According to a May 16th article in the Des Moines Sunday Register, three large corporations are now collaborating in a research project aimed at cashing in on the coming boom in crop residue. Archer Daniels Midland, Monsanto, and Deere & Co are trying to work out ways to harvest, transport, and process cornstalks into profitable products, such as ethanol, cattle feed, or chemical feedstock. Cellulosic ethanol is far past the stage of a starry-eyed vision, when major corporations start betting serious bucks on it.
According to Paul Gallagher of Iowa State University, after leaving enough stover (crop residue) in the field to maintain soil fertility and protect against erosion, Iowa could still produce 26 million tons per year for industrial uses. That equals 2 billion gallons of ethanol. And as crop yields increase, stover yield will increase too.
For many people, the term “alternative energy” conjures up visions of some hirsute Mother Earth News reading hippie trying to live “off the grid” on his goat ranch in Idaho. That was thirty years ago. Today, large companies like GE are building huge multi-million dollar wind turbines, and the largest power companies on earth are buying and installing them, while Deere & Co, ADM, and Monsanto are trying to figure out how to run the country on cornstalks. I’ve seen the future and it looks a lot like north central Iowa. Interestingly, Texas and other western states who were the main energy suppliers in the oil boom may supply even more energy in the wind power boom. (And wind won’t pollute the groundwater.)
The ethanol industry may soon reach a stage of development where it becomes economically viable even without government mandates and subsidies. But without those mandates and subsidies, this progress could not have happened. Yet from day one, we’ve heard complaints that none of these subsidies or mandates should have been used--that if technologies can’t pay their own way, then they must be a losers and the government shouldn’t be throwing money at them. Of course, the complainers are morons and we should ignore them.
Almost every successful industry passed through a phase where it was heavily subsidized. Airplane manufacture has been subsidized by lucrative military contracts since WWI, and grain production has been propped up by federal price supports since the 1930s. Yet these are our two most successful export industries. And the recent bail out of the auto industry is only a tiny portion of the total subsidy this industry has received, if we consider that our highway system represents the largest single public expenditure in the history of the human race.
Private enterprise’s most astounding accomplishment may be its ability to simultaneously lobby for more subsidies, while brainwashing us into believing that it’s not receiving them. Europeans are less schizoid about it. If they want something—they buy it. And the public money spent is not a source of embarrassment--it's a source of civic pride.
No comments:
Post a Comment