For, um, all kinds of reasons.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:52 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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. . . on the chances that we might be able to end ethanol subsidies. I'd love to see the playing field leveled a bit, and see the government stop essentially paying people to make fuel out of soybeans and corn.

Sugarcane is fine. Soybeans and corn make me kind of queasy, unless or until we are into excess production on the latter two.

Switchgrass and algae, however, are awesome.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:14 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This one on the insanity with which we are approaching biofuels, which should be a straightforward matter (not simple—but straightforward):

The problem with ethanol is a government-subsidy problem, and a trade-barrier problem. It's not a problem with ethanol itself. Make it out of something other than food, and lower the barrier to Brazilian ethanol imports, and it would help our current situation a lot. We're not doing that because of farm-subsidy politics. The problem is, basically, the Iowa caucuses and the pandering that results. But simply bashing all biofuels uncritically is dumb.

UPDATE: On the other hand, the new farm bill demonstrates that Congress is dumber:

We have a program that makes us overpay for sugar, and now we're going to start a new program to subsidize the ethanol we create from it — because without the subsidy, the inflated sugar price we've created will make the ethanol unprofitable.

Upside: Everybody involved has an incentive to pay off some Senators.

Well, now, let's be fair: biofuels are too important to leave pricing up to the market.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 09:36 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Right here, at Hit & Run.

I'm afraid that I tend to toggle back and forth a bit on subsidized biofuels, just as I did with the space program.

But I'd like to see the former go private, just as the latter is starting to.

And, ethanol. Ugh. Homey don't play that.

But I think we need to remember that all of the alternative fuels are in their infancy. Of course they are not efficient yet. We're still identifying, um, as Edison might have put it, "ways to do it that don't work."

That doesn't mean that there isn't a way that will.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:16 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I swear, he's like Isaac Asimov: he doesn't set intellectual limits on himself, and he's ridiculously productive.

Courtesy of Jane Van Ryan of Energy API—my favorite educator on the subject of energy—comes a short interview she conducted with stud/god Stein on how important it is not to demonize the oil and natural gas industries. (There's a transcript of the exchange on the linked page, as well as the podcast itself.)

Money quote:

Recently, there has been a great deal of talk about alternatives, and while they will play a part in supplying future energy, they will only meet a miniscule amount of demand for many years. Oil and natural gas will be the bedrock of our society and all industrialized societies for the foreseeable future.

Our goal should be to increase supplies and stop criticizing those who are bringing it to us.

As we speak, the House Democrats are trying to push a bill through that will increase taxes on the energy industry to punitive levels. Given the need right now to re-invest in R&D and figure out which energy sources might eventually be able to supplant oil and natural gas, this seems incredibly short-sighted. Call your congresscritter, and let him or her know that this isn't the time to undercut the people who are helping us figure out how we're going to function in the future.

If Pelosi wants the punish entities simply for making money, the least she could do is send the confiscated funds to a worthy cause. Like, you know: me.

Seriously: this is a rather stupid idea.

Make the call.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 07:56 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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. . . to crunch the numbers on alternative fuels.

The point about oil-producing countries is very good: most of them will let the price of crude ease down when they sense that we are getting serious about alternative energy sources for our cars.

Hybrids and biodiesel both sound promising. Ethanol—at least, when it's made of food-grade corn—still makes me uneasy, and I can't quite say why: the idea of turning food into fuel for cars just sounds backward to me.

But anything we can do to bring production of energy inside the States is a beautiful thing.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 12:53 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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It looks like Saturn is developing a hybrid, after all: Attila the Hub mentioned this to me, and I assumed he'd somehow gotten it wrong. Because I know everything, you see: surely I would have known that.

The GM idea of plugging in the car into a regular outlet is intriguing, but it seems to me that feature is only useful if the car can run entirely without gasoline—if the battery can carry the entire load from time to time.

The Business Week article glosses over the fact that Ford got into the hybrid game before GM did, but it makes a good point about how Ford's Escapes and Explorers get better gas mileage than Toyota's comparable vehicles.

Even with gas prices going down, I just don't think people are in the mood to pay a lot for gasoline: it's something the right and the left can largely agree upon these days.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 02:22 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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. . . on timetables and renewable energy.

Thanks.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:11 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I love the idea of exposing Leftist hypocrisy, but I think the contest should be expanded beyond the Bay Area.

Also, I'm not sure about including the Honda Civic in the winner's circle. Thirty MPG may not be outstanding, but it's hardly awful. (Of course, I realize that if we're really waging war for oil, and it's a bad thing to do, these people shouldn't be driving at all. So there's that.)

Via Ace.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:53 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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. . . but I still eat this shit up. Maybe more, now that I know what our dependence on foreign oil is doing to human lives all over the world.

Not everyone wants to live off the grid—but decentralization sounds like a cool way to go. Personally, I'm getting a windmill for my backyard.

From everyone's favorite PM whore. (I say that with love.)

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:32 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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. . . over at Dean's place. Given the extreme nature of our situation, is government interference in the market justified? I think it probably is, but if it's done, I'd like to see it done right.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 09:30 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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You like to think you earn from sweat and human toil, oh yeah.
But right now in the Middle East it's coming to a boil
And you're gonna have to face it: you're addicted to oil.

Somewhere, Robert Palmer is smiling, as Karl Rove makes plans to produce Bush's first music video, complete with a chorus line of skinny women wearing short, tight skirts.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:12 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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. . . on the possibility that we're breaking through on solar power. (Yes; the subsidies will have to go, but go read: there may be some real potential there.)

Posted by: Attila Girl at 04:36 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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Scary news from Europe. I suspect Russia will eventually accept the notion of phasing in market prices for natural gas in Ukraine, but we do well to remember the risks associated with excessive energy dependence.

I gotta go; I'm building a nuclear reactor in my backyard. I'd like to live-blog it, but it turns out I have to concentrate a bit. Also, there's no place to set down my gin & tonic, so I borrowed one of those "runner's water backpacks" from my husband: the G&T is in the main chamber of the pack, and a tube comes around to my mouth, so I can more or less keep rehydrating as I go. Very healthy.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 02:59 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Could we get ANWR drilling passed if we simply prohibited northeasterners who've never even been to Alaska from voting on any bill that includes such drilling?

This can be done in such a way that the ecosystem is protected. Alaska needs it, and the country needs it. Drill.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:48 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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the idea of a few liberal "Rebublican" legislators in the Northeast undermining a project that will provide jobs in the West—and enhance U.S. energy supplies at the same time—really grinds my gears.

Particularly if they're being financed, in part, by the charming George Soros.

Something's rotten on Main Street.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:21 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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We are being gouged. Michael Demmons proves it.

[h/t: Outside the Beltway.]

Posted by: Attila at 08:17 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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I'm sorry. Given that drilling for oil can be done in an environmentally sensitive fashion, and given the price that we pay for dependence on foreign oil, I just don't get it. I do not understand why we aren't using everything in the toolbox to break our dependence on outside energy.

Sure: conservation is part of the solution. New technologies are part of the solution. But we need to develop other options in the meantime. I don't understand the argument that "it won't solve the problem 100%, so it's not worth doing." We should be approaching this from a number of different angles.

Michelle Malkin reprinted this letter to Hastert from her reader Rick, whose blog is here (go to her site for many, many more letters from disappointed people):

I have a neighbor who is a single mother. She struggles, but she gets by with a combination of determination and hard work.

. . . .

Not too long ago she came to my wife in tears, humiliated by the need to borrow money from us; gasoline prices, you see, were high enough to break her meager budget. Thanks to your "leadership", they aren't likely to drop too far, are they?

I served in the Army as an Intelligence Analyst and served in Desert Shield/Desert Storm; I happen to know that dependence on foreign oil has a number of effects- It keeps the price higher; it makes us strategically weaker; it funnels money out of our economy; and it puts some of that money in the pockets of groups like Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and al-Qaeda.

So while the tundra of remote Alaskan coasts may not have a oil derrick, some of the money I spend on gas will be going to the creation of roadside bombs in
Iraq. So while Zarqawi may thanks you, I most emphatically do not.

People are dying because of the terrorism caused by oil money in the hands of despots and outlaw groups. While I understand that energy is essential to economic development—and development is making lives better and safer in the third world, not to mention here—I don't understand why we don't do what we can to ease the suffering just a little.

Drill ANWR. Build refineries. Now.

Posted by: Attila at 08:33 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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John Carey, writing in Business Week, blasts Bush's energy proposals for being potentially popular. He includes this nugget of wisdom:

Want to increase supplies of oil and gas? Instead of drilling in the ANWR or adding a few LNG ports, Bush could open up areas like the Gulf coast of Florida or the Rocky Mountains, which has a 60-year supply of natural gas, to exploration and drilling. But that wouldn't be popular in Florida, where his brother Jeb is governor, or in some of the Western states that are strong Bush country.

To say that is to implicitly admit that the people of Colorado and Florida probably don't want this drilling to happen. Maybe they're right; maybe they aren't. But the interesting thing about drilling in ANWR is that Alaskans—for the most part—want it. It's being hung up by general misconceptions about what it would mean for wildlife, and by northeastern liberals who've never been to that part of Alaska and don't even know what the terrain looks like.

Posted by: Attila at 09:58 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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As most of you know, I'm the one libertarian in the country who still believes rail transit could work in the Southwest, even in Los Angeles—provided it's handled in a smart way. (Mostly, of course, it has not been.) For instance, there should be a high-speed train running between L.A. and Las Vegas, and probably one running to SF or the East Bay. I happen to like to drive to those places, but for most people it's a chore, and a bullet train would be a lot more convenient for most. (Particularly the drinkers going to Sin City.)

Daily commutes are harder to handle, but I like staggering people's arrival times, so that some get to the office early, and others get there late. This helps ease up on traffic, and wastes less fuel from the stop-and-go effect. But VariFrank's idea of getting more people—a lot more people—to telecommute is pretty brilliant. My first thought is, can most people create an office in their homes? I realize that of course they can, even if it's even in a corner. A lot of homes I know have a "junk room" that its occupants would gladly clear out if it were going to save them ten hours a week that they could then use for anything they wanted.

Via Glenn, who has a few thoughts of his own on how to approach energy policy without turning it into a moralistic crusade and sounding like a bunch of Sunday school teachers. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Posted by: Attila at 12:14 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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