The Senate passed HR6, the Clean Energy Act. Being good intentioned, but ill informed, the Senate made sure that lots of attention was given to ethanol.
Bills such as this often contain lots of proposed legislation that is closely related to the title of the bill, some that is distantly related to the topic at hand, and some that draws no correllation.
But ethanol is NOT clean energy, it is a tool for energy independence.
Ethanol from corn... the Senate's pet project... takes more energy to create than it yields, with the added penalty of increasing almost all food products. And that harms not only the US, but all of the countries that import our corn for livestock feed. The distilling process creates a vast quantity of CO2 and the tailpipe emissions aggravate athsma symptoms and cause other respiratory problems. Since Brazil has been so reliant upon ethanol there is little need for environmental impact studies, the effects are well documented.
Ethanol from corn... the Senate's pet project... takes more energy to create than it yields, with the added penalty of increasing almost all food products. And that harms not only the US, but all of the countries that import our corn for livestock feed. The distilling process creates a vast quantity of CO2 and the tailpipe emissions aggravate athsma symptoms and cause other respiratory problems. Since Brazil has been so reliant upon ethanol there is little need for environmental impact studies, the effects are well documented.
Building nuclear power plants is a better tools for clean energy AND energy independence. Once we shutter coal fired power plants we can invest in coal cracking plants that extract fuel from coal, same with the oil impreganted shale. Those two sources of petroleum, on top of our reserves would reduce our imported of oil dramatically. Yes nuke plants create waste, a moderate amount annually, appromimately 1/2 ton, or two 55 gallons barrels. The waste can be processed, but right now the number of plants in operatoin make processing the waste unfeasible considering the cost of the plant, build more nukes and the costs come in line.
There is another factor for energy independence that is always ignored... recycling. Almost all plastic gathered for recycling is sent either to landfills (bet your local DPW never told you that) or to Asia. While the petroleum cannot be (feasably) extracted from the plastic, the plastic can be ground and reused in most cases. Right now the vast majority of our recycling goes to China. There it is made into new items for much less than the cost of virgin resin. An enormous level of our imported oil goes into the plastics sector.
The Senate had the oportunity to listen to the experts and come up with a comprehensive bill that focused on Clean a Energy AND Energy Independence. Instead they chose to listen to the lobbyists and are mislabeling ethanol as a clean energy source. This win for the lobbyists will have huge negative economic impacts that will effect everyone.
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