The Great global warming update:
Global harming: Ethanol, anti-nuke consequences
Sunday, Sep. 23, 2007
Two items published last week in, of all places, The New York Times, underscore the problems with plunging ahead with global warming "solutions" that bring with them unintended and costly consequences.
The first was an editorial addressing the high costs of ethanol. It may finally be dawning on even some of the enviro-extremists that these costs include a doubling of corn prices this year, which has led to sharp increases in dairy and poultry prices.
The Times apparently wakes up to this problem only when it involves world food prices, "threatening misery for the poorest countries."
Yes, misery, and environmental costs, too. Ethanol made from corn (as opposed to Brazilian sugar cane) costs energy to make, soaks up valuable farmland, and does little to lower greenhouse gas emissions. It also makes food here at home more expensive. Remember that, New Hampshire voter, when you see Presidential candidates falling all over themselves in Iowa to pledge ethanol subsidies for all.
Speaking of New Hampshire, folks hereabouts may take special interest in a Times Magazine piece by the authors of the recent "Freakonomics" best-seller.
The story concerns nuclear power and how "The China Syndrome" scare-mongering anti-nuke film of 1979, starring Jane Fonda, coupled with media hype over the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, did so much to cripple the nuclear industry in the United States.
The authors point out that as a result, "instead of becoming a nation with clean and cheap nuclear energy, as once seemed inevitable, the United States kept building power plants that burned coal and other fossil fuels. Today such plants account for 40 percent of the country's energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions."
Supporters of the Seabrook nuclear plant (reduced to one unit as a result of such hysteria) may take some solace in the authors' observation, "Anyone hunting for a global-warming villain can't help blaming such (fossil) power plants -- and can't help wondering too about the unintended consequences of Jane Fonda."
Oh, and like the surviving Seabrook plant, a second plant at Three Mile Island continues to quietly and reliably turn out nuclear power. Its owner, the Exelon company, says it is producing electricty costing 1.3 cents per kilowatt-hour. Coal's cost? Two-point-two cents, not counting the deaths each year of more than 30 miners.
Again, something to keep in mind when political candidates, local and national, start spouting their "green" policies.
Via "the Union Leader"