Flip-Flop Needed

The new studies showing that ethanol is even worse than we thought only actually proved that ethanol was exactly as bad as I'd previously thought. You see, it turns out that I'd been mis-informed about the state of research before this new study came out. Then I read the new study everyone's talking about and it turns out to say about what I'd thought the previous research had said. So let's give two cheers for misinformation. Kevin Drum sees an opportunity:

With the Iowa primaries safely over, surely it's safe for our brave presidential candidates to use these studies as an excuse to do an about-face and promise to kill corn ethanol subsidies in their first term. Right?

That seems wise to me. Meanwhile, every time every politician goes pandering on the corn business I feel like someone needs to smack them around a little bit and remind them that John McCain didn't win Iowa in 2008, Mike Dukakis didn't win Iowa in 1988, George HW Bush didn't win Iowa in 1988, Bill Clinton didn't win Iowa in 1992, etc., etc., etc. Iowa's obviously an important state, but it's not genuinely so central to American politics that people should be falling all over themselves to implement terrible Iowa-friendly policies.

Comments

Clearly Obama should have come out against ethanol early, since Iowa is irrelevant in primary politics.

Wait, what?

Posted by right | February 13, 2008 11:29 AM

My friends, the subsidies you were used to are not coming back my friends.

Posted by drjimcooper | February 13, 2008 11:33 AM

I guess you also heard that the world's shipping industry is far more responsible for atmospheric pollution and global warming related industrial pollutants than previously estimated.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/feb/13/climatechange.pollution

On the plus side, the numbers of vehicles involved are much fewer than in relation to personal transportation, so technological fixes are not entirely infeasible.

Posted by El Cid | February 13, 2008 11:40 AM

Ethanol-friendliness was never just an Iowa thing. It's an agricultural thing; witness the goings on with the current farm bill. Clearly large agricultural interests have a great deal of influence in our political system, aside from the Iowa caucuses.

Posted by Marshall | February 13, 2008 11:40 AM

surely it's safe for our brave presidential candidates to use these studies as an excuse to do an about-face and promise to kill corn ethanol subsidies in their first term

Is Kevin Drum unaware that one Presidential candidate opposes ethanol subsidies???

That would be John McCain, of course. Obama and Hillary are big subsidy supporters.

But, really, Drum's ignorance is astounding.

Posted by Al | February 13, 2008 11:40 AM

The thing is, there are two arguments for ethanol and other biofuels. One is the "green" argument, but the other is energy independence. So the former can no longer be made credibly, but the latter certainly can. I'm not saying I'm in favor of continued subsidies, but you can be sure that those who are will be milking the energy independence argument for all it's worth. For many people that argument will be persuasive even if it isn't supported by rigorous studies. Anyway, brace yourselves.

Posted by Kurzbein | February 13, 2008 11:42 AM

Al's right, this is one of the few issues where McCain is actually on the right side.

In any case, if politicians are worried about losing Iowa votes, we'd be better off taking the money we spend on ethanol subsidies and giving it to Iowans to do something that doesn't raise food and gas prices. Maybe we can just make it a block grant to the Iowa state government, or by every Iowan a hybrid car or something. Then we can drop the 54 cent per gallon tariff on Brazilian sugarcane-based ethanol and our gas prices will go down a little (particularly on the East Coast).

Posted by Fred | February 13, 2008 11:48 AM

I'm not sure, but it seems like MY and KD are misreading this. Biofuels suck when land currently not in cultivation is cleared and planted. This doesn't apply to biofuels that come from land currently under cultivation to grow feed for chickens and pigs. No?

Posted by Gore/Edwards 08 | February 13, 2008 11:49 AM

Kurzbein, if ethanol isn't "green" then it won't help lead to energy independence. It takes too much energy to produce ethanol for it to have any impact at all on energy independence.

Sadly, they grow a lot of corn in Illinois, so Obama has long been a strong supporter of ethanol and other corn subsidies. On the other hand, it's possible he could have a Nixon-to-China moment on this issue, unlikely as that is.

Posted by Rob Mac | February 13, 2008 11:49 AM

Nah, it's very simple. Ethanol allows farmers to make a reasonable profit from their production, therefore it must be destroyed.

Posted by justawriter | February 13, 2008 11:57 AM

I'm not sure, but it seems like MY and KD are misreading this. Biofuels suck when land currently not in cultivation is cleared and planted. This doesn't apply to biofuels that come from land currently under cultivation to grow feed for chickens and pigs. No?

No. The studies say that this is incorrect. If you change land for feed into land for biofuels, the price of feed goes up, and feed gets grown elsewhere. And those "elsewhere" places often result in new cultivation.

Still, I'm astounded that Drum (and Matthew, apparently) don't know that McCain has always opposed ethanol subsidies.

Clearly on this issue McCain is MUCH more Green than EITHER Obama or Hillary. I'm sure that such a challenge to Drum's (and Matthew's) pre-conceived notions about who are the Greener candidates is disturbing.

Posted by Al | February 13, 2008 12:00 PM

_Corn based_ ethanol is not a good energy source, not particularly green. That doesn't exhaust the potential of biofuels in general. Ethanol from sugarcane is a very good energy source, and the potential to produce cellulosic ethanol from switchgrass and some other grasses is even better. There are other biofuels as well that could be a great source of energy- you can produce biodiesel from Jatropha seeds, and combustion fuels from perennial grasses, etc. Perennial grasses also have the benefit that they are a carbon dioxide sink. Ultimately biofuels are our best alternative for a green energy future- and we have to have _some_ alternative to oil, which is going to be running out sooner than we realize.

Really, Mr. Yglesias should learn a little bit about the subject before he blogs about it.

Posted by Hector | February 13, 2008 12:10 PM

The climate dangers and hidden costs of ethanol have been a constant refrain from its critics for years and years. Among too many people simply being Not Imported Oil seems to be good enough. There's even coal subsidies. (Because the extraction industries aren't currently profitable ENOUGH.)

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | February 13, 2008 12:19 PM

"One is the "green" argument, but the other is energy independence. So the former can no longer be made credibly, but the latter certainly can."

If you're going for energy independence, and don't care about CO2, you'd go for coal, not biofuels.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | February 13, 2008 12:22 PM

If you're going for energy independence, and don't care about CO2, you'd go for coal, not biofuels.

Luckily, Barack Obama has been a big time supporter of coal subsidies too.

Posted by Al | February 13, 2008 12:28 PM

"Ultimately biofuels are our best alternative for a green energy future- and we have to have _some_ alternative to oil, which is going to be running out sooner than we realize."

Is nobody in this thread keeping track of the news on photovoltaics?

http://www.nanosolar.com/

They'll have production ramped up enough to meet our energy needs before any other potentially practical alternative except coal could be implemented, and before oil runs out. The only remaining issue is storage at night, not energy production.

While everybody was arguing, the whole argument was mooted, and amazingly, nobody seems to notice.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | February 13, 2008 12:29 PM

Biofuels essentially change a dollar bill into 4 quarters. A transference from one form of energy units to another form of energy units without an increase in energy units and perhaps a cost in energy units. Then, as a byproduct of the production, we get added environmental degradation.

As far as subsidies go, don't forget the power of ADM and agribusiness money.

Posted by Ed | February 13, 2008 12:32 PM

Obama's stance on ethanol and coal demonstrate that he is no more adverse to trading lies and other people's mony for votes than any other hack, no matter what the ObamaCult would have you believe. He is very, very, skilled at it however, which does count for something.

Posted by Will Allen | February 13, 2008 12:42 PM

Caucuses are one thing, but Iowa's also a purple state, one of only two states to swap between 2000 and 2004; I don't think anyone's going to want to piss them off.

Posted by Mac | February 13, 2008 12:49 PM

"Nah, it's very simple. Ethanol allows farmers to make a reasonable profit from their production, therefore it must be destroyed."

I have no problem if they can make a profit from it, but we shouldn't be subsidizing the industry. It is leading to some distortions of the market, where a crop more profitable on its own isn't grown because corn gets a subsidy for ethanol.

Posted by JordanT | February 13, 2008 1:03 PM

Nah, it's very simple. Ethanol allows farmers to make a reasonable profit from their production, therefore it must be destroyed.

I could make a reasonable profit by writing biting blog comments if only the government would subsidize my blog comments.

Posted by Michael B Sullivan | February 13, 2008 1:17 PM

As Hector noted, just once I'd like to see someone write "with the exception of sugarcane ethanol" when trashing ethanol. Sugarcane ethanol has been used successfully in Brazil for years. The waste (bagasse) from the pressing of the cane is used as fuel to power the plants.

Yes, corn is absolute crap for ethanol, but sugarcane has helped make brazil energy independent.

Posted by Randy Paul | February 13, 2008 1:17 PM

What Randy said.

Posted by Glaivester | February 13, 2008 1:26 PM

Hector, sugar cane ethanol isn't exactly a good option for the US considering that there aren't many places in the US that can grow sugar cane well besides Hawaii, so I'm not really sure how relevant your comment is to MY's point. It would simply be better to end the subsidies on corn-based ethanol and import Brazilian sugar cane-based ethanol. It would also have been nice if just one of the major Dems had the balls to take a more sensible approach to the issue, but unfortunately the farm lobby is much bigger than just Iowa.

Posted by Reality Man | February 13, 2008 1:30 PM

Reality Man,

They could also grow sugar beets.

A good way to import more Brazilian ethanol would be to remove the 54 cent/gallon tariff on it.

Posted by Randy Paul | February 13, 2008 1:40 PM

Rob Mac / Brett -

Agreed, but that won't stop the lobby machine from using "energy independence" as an argument. Plus, in spite of these studies corn ethanol still has the appearance of a green solution, and that'll be good for squeezing a few more hundred million out of the government in sudsidies.

Posted by Kurzbein | February 13, 2008 2:59 PM

Reality Man,

Sure, let's import Brazilian sugarcane. Why not? We could also try researching if sugar beets can be turned into ethanol- they grow well in Russia of course, as well as America and Canada. Perennial grasses would be an ideal solution as they sequester carbon dioxide in their root systems, but in the interim as we wait for them to become economical, we could do worse than to import from Brazil.

Sugarcane has recently been discovered to fix nitrogen (in small amounts) so potentially it could be grown without any nitrogen fertilizer (unlike corn, of course).

Posted by Hector | February 13, 2008 3:04 PM

Clearly on this issue McCain is MUCH more Green than EITHER Obama or Hillary. I'm sure that such a challenge to Drum's (and Matthew's) pre-conceived notions about who are the Greener candidates is disturbing.

Posted by Al | February 13, 2008 12:00 PM

Clearly McCain hold on his Senate seat doesn't hinge on delivering subsidies to agribusiness since he's from ARIZONA and not Illinois. It has nothing to do with being "greener". Dimwit.

(I don't know what Hillary's excuse is.)

Posted by Kurzbein | February 13, 2008 3:09 PM

Well... they have to wait until after Wisconsin.

Posted by Jack | February 14, 2008 1:39 AM

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3003018219398635096&q=mccain+ethanol&total=28&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=3

McCain is not only against ethanol subsidies but he is for sugar cane ethanol

Posted by ari-freedom | February 15, 2008 9:12 AM