The Canadian government is throwing 1.5 billion dollars at the production of ethanol in 2008.  Right off the bat, we're burning food to run our vehicles.  This in turn increases demand on the food supplies and causes a spike in food prices.  That's OK though because it's for the environment (ie votes from enviro-socialists) and the government can just go ahead and raise the minimum wage so that poor people can afford to eat. 

About that environment thing, let's do some math...

Canada's annual GHG emissions = 747 million tons (Mt)

Annual GHG emissions attributed to transportation = 25%

747Mt * 0.25 =  186.75Mt

Transportation emissions attributed to road vehicles =  70%

186.75Mt * 0.70 =  130.72Mt

Remember that number.  It's the total GHG emissions attributed to road vehicles.

Road vehicle GHG that will be reduced by the government's ethanol initiative = 2.5% (25% of the total fuel supply containing 10% ethanol )

130.72Mt * 0.025 =  3.26Mt

OK, that's a GHG reduction of 3.26 million tons/year.  Cool...  Or is it? 

Ethanol only has an efficiency of 0.23 .  That means that for every BTU of energy that ethanol produces, .77 BTU's of energy from other sources (coal, gas etc.) went into creating it.  What's that mean?  Well, that means that 77% of the 3.26Mt reduced GHG noted above weren't really saved.  It was just transferred away from the vehicle (end user) and back to the ethanol plant and it's energy suppliers.  OK, well, how much GHG was reduced after we take the energy "shell game" into account?

3 .26Mt * 0.23 = 749,800 tons GHG/year

That's not such a big number especially considering that Mt Kilauea is currently spewing out ~2,208 GHG/day¹.  That works out to ~805,920 tons GHG/year.

Billions of tax dollars spent.  Food shortages.  Increased inflation.  All that and we can't even compensate for the equivalent output of a tiny freakin' volcano.

Maybe we should be spending those billions of dollars on trying to plug the volcanos instead... 

¹  USGS report indicates that for every ton of SO₂ released from the Kilauea volcano, 1.4 tons of CO₂ is also released.  Currently, the USGS is reporting that 920 tons/day of SO₂ is being released.  920 * 1.4 = 1,288 tons/day CO₂.  Total combined mass = 2,208 tons/day.

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Dinosaur said:

So kinsella will call me a hater or a neo Nazi but meanwhile the left are hoping to starve the third world, but thats tolerance. "Maybe we should be spending those billions of dollars on trying to plug the volcanos instead..." We could get leftie volunteers to save the earth and fly them over in choppers and they could jump into it, to save the earth.

May 05, 2008 | url

Richard Evans said:

"So kinsella will call me a hater or a neo Nazi but meanwhile the left are hoping to starve the third world, but thats tolerance." Doesn't make much sense does it?

May 05, 2008

TG said:

You missed the point. Nobody really cares about all that emissions crap. The corn juice thing makes the farmers happy,..[votes], makes the petrol engine makers happy...[GM/Ford/Chry.], and more votes. Even Exxon/Mobile Chevron and Shell [lobby] are happy. [ethanol is their additive]. It only pisses off the electric vehicle and battery pack makers..and me, [very few votes]. High Food prices are due to Sask. Potash up 400% to farmers here, India and China and the high cost of gas and diesel farmers must burn every day. Agreed. Nothing about music smasher WK makes much sense. = TG PS: Mexico is cutting way back on oil delivery to the USA. Norway has lots of oil, but they use little, preferring to sell it instead. Time to invest in their electric *Think car* and currency. Dump American dollars.

May 05, 2008 | url

WL Mackenzie Redux said:

We discussed this twice in the past weeks at the Broom : http://tinyurl.com/6jjztl I was disappointed enough at the CPC supporting Kyoto economics and UN agenda 21 sustainability BS with this ethanol mandate, but what really struck me was the number of so-called conservatives that defend this shit. Economically it's pure soviet klap trap, part of the command economics of collectivist statism. From a perspective of national self sufficiency and agri economics it shits in the face of Laissez Faire Capitalism and free market dynamic as well as makes a disastrous ordered shift in reallocation of feed grains away from food production....what I found amazing is how many so called Conservatives defended these Marxist Collectivist ideas of supply control, command economics and demand destruction...pure market meddling by the feds and a show of distrust in the demand market. I have to wonder if partisan conservatives get their economics from a Keynesian textbook instead of the entrepreneur experience. This makes 3 bills that have favored Liberal/collectivist idealsim over the ideals of the conservative core...the othere;s being bill 51 and the disasterous bill C-21. What has happened to the CPC? Are they just Liberal light?

May 06, 2008

j morrison said:

wlmr. they are not conservatives, never were. this agw crap will continue to wring us dry. this will not change until those at the top experience this same financial as the rest of us. breaucrats are insulated for the shocks most of us have to endure.

May 06, 2008

j morrison said:

financial problems.

May 06, 2008

ivbinconned said:

All valid comments, but one thing seems to me is always overlooked. We...I mean, me too, have never tapped the full productive capacity of my farm. If I can sell what I produce for much higher prices I in-turn will make my farm much more productive and so will thousands. This will in-turn impact prices for everything but will also put downward pressure on commodities. But the spike in grain prices has to happen first!!

May 06, 2008

Eric said:

Burning ethanol produces CO2, also. (Duh!) Just not as much as burning gasoline. Anyone got any numbers on that?

May 06, 2008

Mystery Meat said:

Boy, this is really an anti-polar bear site. Someone should notify the Canadian Human Rights Commission. You are committing a hate crime.

May 06, 2008

TG said:

Ivbinconned, [great handle], Thanks for the valued feedback. Excellent point you make there. Curious . . Are gas/diesel and fertilizer/feeds your biggest cost jump of late? Wish I bought Sask Potash shares two years ago. TSX symb. [POT]. . . nothing to do with marijuana by the way. . [for over eager potheads.] = TG

May 06, 2008 | url

Dinosaur said:

"You are committing a hate crime." I try to do 3 slurs that might expose lefties to ridicule and violence before breakfast. As for these polar bears I'm totally willing to help them out, I'm willing to cull activists to feed them. Hell I'd even be willing to have AGW activists go extinct feeding them! "So kinsella will call me a hater or a neo Nazi but meanwhile the left are hoping to starve the third world, but thats tolerance." Doesn't make much sense does it? nope

May 06, 2008 | url

Mystery Meat said:

There is an excellent movie out- "An inconvenient truth," featuring Nobel Laureate Al Gore. You should watch it and learn. Time is running out!

May 06, 2008

ivbinconned said:

Thanks TG. Yes fuel and fertilizer companies are the biggest benificeries of the commodity spike but the iron (machinery) companies are doing well to as there has been a pent up demand to replace old equipment and to modernize. I have always wondered why it is that here, where I live, a few miles from potash mines...I could never afford to buy it and put it on my potashed starved land yet the Chinese could afford to buy it half way around the world!! Transportation curbs my desire to go places yet we ship dead weight in the form of fertilizer to our competitors over seas!!??

May 06, 2008

Richard Evans said:

"There is an excellent movie out- "An inconvenient truth," featuring Nobel Laureate Al Gore. You should watch it and learn. Time is running out!" Gore's movie is based on lies: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/10/09/court-identifies-eleven-inaccuracies-al-gore-s-inconvenient-truth Why should the general public accept it as truth???

May 06, 2008

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