Posted By Cindy July 28, 2010
“In the last 50 years, generally speaking, people have become much more lax about their moral code concerning sex and much more restrictive about their moral code concerning food.” – Mary Eberstadt, author of “The Loser Letters”
“The New Food Puritans” is a fascinating article on a website I just found called “Truth in Food.” The post is great, but the full interview with author Mary Eberstadt is even better and well worth 22 minutes of your listening time. Besides being an author, Eberstadt is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and consulting editor to the Institution’s bimonthly Policy Review
The post and interview are based on an essay Eberstadt wrote last year called “Is Food the New Sex?” which puts forth the premise that while modern society places no restrictions on sexual behaviors – anything goes because it is just “personal choice” – today’s new moralists are instead judgmental about the food choices people make. That is, we have mindless sex but mindful eating. “I find it really interesting that these two codes, one about food and one about sex, seem to be existing in this inverse relationship, where as one gets stricter the other gets more lenient,” she says in the interview.
Very interesting theory put forth by a very intelligent lady with strong conservative Christian values. There is some other great stuff on the “Truth in Food” website worth a read – like “The Ten Reasons Why They Hate You So” – They being the anti-production agriculture movement and You being – farmers. Be sure to read the comments on that one too – seemed to touch a pretty raw nerve with some folks! You can also find Truth in Food on Facebook. Thanks to my friend Ray Bowman with the Kentucky Sheep and Goat Development Office for pointing me in their direction!
Posted By Mark July 28, 2010
In yesterday’s blog I briefly discussed the phenomenon of editorials on an identical subject suddenly showing up in newspapers across the country almost like a flu epidemic had simultaneously hit newsrooms nationwide.
The most recent attack on corn-based ethanol provides a great example of how these coordinated efforts are staged. The current outbreak, which began Sunday, hit the nation’s top tier opinion leaders on Sunday and Monday and began showing up in large regional daily newspapers like the Des Moines Register and the Columbus Dispatch the last two days. Many local papers can be expected to jump on the passing train by week’s end bringing yet another 6 day ethanol drubbing to an end.
Editorials like this don’t happen in a vacuum, especially the main Op-ed pieces with no names attached because they represent the “official opinion” of the newspaper. In fact most editorial writers rarely leave the paper to venture into the real world to form their very articulate opinions.
Most sit in their secluded offices each day and read others opinions, research the internet and read other papers trolling for ideas. However, most also hold court each day where the powerful and the influential come calling with their hat in their hand and try to persuade the editor to write a piece reflecting their position.
If you happen to work at a large East Coast news outlet you have a tremendous amount of power because these folks generally start all news cycles and take the lead on deciding which issues get ink or airtime. Some people (yes, I know a few) make a good living professionally coaching CEOs in business and even government officials on how to best present and sell their message. Most have a news background and they use their contacts to grant attain access for others and grease the skids for their client.
Why would someone go to such great lengths and even spend huge sums on Public Relations/Public Affairs companies to help them hone their talking points and put together professional information packets? Because if you hit a home run with someone like the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post, competing editors elsewhere will scramble to get something out as soon as possible and hope nobody notices they didn’t have it first. A sort of race begins. In this race it is ok to be second or even third but just like in the Olympics…nobody cares who got fourth place. (more…)
Posted By Ken July 21, 2010
Reading a study from Iowa State University on the possibility of losing the ethanol tax credit got me thinking, and I have learned I’m not alone in my thoughts. First, there’s this line from the summary:
“Taxpayers would save more than $6 billion through elimination of the tax credit, or almost $7.00 per gallon of ethanol produced in excess of mandated amounts.”
First, ignore the fact that ISU does not explain the $7 per gallon adequately in its report. What does it mean to say that taxpayers would save? Which taxpayers? Are we all going to see a tax cut of some sort?
I don’t think so. In fact, the opposite is true. Removing a tax credit is a tax increase on those who used to receive the tax credit – and I’m sure they will pass it along to us consumers.
Perhaps that’s why the preceding sentence says this, as if it’s a good thing:
“Elimination of the tax credit would shift the burden of meeting mandates from taxpayers to blenders and consumers.”
I’ll let another blogger talk about this further while I scratch my head a little. Here’s Jim Lane at Biofuels Digest:
“Ah, note that the change will ‘shift the burden’ from taxpayers to consumers and blenders who are, uh, taxpayers. The study does not say that the cost of producing ethanol, or fossil fuels that replace additional ethanol, will go down. Simply that the burden for producing energy will shift. That’s not quite the same thing as a savings.”
Eliminating these tax credits will give the government more money to spend elsewhere. It’s as simple as that. And removing the ethanol tax credit and the tariff will benefit foreign ethanol over domestic ethanol. That’s why this report was funded by foreign energy interests.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has long been notorious for singleness of purpose but more so for many of its outlandish publicity stunts. Many of these inane stunts have gone a long way to hurt their credibility.
