Dean backs ethanol mandate

[dajabr]

DES MOINES — Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean is expected to call today for mandating the nationwide use of gasoline blended with corn-based ethanol.

Dean, the former governor of Vermont, also plans to propose expanded investments in rural businesses, a national law barring meatpackers from owning livestock and renewed trade with Cuba.

His plan also would allow farmers to raise approved genetically modified crops as long as consumer products derived from those crops carry “GM” labels.

Recent polls suggest Dean has climbed to the front of a tight, crowded Democratic race ahead of Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses in January. Touting ethanol — a fuel oxygen additive usually processed from corn — is seen as smart politics in the nation’s top corn-growing state.

More: http://www.qctimes.com/internal.php?story_id=1016250&t=Nation+%2F+World&c=26,1016250

[DrFunkenstein]

1. GM Problems Are Much Bigger Than Labels

Particularly the corruption of non-GMs.

As for ethanol, it is only one alternative energy source on the table. Without the R&D to discover which one will be able to expand to meet our demands, I don't see the point of singling out one (except for rhetorical purposes). However, one lesson can be learned from Brazil. Ethanol is a viable option, but it was dismantled through governmental corruption. Anyone know if Lula set about reversing this recently?

[theriverburns]

2. Hemp instead of corn

Now if he would back the legalization of hemp. A plant which, according to the last USDA study on it, is capable of producing between 7 to 10 times the biomass used to create ethanol than corn with less need for fertilizer, pesticides or irrigation. Hmmm, I wonder if that had anything to do with it's prohibition?

[DrFunkenstein]

3. Even Without THC!!!

The ban on hemp is ridiculous. The only reason I can come up with is that pot is already hidden in many corn fields, and it would be even easier to hide in enormous hemp fields.

[George_Bonanza]

4. I know

Hemp and marijuana are totally different. Hemp gives you as much high as sniffing your own lawn. It's a perfectly efficient and profitable plant that was in use in the last 100 years. It's not a "new radical idea," it's actually a very old one.

[DrFunkenstein]

5. I Can Get High Sniffing My Lawn?

Nothing happened.:freak:

[dajabr]

6. You have to LIGHT it first, Doc.

:smoke:

[DrFunkenstein]

7. I Had A Hard Time Getting It Up The Straw

But I did pass out for a little while! :boring:

[Aaron]

10. IIRC Hemp screws up THC containing marijuana

through some fertilization or something. I could be wrong... It's been a while since I read up on it.

[xray s]

11. USDA link?

I am very interested in this topic. Corn=ADM. That means $$$ over common sense. Would appeciate a link to the USDA report.

Thanks!

[DrFunkenstein]

8. CORN HUSTLE

CORN HUSTLE
by Michael Crowley

Candidate: Howard Dean
Category: Domestic Policy
Grade: D

Iowa caucus season always means another round of White House candidates swooning over ethanol, that sacred cow of Midwestern politics. So when Dean unveiled his rural agenda in Grundy County, Iowa, today, it was little surprise to hear him sing the praises of the corn-based fuel. Dean offers some noble-sounding reasons for pushing ethanol: He argues it can reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and that it burns cleaner than typical gasoline.

The trouble is that, even after almost 25 years and nearly $10 billion in federal subidies, ethanol is still wildly expensive and inefficient to produce. By some estimates it costs three or four times more to produce than gasoline, without delivering proportional benefits. The subsidies politicians shower on corn-growing states might be better directed towards other clean-energy technologies, like wind and solar power (whose development, to Dean's credit, he also supports accelerating). But when you're standing before a bunch of Iowa farmers, it's not nearly as rewarding to talk about windmills as it is to promise jobs and money. Which is what Dean did today: "We need to boost rural economic development by requiring 10 percent ethanol in our gasoline," Dean declared. "The ethanol and biodiesel industry in Iowa has already contributed over 13,000 jobs and $1.7 billion to the state's economy and added $730 million in value to the corn crop," his prepared speech explains.

Perhaps recent advances have made ethanol a more efficient and promising energy source than the boondoggle it's been for over 20 years. If so, Dean should make that case, rather than offer the same old promises about ethanol's potential, promises which dozens of pandering candidates before him have made and never fulfulled.

[dajabr]

9. This is no new epiphany for Dean...

He's been talking about his support for ethanol in front of crowds all over the country. At least for the many months I've been watching his campaign.

It's one facet of his plan to get us away from middle eastern oil and into renewables.

He founded E-Vermont in 1993 to research electric fuel cells in cars and mass transportation.

http://www.evermont.org/

also - Efficiency Vermont Created the Nation’s first “energy efficiency” utility to provide statewide strategies for conserving energy and called for increased use of renewables, farm, municipal, landfill methane generation projects. Efficiency Vermont is a finalist for Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government Innovations in American Government Award.

http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?pagename=policy_record_environment

Doc, I've stopped using TNR as a source because they have been unfair and uneven towards all the candidates at some point. I invite you to join me.

[DrFunkenstein]

12. I Find Nuggets Of Wisdom In Their Primary Scorecard

The magazine in general sucks (well, it does), and its record during the drumbeats to war are shameful. And even the primary scorecard accounts are sometimes juvenile. But every now and then, they hit it on the head. Even when criticizing Kerry (gasp!).

[VoteClark]

13. Clark is working on a car that doesn't even use gasoline

Clark is on a committee that is working on a car that doesn't even use gasoline.

:kick:
J4Clark

[DrFunkenstein]

14. Kerry Is Working on a Flux Capacitor

<>

[IndianaGreen]

15. That's good, DrFunkenstein!

:)