Green Energy Promise Just a Pipe Dream

Green Energy Promise Just a Pipe Dream

Americans are fast waking up to the harsh reality that this is all pain for no gain. There is stagnation in constructing conventional power generating sources in the wake of large government subsidies to wind and solar power generating facilities. That has dramatically increased power bills but has provided virtually zero additional peak power to consumers.

There is also a huge moral issue in the US. It removes more food from the global food supply than any other country in the manufacture of ethanol for fuel, making Americans key culprit in this crime against humanity. In the United States a staggering 39.7 percent of the world’s ethanol is created from crops that should be used as food.

The new moral question now to be posed is: if the US government was truly looking after the interests of the people then shouldn’t better investment ought to be made in natural gas and coal conversions to liquid fuels? That would bring the price of gas to under $2.50/gal. President Obama could then do away with subsidizing biofuels production, which only serves to raise the price of gas at the pumps and add to world hunger.

(The 85 billion litres of ethanol production comes from a compelling Marketwire article.

Why is 2011 the Critical Year?

Europe views 2011 as a critical year as member countries ramp up their production and use of ethanol to meet the European Union's Renewable Energy Directive. In this year alone, Europe is expected to produce 5.4 billion liters of ethanol that is a 15 per cent increase over 2010 (see table).

World Ethanol Fuel Production in Million Liters

                              

                         2006       2007        2008         2009       2010         2011

Europe           1,627       1,882       2,814       3,683       4,615        5,467

Africa             0               49             72             108          165           170

Americas      35,625     45,467     60,393     66,368     77,800     79,005 

Asia/Pacific  1,940       2,142        2,743       2,888       1,183       4,077

World             39,192     49,540     66,022     3,047       85,763     88,719

The Global Renewable Fuels Alliance promotes “biofuels friendly policies internationally and represent over 65 per cent of the global biofuels production from 44 countries.” They predict only growth in this voracious business and if their numbers are correct, a death sentence is being issued on millions more in the future.

World Ethanol Production Forecast 2008 - 2012 by Country, Millions of Gallons
	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	CAGR, %
Brazil	4,988	5,238	5,489	5,739	5,990	2.8%
U.S.	6,198	6,858	7,518	8,178	8,838	5.7%
China	1,075	1,101	1,128	1,154	1,181	1.4%
India	531	551	571	591	611	2.2%
France	285	301	317	333	349	3.2%
Spain	163	184	206	227	249	6.9%
Germany	319	381	444	506	569	9.7%
Canada	230	276	322	368	414	9.9%
Indonesia	76	84	92	100	108	5.6%
Italy	50	53	55	58	60	2.8%
ROW	2,302	2,548	2,794	3,040	3,286	5.7%
World	16,215	17,574	18,934	20,293	21,653	4.6%

(Note that these are imperial gallons and not U.S. gallons. This is why the 2010 value of 18,934 million gallons is 85,763 million liters and not 73,653 million liters as would be calculated for US gallons).  

In this mad, bad crazy world western good intentions spawned a crime against humanity; the law of unintended consequences turned the Kyoto Accord into a perverse death sentence to millions. Now we must put an end to this genocide.