Article Archive

The next time you hear someone say “we are addicted to oil” or “we are addicted to coal”, try this exercise: substitute the word “prosperity” for “oil”. Do the same for “coal”.

For years, the US has been inundated with claims that it should follow Brazil’s lead on biofuels. These arguments have largely been made by a small, but influential group of neoconservatives who claim that the US should quit using oil altogether.

On Friday, during the CERAWeek conference in Houston, MIT professor Andrew Kadak provided a graphic that showed the share price performance of electric utilities that rely on nuclear power versus utilities that rely primarily on fossil fuels.

Last week, as a friend of mine and I were discussing the energy business, an acquaintance of ours came into the room. When told the topic of discussion, she immediately denounced Exxon Mobil.

A couple days ago, I published a piece listing 14 studies that have exposed the high costs of the ethanol scam. I overlooked three points: A new study by Cornell University’s David Pimentel, the latest numbers showing the amount of corn ethanol distilling capacity that has been idled due to negative margins, and finally, a story by Bloomberg News which says that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is talking with the Environmental Protection Agency about raising the amount of ethanol blended into the US gasoline supply.

Texas has long had a jujitsu hold on the American psyche. Residents of other states share a combined revulsion and admiration for the Lone Star State, the only member of the union that—stop me if you’ve heard this—was a country before it was a state.

Jim Schwertner can almost see food prices rising in real time. He only needs to look through the big smudged window behind his paperwork-covered desk. Schwertner’s second-floor office overlooks the dusty pens and loading docks at Capitol Land & Livestock, the sprawling cattle brokerage business that he owns about 45 miles north of Austin.

On its website, Wisconsin-based Renew Energy says it is the “biofuels industry leader for innovation and efficiency.” It goes on, saying that its new 130 million gallon per year ethanol plant in Jefferson, Wisconsin is “the largest dry mill corn fractionation facility in the world” which uses 35 percent less energy and 33 percent less water than similar ethanol plants.

Bill Reinert knows cars. He helped design the Prius, perhaps the most iconic “green” vehicle on the road today. Over the past few years, Reinert, an affable, irreverent engineer not known for holding his tongue, has become one of America’s most-recognized experts on automotive and technology issues. For a few hard-core electric car advocates, Reinert is something of a villain.

If you are looking for a reason why oil demand and oil prices are so lackluster, consider this: US drivers are staying home, and they are doing so in record numbers.

Israel’s current air and ground assault on the Gaza Strip has left about 1,000 Palestinians dead, including 400 women and children. Several thousand people have been wounded and dozens of buildings have been destroyed.

It’s easy to malign coal. And over the past few weeks, the news has been bad. A few days before Christmas, at a power plant operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, a huge holding pond failed.

The disastrous presidency of George W. Bush will be remembered for decades to come. The litany of failures are many: the extra-Constitutional kidnapping and detention of suspected terrorists, the torture of prisoners, the trumped-up intelligence that led to a futile war in Iraq, the lackadaisical response to the hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, the laissez faire attitude toward financial regulation…the list goes on.

Barack Obama promised to deliver “the change we need.” Alas, the president-elect cannot seem to change his thinking about the ethanol scam. Over the past few weeks, Obama’s delusions about ethanol have become even more pronounced.