The secret, dirty cost of Obama's green power push

In 2007, presidential candidate Barack Obama made homegrown corn a centerpiece of his plan to slow global warming. When President George W. Bush signed a law ... requiring oil companies to add billions of gallons of ethanol to their gasoline each year, Bush predicted it would make the country "stronger, cleaner and more secure."

But the ethanol era has proven far more damaging to the environment than politicians promised and much worse than the government admits today.

Farmers wiped out millions of acres of conservation land, destroyed habitat and contaminated water supplies, an AP investigation found.
...
With the government's predictions so far off from reality, scientists say it's hard to argue for ethanol as global warming policy.

The secret, dirty cost of Obama's green power push

As with so many "green" policies, politicians and environmentalists seize an anti-CO2 concept and blindly push for its universal adoption without actually examining the benefits and costs.

Today, the EPA is mandating the use of cellulose-based ethanol, which has never been commercially produced, and most agree, will not be in the next 10 to 20 years.

Many Obama "cronies" have taken billions of grants and loan guarantees with nothing but bankruptcies and failed or wasted projects to show taxpayers for them.
See:
Taxpayer- Backed Green Energy Firm Takes Millions, Goes Bankrupt and Leaves Toxic Mess Behind

DOE Withheld Data on Bankrupt Green Energy Company

www.washingtonpost.com...

President Obama’s Taxpayer-Backed Green Energy Failures

Now, the "Administration Press" is taking heat from progressives and the liberal MSM for having the gall to pull back the sheets to reveal failed Obama initiatives and abandoning the Obama protection racket that they have become.


Today, NPR presented another pro-ethanol piece that completely ignores the lack of real economic and environmental benefit that the ethanol debacle has been from day-one.
Industry Takes Aim At AP Ethanol Investigation

Every time a farmer plows into grassland, it releases carbon dioxide that had been naturally locked in the soil. In the name of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the policy encourages a practice that emits greenhouse gas.

The corn boom has increased fertilizer pollution in Midwest waterways and beyond. Scientists say that's worsened a huge "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico.

Environmentalists and many scientists now say, when all the environmental factors are considered, corn ethanol is not a viable strategy for combating global warming. But it has been a boon to Midwest farmers. The Obama administration no longer pitches ethanol as a greenhouse gas strategy. Rather, it's frequently presented as a program that helps rural America.

www.npr.org...

The rest of the protection cabal that we used to rely upon for objective news have taken it upon themselves to criticize the reporters and the organization that dared to cross the line and join the many disaffected who have come to realize that the Obama administration's policies have been built around falsehoods, distortions, and abject cronyism; all wrapped in the lovely "green" cover that the low-information accept as gospel and the self-interested push without regard for truth or common sense.

Is the AP leading the way among the newly-disaffected and disabused, or will the rest of the MSM dig in as they have on Benghazi, Obamacare, Fast & Furious, IRS targeting, et c?

Don't hold your breath; there's too much pride and profit already invested in the false promises, imaginary dreams and divisive rhetoric that make up the Obama administration.

edit on 12-11-2013 by jdub297 because: spaces

I think I understand.... Going "Green" in political terms means ~ Lining there pockets with "Green" money!!! Tada!!!

I'm sickened reading this.

My personal experience dealing with all of this was to watch the price of non-corn crops skyrocket in a single season.

In western Washington we have a lot of people that have horses and other large animals. The recreational horse riders and small farms. I was working at a local feed store at the time and i watched helplessly as the price of a single bale of hay rose at least 30% almost over night.

The explanation i got from one of the truck drivers delivering a lot was that a good portion of the farmers on the east side of the mountains that used to grow alfalfa and grass hay are now growing corn. The demand and the price was there so they would be foolish to not jump on the bandwagon. After the export hay was shipped off, this left hardly any to be hauled over the mountains causing the price increase.

I know of quite a few people in my small town that ended up getting rid of their animals because they simply could not afford it. This coupled with the state of the economy and many losing their job caused some people to abandon their animals in the woodlands that was next to farm land.

I dont agree with abandoning any farm animal to fend for itself when it was born and raised in a farm environment. There are much better options that are more humane, but i do have sympathy for the situation they were put it that was completely out of their control.

DC

Just to clarify:

"President George W. Bush signed a law that year requiring oil companies to add billions of gallons of ethanol to their gasoline each year, Bush predicted it would make the country "stronger, cleaner and more secure."

And that is why I don't understand why the Rs hate Obammy... he's a tanner GWB but the policies (corporations before citizens) are the same.

Derek

reply to post by Viesczy


Well yeah. A whole huge chunk of us that despise obama and "his policies", also despised bush and clinton and "their policies" when they were in office as well. Some are useful idiots still hypnotized by the puppet show that is our two party system for sure. Every year that group shrinks a bit thankfully.

Good thread, I was going to do a similar write up last year, but clearly I never got around to it This is just another nail in the coffin of the Obama admin. It can be added to the long list of other failures brought forth by America's "messiah".

The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:

Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
Solyndra ($535 million)*
Beacon Power ($43 million)*
Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
SunPower ($1.2 billion)
First Solar ($1.46 billion)
Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
Amonix ($5.9 million)
Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
Abound Solar ($400 million)*
A123 Systems ($279 million)*
Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
Johnson Controls ($299 million)
Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
ECOtality ($126.2 million)
Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
Range Fuels ($80 million)*
Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
GreenVolts ($500,000)
Vestas ($50 million)
LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
Navistar ($39 million)
Satcon ($3 million)*
Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)

Also, ethanol sucks. It completely destroys pretty much any combustion engine, especially older model ones.. it's pretty much like 90% water

reply to post by xDeadcowx


My extended family members in Nebraska used to grow sorghum ("milo") and alfalfa, along with corn.

Federal policies have pretty much dictated what they plant now, instead of markets and common sense.
Now, they're almost exclusively in corn, which is extremely CO2 inefficient with extra costs and fertilizers and rotation; sorghum was almost the perfect crop, but regulations and prices don't make it worthwhile anymore.

Of course, this also affects the wildlife. We used to go pheasant hunting among the sorghum/milo fields, but since those are gone, so are the pheasants and rabbits.

Hell yeah !!
Lets keep using dead dinosaurs as fuel and
keep our 17 Oil billionaires mega-rich, fat and happy.

Screw renewables, Screw the 7,000,000,000
other inhabitants on the planet.

Stupid green energy..

Viesczy
"President George W. Bush signed a law that year requiring oil companies to add billions of gallons of ethanol to their gasoline each year, Bush predicted it would make the country "stronger, cleaner and more secure."

And that is why I don't understand why the Rs hate Obammy... he's a tanner GWB but the policies (corporations before citizens) are the same.

What made sense in 2007 and upon which everyone agreed, was that SOME ethanol addition would diminish our reliance upon foreign oil, and reduce emissions.

The Obama "green" myopathy has completely distorted the equation such that it makes no sense whatsoever.
That's for corn-based production, which has been over-supplied at the expense of the environment, with no net CO2 reduction to show for it.

Steadfastly standing behind EPA regs requiring cellulosic ethanol is ignorant and destructive. It has not been made in commercially-viable plants or quantities; yet Obama, his DoE and his EPA refuse to acknowledge this, solely in dereference to his "green" constituency and cronies.

TKDRL
reply to post by Viesczy

 

Well yeah. A whole huge chunk of us that despise obama and "his policies", also despised bush and clinton and "their policies" when they were in office as well. Some are useful idiots still hypnotized by the puppet show that is our two party system for sure. Every year that group shrinks a bit thankfully.

Agreed!

Many of the Obama-ites assume that his critics were wholly supportive of 43 or 41, when the truth is far from that.
Republican administrations have been wrong, and criticized, for many costly and inefficient policies.

Sadly, truth means nothing in the defense and support of our affirmative-action president.

sealing
Hell yeah !!
Lets keep using dead dinosaurs as fuel and
keep our 17 Oil billionaires mega-rich, fat and happy.

Screw renewables, Screw the 7,000,000,000
other inhabitants on the planet.

Stupid green energy

Exactly!
Think of all the workers, stores, houses and communities those oil barons have created and support every year.
"Renewables" will never in our lifetimes be the economic drivers of growth, innovation and wealth that fossil fuels have been , are today and will be for the foreseeable future.

There's no such thing as "renewables;" wind and solar consume resources that are neither "green" nor "renewable" in their production and maintenance. Hydro-electric requires huge dams, energy-intensive construction and maintenance, and harm downstream and upstream users of the water source, as well as the local environment.

Development and innovation result in greater efficiency and cleaner production. Look at studies of the "Kuznets Curve," and you will see that growth is the answer, not de-industrialization or blind adherence to inefficient and intermittent alternatives.

Ethanol can be made with a lot of different things, corn is one of the least efficient, but we have to protect the sugar farmers and put huge tariffs on foreign sugar, or else ethanol could be produced cheaply and efficiently, South America has been doing it for years. While I agree that the use of corn has been a huge boom for the farmers, it has killed many of us at the grocery store.

reply to post by jdub297


The sun may not be renewable, but it isn't going out anytime soon. Might as well use it while it is lit up, don't you think? Wind is not renewable, but usable, as long as we have an atmosphere, which will probably stick around a while.

sealing
Hell yeah !!
Lets keep using dead dinosaurs as fuel and
keep our 17 Oil billionaires mega-rich, fat and happy.
Screw renewables, Screw the 7,000,000,000
other inhabitants on the planet.
Stupid green energy.

Exactly!

Read about these "renewables:"
(more from the AP)

The failure so far of cellulosic fuel is central to the debate over corn-based ethanol, a centerpiece of America's green-energy strategy. Ethanol from corn has proven far more damaging to the environment than the government predicted, and cellulosic fuel hasn't emerged as a replacement.

"A lot of people were willing to go with corn ethanol because it's a bridge product," said Silvia Secchi, an agricultural economist at Southern Illinois University. But until significant cellulosic fuel materializes, she said, "It's a bridge to nowhere."

Cellulosics were the linchpin of part of a landmark 2007 energy law that required oil companies to blend billions of gallons of biofuel into America's gasoline supply. The quota was to be met first by corn ethanol and then, in later years, by more fuels made with non-food sources.

It hasn't worked out.

"Cellulosic has been five years away for 20 years now," said Nathanael Greene, a biofuels expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Now the first projects are up and running, but actually it's still five years away."

Cellulosic makers are expected to turn out at most 6 million gallons of fuel this year, the government says. That's enough fuel to meet U.S. demand for 11 minutes. It's less than 1 percent of what Congress initially required to be on the market this year.

Next generation of biofuels is still years away

Maybe we can just increase blind and naïve policies that do more harm than good?
(from San Francisco)

What the green-energy program has made profitable, however, is far from green. A policy intended to reduce global warming is encouraging a farming practice that actually could worsen it.

That's because plowing into untouched grassland releases carbon dioxide that has been naturally locked in the soil. It also increases erosion and requires farmers to use fertilizers and other industrial chemicals. In turn, that destroys native plants and wipes out wildlife habitats.

It appeared so damaging that scientists warned that America's corn-for-ethanol policy would fail as an anti-global warming strategy if too many farmers plowed over virgin land.

The Obama administration argued that would not happen. But the administration didn't set up a way to monitor whether it actually happened.

It did.

Prairies vanish in the US push for green energy

TKDRL
reply to post by jdub297

 

The sun may not be renewable, but it isn't going out anytime soon. Might as well use it while it is lit up, don't you think? Wind is not renewable, but usable, as long as we have an atmosphere, which will probably stick around a while.

Do you plan to use a magnifying glass? Your foil hat for a stove?
Solar panels and radiators require foundries and steel, glass and exotics that are non-renewable, with limited lifespans and production and efficiency.

Wind turbines destroy land and wildlife. They also require metal towers built and shipped from foundries and assembled and maintained using fossil fuels. Construction requires depletion of scarce elements; the "rare earths." Hardly renewable. Intermittent production limits their contributions.

Neither of these pseudo-renewables are commercially viable without huge transfers of money from industry and taxpayers to Obama cronies and outright frauds. These so-called "renewable" projects are littered with scams and bankruptcies, despite billions of our $$ literally given away to get sent back as protection and donations to support the corruption that gave it to them in the first place.

Wow. You're brilliant.

reply to post by jdub297

Solar panels and radiators require foundries and steel, glass and exotics that are non-renewable, with limited lifespans and production and efficiency.

As does coal, oil and nuclear energy. What is your point? Besides, a lot of those things are recyclable. Or are you against recycling as well?

Wind turbines destroy land and wildlife. They also require metal towers built and shipped from foundries and assembled and maintained using fossil fuels. Construction requires depletion of scarce elements; the "rare earths." Hardly renewable. Intermittent production limits their contributions.

Seen plenty of turbines in upstate NY, no mass destruction of the farmland there. Seen some turbine fields in NS as well. No destroyed land, or piles of dead birds there either. Not sure why you are so against it. Also, the materials are not set in stone you know. We could, you know, improve on them. The towers could easily be made with a reinforced concrete for example, instead of metal.

Neither of these pseudo-renewables are commercially viable without huge transfers of money from industry and taxpayers to Obama cronies and outright frauds. These so-called "renewable" projects are littered with scams and bankruptcies, despite billions of our $$ literally given away to get sent back as protection and donations to support the corruption that gave it to them in the first place.

Corruption in government, no way, don't believe you. Companies going bankrupt are not anything new, nor are scams. Plenty of that in every industry, doesn't mean the industry, or the ideas are useless. I believe the term is throwing the baby out with the bath water. I would much rather money is put towards R+D of better solar and wind energy, than R+D for "better" ways to blow # up.

sealing
Hell yeah !!
Lets keep using dead dinosaurs as fuel and
keep our 17 Oil billionaires mega-rich, fat and happy.

Screw renewables, Screw the 7,000,000,000
other inhabitants on the planet.

Stupid green energy..

It's impossible to dodge the total environmental costs....

Pulling rare-earth elements from deep underground carries the potential for big financial rewards - and big environmental risks.

In China, where 95 percent of all rare earths worldwide are mined, a lack of environmental regulation has allowed massive surface and groundwater pollution.

Big pollution risk seen in rare-earth mining

In the process of creating sustainable energy, wind turbines across the United States are also taking a toll on a species that is vital to our ecosystem: bats.

More than 600,000 bats fell victim to the turbines in 2012, according to a new study. The turbines spin at up to 179 miles per hour, rising hundreds of feet into the air.

While many Americans consider bats to be pesky or scary, they serve a vital ecological role. They eat a tremendous number of flying insects and they help pollinate crops, such as peaches and avocados.

About 600,000 bats killed by wind turbines in 2012

at least dinosaurs died a natural death, not murdered !

and this is interesting.......
The Many Problems with Ethanol from Corn: Just How Unsustainable Is It?

reply to post by jdub297


There is too much misplaced focus on liquid fuels. The car-centric world has to change.

The solution is reduction of cars and increase of public transport, specifically public transport that runs on electricity.

Public transport reduces need of liquid fuels greatly. It optimizes variety of power sources.

Short cuts do not help.

reply to post by jdub297


There is too much misplaced focus on liquid fuels. The car-centric world has to change.

The solution is reduction of cars and increase of public transport, specifically public transport that runs on electricity.

Public transport reduces need of liquid fuels greatly. It optimizes variety of power sources.

Short cuts do not help.