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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: Fuel subsidies a bad sign: Oregon consFuel subsidies a bad sign: Oregon considers encouraging biofuelsiders encouraging biofuels March 16, 2005 Fuel subsidies a bad sign: Oregon considers encouraging biofuels The United States is the Saudi Arabia of grain, so the idea of harvesting energy from the nation's farms has understandable appeal. The Oregon Legislature is being lured by the notion as it considers a set of bills to encourage the development of an ethanol and biodiesel fuel industry. Before the state begins guaranteeing markets and handing out subsidies, however, lawmakers should decide whether it's worth spending a dime to make a nickel - which is the result of most biofuels policies. Ethanol is a form of alcohol that usually is extracted from corn, but also can be obtained from other crops, straw and wood waste. Biodiesel is extracted from seed crops, including some that are used in Willamette Valley crop rotations. Both have found niches in the United States' energy stream. The problem is that large-scale production of biofuels tends to consume more energy than it creates. The push for biofuels in Oregon is being led by Rep. Jeff Kropf, R-Sublimity, and Jackie Dingfelder, D-Portland. The bipartisan effort is proof that neither party is immune to fantasies involving cheap, clean energy. The legislators propose bills to encourage the emergence of an ethanol industry, more bills to promote biodiesel crops and still more bills to create a market for biofuels by requiring their use in school buses and other government vehicles. Finally, Kropf and Dingfelder propose mandating that all gasoline sold in Oregon include 10 percent ethanol by 2010, and that diesel include 2 percent biodiesel by 2006 and 5 percent by 2010. None of these bills would be needed if biofuels could compete with other forms of energy in the marketplace. The fact that ethanol and biodiesel need the Legislature's encouragement is evidence that these fuels suffer an economic disadvantage, have environmental costs or both. Where the ethanol industry is well-developed, such as in the upper Midwest, it has emerged as an indirect farm subsidy rather than an element of a rational energy policy. Biodiesel is being used around the country, but it depends on a stream of food oil waste or other by-products - moving beyond recycling and into direct fuel production would entail considerable costs. The production of biofuels requires the use of other types of energy. To obtain 1 million British thermal units of energy from corn starch, for instance, requires an investment of 1.38 million Btu of energy - including 600,000 Btu of fossil fuels. This figure comes from Jim Bowyer, a University of Minnesota expert on biofuels who recently visited Oregon to urge the development of a biofuel industry using forest waste as a raw material. Such an industry would require an investment of 2.5 million Btu to produce each 1 million Btu in fuel. The fossil-fuel component of the investment, however, would be only 10,000 Btu - most of the rest would be solar energy stored in cellulose. Converting solar energy to biofuel could be economically feasible, Bowyer claims, despite being a net energy loser. Biofuels production of this sort would be an adjunct to a forest thinning program, not a free-standing energy industry. If Oregon's forests were to become sources of biofuel, it would be because the raw material was being harvested for other purposes and could be provided at little or no cost. That doesn't mean opportunities to produce biofuels in Oregon, on farms as well as forests, should be overlooked. But the Legislature should be clear in its thinking about the costs and the benefits. Kropf's and Dingfelder's bills would mainly spread the costs among all energy users, while distributing the benefits to subsidized producers. With the price of petroleum above $50 a barrel, alternative energy sources should make economic as well as political sense
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#2. To: Raisedeyebrows (#0)
And there we have what it is always about. Wealth redistribution.
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