Careful, questioning agrofuels gets you the big hairy eyeball from the psuedo-greenies busily beavering away at "sticking it to Big Oil" by, uh, helping use tax money to help maintain car culture rather than spending it on, oh, transit. And, you know, why not ask why, with oil at $100 a barrel, those wonderful "alternatives" (laundered fossil fuels) just have to have those subsidies.

As the Oregon Environment Council report that you linked to notes, nothing we're subsidizing now (Iowa corn planted, harvested, and fertilized with fossil fuels, shipped to Oregon via fossil fuels to be made into ethanol using fossil fuels to be delivered to pumps in tankers burning fossil fuels) makes any sense, but hey, we're oh-so-sincere in our concern for the environment that we're willing for people to starve so that we can keep driving that Good Intentions Highway straight to its usual destination. Cause there's just SURE to be a way to keep all the cars on the road, the new sine qua non of Oregon environmentalism.

C'mon...putting food in our car tanks when millions go hungry is a problem? We're just not being creative enough.

Next up: turning car exhaust into food products. Ummm...tastes like 2003 Volvo to me! Forget Oregon Pinot Noir, imagine the "terroir" of Oregon produce processed through an '85 Mustang. An excellent vintage, with just a hint of pepper on the mid-palate...

Producing biodiesel from used cooking oils makes sense, particularly when the performance of the product is very comparable to straight diesel. However using food stocks to make ethanol that takes more energy to produce the product and bring to market than is derived from the product itself does not make any sense at all. The energy loss includes a miles per gallon reduction of up to 15 percent when used in most vehicles, including when the ethanol is only a 10 percent part in gasoline as dealers are now required to pump in Portland. I can personally attest to the difference on a recent trip to the King County area in Washington. Filling up in Portland and only stopping for a break and to eat on the Northbound trip, going directly to my destination, I used three fourths of a tank of gas. Also starting with a full tank of the same brand on my return trip Southbound, driving with one stop, I used about two-thirds of a tank of gas. That is about a ten percent difference that I can only attribute to the crappy performance of Portland City Hall mandated fuel.

Furthermore, rather than being concerned with the price of beer which is a discretionary product and not a food stable product (a higher price might even discourage underage drinking), of more concern should be the job loss associated with attempting to force people out of their cars. A few years back one in every seven jobs in the US was directly tied to the automobile industry. Today with the US auto and parts industry loosing market share to the foreign and overseas manufacturers, the ratio is probably moving closer to one in every ten jobs. Therefore ten less cars on the roads means one less job is available to be filled.

An average of 60 people are employed at each new car dealership in Oregon. Most are family wage jobs. In Portland’s transport based economy, a considerable number of jobs are related to unloading cars off of ships at the port and reloading them on rail cars or trucks for their final destination. In the following days after 911, new car sales were non-existent and US inventories were piling up. General Motors came up with the idea of zero percent financing rather than shutting down assembly lines and laying off workers. The other US auto manufacturers immediately followed. While every sector of the economy remained down for weeks, new car sales soared with the auto industry solely responsible for the US economy showing gains during that period. With more than a tenth of US jobs tied to the automobile industry, it is one of the largest factors in the US economy. Quite frankly I am far more concerned about government attacks on motor vehicles, socialistic taxation aimed at driving and its all around negative affect on the US economy than I am about an increase in the price of a non-essential product like beer.

Terry Parker

Interesting information - thanks, Terry.

Beer is too a food staple!

And though a drug, it's more socially and environmentally benign than the typical American's use of automobiles.

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.

Did you invent that last line? I like it!

Having worked in health care for 28 years, I don't agree that alcohol consumption is more socially benign than automobile use. See stats on accidental deaths and alcohol-related deaths. And that doesn't count the impact of alchoholism on families, 24/7. I agree with "environmentally benign", but not socially. As with automobiles, responsible use should be discussed, but the social impact of alcohol-related health problems is too often minimized.

My sig line is a Yogiism. Yes, the same guy who said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it," also said that. The great philosopher and Yankee catcher Yogi Berra.

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.

Change in industry should not be avoided. I'm sure horse breeders and carriage makers also had something to say about the jobs that would be lost as we began adopting cars as our favorite mode of travel; such shifts are unavoidable, and the jobs lost in one industry are invariably absorbed by new jobs in another. Capitalism shifts to address the needs and problems of the community it serves, but agribusiness and auto-industry lobbyists are working hard to prevent the necessary self-modifying aspect of our system.

Presently we are faced with a need to become a more efficient society because of mounting environmental concerns and the possible threat to national security posed by oil dependence. The original post nails the way to address this, with waste oils or crops grown on otherwise useless land, but this could not meet the excessive demand of American driving culture. Instead of corporate bailouts of an auto industry that chains us to oil or more subsidies for Big Farms already awash in (can we call them socialist?) subsidies, we need to look toward expanding our railways, developing land more efficiently, and fueling cars with our waste vegetable oil.

This is an interesting connection... I never would have guessed it. I don't think the beverage industry should be concerned about this, actually I am glad that beer is getting more expensive, perhaps people with alcohol problems should reconsider this aspect.
Narconon Vista Bay