End of the Green Dream

I have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances.

Martha Washington

Culturally, green has broad and sometimes contradictory meanings. In some cultures, green symbolizes hope and growth, while in others, it is associated with death, sickness, envy, or the devil. The most common associations, however, are found in its ties to nature. For example, Islam venerates the color, as it expects paradise to be full of lush greenery. Green is also associated with regeneration, fertility and rebirth for its connections to nature. Recent political groups have taken on the color as symbol of environmental protection and social justice, and consider themselves part of the Green movement, some naming themselves Green parties. This has led to similar campaigns in advertising, as companies have sold green, or environmentally friendly, products.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green

No matter how much you want to believe in Global Warming and the green solution, the reality is that it doesn’t work.  That’s why there are tremendous subsidies and vilification of traditional energy sources.  Instead of complimentary solutions, there is an absolute attitude that green or else.

Green is a dying dream.  In Spain 2.2 jobs were lost for every ‘green’ job, in Italy it was more like 5:1.  That’s why Europe has realized that the industry is unsustainable and putting their countries at a competitive disadvantage.   Europe is now slowly backing away from feed in tariffs.

The number of articles against green is rising.  Of course, the American Thinker is hardly a center philosophy magazine/blog, but in catching up on all of the reading there were two interesting articles.

Then there is the report about an ethanol plant, Range Fuels, that in 2007 received in startup subsidies $76 million from the federal government and $6 million more from the lucky state of Georgia, in which it was to open.  It was a plant that was going to make ethanol from pine chips.  The next year, it got a loan for $80 million guaranteed by taxpayers under the "Biorefinery Assistance Program."

The reason the Bush administration started pushing this "advanced biofuels cellulosic ethanol" program (essentially, a program for producing ethanol from switch grass and other biomass) was that corn-based ethanol was already rapidly acquiring a bad reputation for excessive costs and low yield of energy outputs for the needed inputs.  Cellulosic ethanol looked like a better prospect.

Georgia politicians were so excited by the smell of all this pork that they started calling their state "the Saudi Arabia of Pine Trees."  The Saudi Arabia of pine trees!

Well, guess what -- Range Fuels just closed, having never produced even one shot of ethanol.  Gone with the wind, as they used to say in Atlanta.  And all the subsidy money gone with it.

Honest to God, you couldn't make this stuff up.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/03/the_green_dream_is_an_economic.html

Using ethanol in a vehicle emits more total carbon dioxide into the air than using gasoline.  Last year, an additional 4 million tons of carbon dioxide went into the air because ethanol was used instead of gasoline.

Last year, ethanol production was only 5% of total US oil demand.  It is impossible for ethanol to ever replace imported oil.

David Pimentel, Cornell University professor emeritus, states that corn requires 29% more energy than the fuel produces, switchgrass requires 45% more energy than the fuel produces, and wood biomass requires 57% more energy than the fuel produces.  In other words, Professor Pimentel finds that the biofuel industry wastes more energy than it produces.

A gallon of ethanol contains only 61% of the energy of a gallon of gasoline.  No wonder it gets such poor mileage.  With ethanol, engines run hotter and rubber is eaten away.  An ethanol flame is almost invisible and requires entirely different fire-fighting techniques than gasoline.  Transportation, logistics and safety issues require a separate infrastructure to be built for ethanol than for gasoline.

In short, biofuel is a loser.  It is not "clean" as claimed.  Yet, the federal government protects ethanol from competition, gives it subsidies and requires its use.  The quicker that the US gets rid of ethanol, the better off our country will be.  Other energy schemes -- electric cars, hybrid cars, CNG cars, hydrogen cars -- should have taxpayer subsidies eliminated.  Their flaws and deficiencies should not have to be explained in order to stop taxpayer subsidies.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/03/solving_us_energy_problems.html