Friday, April 25, 2008

Texas and the Ethanol Dilemma

According to this article from Reuters Texas is seeking for a cutback in the amount of ethanol mandated to be produced. The purpose is to ease food prices. The problem is that the ethanol mandate is designed to push the U.S. past food derived ethanol. Cutting the amount of ethanol in mandated as suggested by the Governor of Texas would have worse effects than leaving it in place. The purpose of the mandate is to force the technology for cellulosic ethanol to be developed. It would not be cost effective to produce 7.5 billion gallons by 2012 out of corn. Do so would increase the demand for corn to unheard of levels and raise the price of corn so high it would not be worth it to make fuel.

So, the mandate should force cellulosic ethanol to replace corn-based ethanol in the long term. In the short term though it seems food prices will just keep climbing and put the pinch on lower income households. One thought that I guess did not occur to Gov. Perry is that Texas is one of the few states that can produce sugar beets year round. On top of that ethanol from sugar beets is cheaper to produce than from corn. In conclusion it appears to me that instead of attacking the ethanol mandate Texas should be using it to create jobs in sugar beet processing. This will take some of the pressure off of corn (not a complete solution to the food crisis as farmland is still being used to produce fuel) by providing alternative methods of ethanol production. So in the near-term corn prices should at least increase slower while the mandate already in place will encourage cellulosic ethanol processes in the longer term. What do you think?

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Iraq Hearings: To Withdraw or Not to Withdraw

Well, General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker gave an update on Iraq today (More information can be found here). This article (different from the first one) offers some interesting insight about the situation. It seems an important perspective on the issue that is often overlooked is that of the Iraqi citizens who whether we like it or not are more deeply affected by this war than any other group involved in it. In a you broke it you bought it situation like Iraq I believe we should take into account how they feel. I regret to say that the democratic candidates have missed this point.

Anyways, according to the article it seems like many Iraqis, especially Iraqi soldiers, would prefer if we would stay in Iraq. I have to say I agree with them even though I disagree with many of Bush's policies in general, and specifically I disagree with America invading Iraq in the first place.

I refuse to make my mind up about any candidate before the general election gets closer (and I encourage all of you to do the same) because it doesn't make sense to me to decide anything before all the facts have been weighed in, but right now I am leaning towards Mccain. This is because of his stance on health care (but thats a topic for another post) and Iraq. Yes I know it is a complicated, drawn out war, which has essentially been a "waste" of time and money for America as well as a huge distraction from more important issues, the important thing is that now that we've caused these problems we fix them.

History can teach us some lessons; take a look at Europe after World War II, we conquered and then left without rebuilding or ensuring any sustainable peace in the region. What happened? A regime even more terrible than the one we ousted rose to power. While something that dramatic hopefully wouldn't happen if we withdrew from Iraq, I would like to know that we took responsibility for our actions and left a positive mark in the Middle East instead of so many negative ones.

Tell me what you think about it. Should we withdraw, should we remain, or is there some other option I did not think of?