Jeff Jacoby: [1]
WHAT DO ethanol and the subprime mortgage meltdown have in common? Each is a good reminder of that most powerful of unwritten decrees, the Law of Unintended Consequences – and of the all-too-frequent tendency of solutions imposed by the state to exacerbate the harms they were meant to solve.
Take ethanol, the much-hyped biofuel made (primarily) from corn. Ethanol has been touted as a weapon in the fashionable crusade against climate change, because when mixed with gasoline, it modestly reduces emissions of carbon dioxide. Reasoning that if a little ethanol is good, a lot must be better, Congress and the Bush administration recently mandated a sextupling of ethanol production, from the 6 billion gallons produced last year to 36 billion by 2022.
But now comes word that expanding ethanol use is likely to mean not less CO2 in the atmosphere, but more. Instead of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from gasoline by 20 percent – the estimate Congress relied on in requiring the huge increase in production – ethanol use will cause such emissions to nearly double over the next 30 years.
Yeah, well, let’s also not forget that it’s supposed to move us off oil. Only one problem; the costs are going up on ethenol, and the stuff that makes it; Corn for example. Which of course means the cost of food is going up as a result of this nonsense.
It’s like I said the other day, folks… it’s called “Aternative’ energy for a major reason. It’s not the mainline stuff, though it’s a nice addition. Now, if we have an alternative FOOD, we might get away with using corn for our mainstay fuel.
And all that aside, I’m watching the financial news, and I’m seeing signs of a major correction coming in the price of oil. Which means the price of gas will be coming down shortly. I expect stock prices to go sky high, when that happens. But all this means while the economy booms, gas prices go in one direction only: Down. WAY down, and within the next year or two. Can YOU say, $70/bbl? Oh, yeah. It’s happening, and soon. I’ll get into this further, tomorrow night.