The scam of corn ethonal

[LynahFan]

Re: The scam of corn ethonal

I have heard the same thing. If I were a big oil executive, I'd be diversifying my company, so as fuel usage/sales goes down with increased economy, my company would be able to keep the profits up. That's why you need a very public push by the government to do 100 mpg challange, so it won't die in a dark room somewhere. Thankfully the governement is in a position where they can't be influenced by lobbies.

Better yet, some billionaire could finance the contest and it could be a realuty tv show.

Yes, if only there were a public competition offering 7+ figures in prize money for more efficient vehicles, then surely all our problems would be solved overnight. Oh, wait. Maybe this is actually just a hard problem. Nah, better to blame corporations and human sloth on our failure to crack it - as long as there is someone to blame.

The "oil company conspiracy" business is nonsense. You can't unring a bell, and knowledge is never destroyed. If a guy invented a 200 mpg engine and enough people knew about it that "the" oil industry (whatever that means) was able to find out about it, then enough people would know that the oil industry couldn't stuff the cat back in the bag.

 

[Jimjamesak]

Re: The scam of corn ethonal

The "oil company conspiracy" business is nonsense. You can't unring a bell, and knowledge is never destroyed. If a guy invented a 200 mpg engine and enough people knew about it that "the" oil industry (whatever that means) was able to find out about it, then enough people would know that the oil industry couldn't stuff the cat back in the bag.

You could pretty much say the same thing about any conspiracy.

 

[Patman]

Re: The scam of corn ethonal

.

Let it never be said that the American left doesn't have a conspiratorial side. Booga booga.

 

[unh_hockey]

Re: The scam of corn ethonal

The "oil company conspiracy" business is nonsense. You can't unring a bell, and knowledge is never destroyed. If a guy invented a 200 mpg engine and enough people knew about it that "the" oil industry (whatever that means) was able to find out about it, then enough people would know that the oil industry couldn't stuff the cat back in the bag.

This concept is deliniated quite well in a booked called 'canticle for lebowitz' which talks about humans bringing forth their own end via atomic weapons - largly inspired by the fear of mutually assured descruction (MAD) when nuclear weapons became prevalent in the US and Russia. The idea being that even with the knowledge destroyed, people dug it back up again and continued down the same path as they did before.

As you said , its not a conspiricy so much as it is human nature doing what it does best.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: The scam of corn ethonal

You could pretty much say the same thing about any conspiracy.

Not true. Most conspiracies have an objective of taking a "positive" action - a conspiracy to commit murder, a conspiracy to rob a bank, a conspiracy to frame or discredit someone through the creation and dissemination of false information. That's a completely different ballgame from trying to destroy a piece of information - a "negative" action. Once an idea has taken root, it's extremely difficult to eradicate it completely.

You would have a point if my argument were, "There probably wasn't an oil company conspiracy because so many people within the oil company industry would have had to be involved that surely one of them would have leaked the information by now." But that's not my argument (though I think this different argument is somewhat credible, too). It's one thing for people involved in a conspiracy to keep the conspiracy itself secret - difficult, but not impossible. If the knowledge of the conspiracy is limited to people whose hands are dirty, then every single one of them has a motivation to keep it secret.

I'm talking about the other side - the inventors who would be the target of said conspiracy. In their case, every single one of them has motivation to disseminate, not hide, the design of the engine. That's the knowledge that would be very difficult to destroy, because every person who knows the idea would have motivation to secure it - copies mailed to themselves, safe deposit boxes, copies secured by a law firm, etc. For the oil companies to be able to contain and destroy every single copy of the knowledge (on paper, stored electronically, stored in people's brains, etc) they would have to get wind of the information extremely early in the chain, before the creator of the information has time to make many copies or tell many people.

If the inventor is so secretive that he doesn't make any copies and doesn't tell anyone, then how would the oil company know about it in the first place? If he tells lots and lots of people, then it would be easy for the oil companies to learn about it, but impossible for them to destroy every copy, because they would have to kill every single person who knows. The only possible cases where this could have worked would be in that gap between too few and too many people knowing about it, and that gap is vanishingly small. Can anyone prove that it didn't occur? Well, of course not - you can't prove a negative. Logically, however, it would be extremely improbable.

 

[Priceless]

Re: The scam of corn ethonal

Let it never be said that the American left doesn't have a conspiratorial side. Booga booga.

How did the existence of lobbyists become some sort of mystical conspiracy? Are you saying they don't exist?

 

[unh_hockey]

Re: The scam of corn ethonal

more fuel for the fire. thanks corn ethanol scammers

http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...mand-for-crops/2011/05/10/AFrcAmiG_story.html

 

[bigblue_dl]

Re: The scam of corn ethonal

Where I come from $7 corn and $13 soybeans is cause for big celebration. Not to mention $120/cwt live fats...like my dad told me this weekend "The economy? The economy's never been better, I'll be able to retire in 5 years on $7 corn." Take it as you want, but this is a good thing for some of us.

 

[goldy_331]

Re: The scam of corn ethonal

Where I come from $7 corn and $13 soybeans is cause for big celebration. Not to mention $120/cwt live fats...like my dad told me this weekend "The economy? The economy's never been better, I'll be able to retire in 5 years on $7 corn." Take it as you want, but this is a good thing for some of us.

In other words "screw everyone else, I got mine."

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: The scam of corn ethonal

In other words "screw everyone else, I got mine."

Which is the mentality in many quarters all around the country. The ethanol situation is just a more obvious rip-off of the taxpayer than a lot of other special interest stuff that goes on.

 

[walrus]

Re: The scam of corn ethonal

In other words "screw everyone else, I got mine."

If I was a corn farmer I'd be happy also. Corn based ethanol is a joke and the joke is on us consumers

 

[bigblue_dl]

Re: The scam of corn ethonal

In other words "screw everyone else, I got mine."

I was hoping to get better responses than this! I thought I would come back in this thread to see a mob with pitch forks waiting for me.

 

[goldy_331]

Re: The scam of corn ethonal

I was hoping to get better responses than this! I thought I would come back in this thread to see a mob with pitch forks waiting for me.

I'm a city boy. My only pitchfork is a short little one for turning the compost pile. Tines aren't even very sharp, not much good for that.

 

[unh_hockey]

Re: The scam of corn ethonal

I was hoping to get better responses than this! I thought I would come back in this thread to see a mob with pitch forks waiting for me.

Its not like you are advocating for corn ethanol. you made a few bucks. I can't fault someone for that. There is a difference between catching a trend, and being a policy maker that would rather fill an SUV once rather than feed a person for an entire year.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The scam of corn ethonal

Its not like you are advocating for corn ethanol. you made a few bucks. I can't fault someone for that. There is a difference between catching a trend, and being a policy maker that would rather fill an SUV once rather than feed a person for an entire year.

It will be interesting to see the GOP field in Iowa. I'm sure Ron Paul will call BS on the ethanol scam, but will anybody else have the stones?

On the conspiracy theories, every oil company I know of has changed its branding to an "energy company." Exxon Solar will probably dominate the energy market in 2050. There's a BP Solar facility right outside my town (though I noticed they just sold off half their office space -- business is apparently not good yet).

 

[unh_hockey]

Re: The scam of corn ethonal

It will be interesting to see the GOP field in Iowa. I'm sure Ron Paul will call BS on the ethanol scam, but will anybody else have the stones?

On the conspiracy theories, every oil company I know of has changed its branding to an "energy company." Exxon Solar will probably dominate the energy market in 2050. There's a BP Solar facility right outside my town (though I noticed they just sold off half their office space -- business is apparently not good yet).

The political climate is changing, as far as I know, towards reckless spending. maybe a candidate can leverage this ( using corn ethanol ) as an example for setting things right. its one of many dirty little secrets that most people don't know about, but would be outraged if they know what myself and others knew about.

I read somewhere that the EPA recently slashed the required domestic fuel required to come from next gen biofuels 100 million gallons ( 2010) and 250 million gallons in (2011) to 6.5 million each year . This , also, could be a sign that the political climate is changing. Being fiscally responsible means one must not advocate delusions of biofuels - and since the EPA stands to have part of its funding axed, maybe they are making the right move not backing a failed venture.

But last year, the Environmental Protection Agency had to set aside the hype and acknowledge that commercial production of cellulosic ethanol remains insignificant. The result: The EPA drastically cut the targets set by Congress. Instead of 100 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol in 2010 and 250 million gallons in 2011, the EPA slashed the targets to just 6.5 million gallons for both years. And despite the tsunami of hype, there’s no reason to expect a major breakthrough in cellulosic-ethanol production any time soon.

@ the post below me. I know. The more things change... But I can hope right? I mean if my so called arch nemesis can slash biofuel expectations...maybe they see the light?

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The scam of corn ethonal

The political climate is changing, as far as I know, towards reckless spending.

I'm sure we'd all love to believe this but if you pay attention and look close enough you'll see that the culture war has been more important and more prominent in all the State houses across the country this year. They may try to use the fiscal crisis to get votes or pander but the agenda is still gays and abortion on the right.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The scam of corn ethonal

The political climate is changing, as far as I know, towards reckless spending. maybe a candidate can leverage this ( using corn ethanol ) as an example for setting things right. its one of many dirty little secrets that most people don't know about, but would be outraged if they know what myself and others knew about.

That will work with the voters in New Hampshire, but not in Iowa, where all those wasted federal dollars are a windfall. You can't go to Iowa and say ethanol is a fraud like you can't go Tennessee and say we need to take pennies out of circulation -- the local industry is never "waste."

 

[Kepler]

Re: The scam of corn ethonal

I'm sure we'd all love to believe this but if you pay attention and look close enough you'll see that the culture war has been more important and more prominent in all the State houses across the country this year. They may try to use the fiscal crisis to get votes or pander but the agenda is still gays and abortion on the right.

The only agenda on the right is low taxes for the wealthy. Everything else is a vehicle for delivering that payload.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The scam of corn ethonal

The only agenda on the right is low taxes for the wealthy. Everything else is a vehicle for delivering that payload.

Perhaps. We're voting on gay marriage here in Minnesota next election day. There's a 6 billion dollar deficit but gays are way too important not to spend time on.