I’m struck by how often biofuels proponents resort to arguing that they are all but entitled to subsidies because of all the subsidies that we give to the fossil energy welfare kings.

This hardly seems wise.

First, it’s juvenile. You like to think that, in a democracy, we’re capable of, oh, you know, learning from past mistakes. Being told that, because the Seven Sisters emerged from WWII with the political world by the balls, we have to keep on subsidizing every other form of energy that comes down the pike is a pretty sure way to convince people to lose respect for what you’re selling. When the Amway salesman starts talking smack about Procter & Gamble, you know why nobody buys that stuff.

Second, it overlooks that some of the same people hoping to cash in on biofuels ARE the big oil welfare kings. Really–check it out. They don’t much care what you power your car with, so long as you’re trapped in a car and buying something from them. They’d gladly sell you rainwater at $3.00 a gallon if they could. Like Saudi Arabia (which tries to limit the price rise in oil to prevent fuel switching and conservation), the LAST THING that Big Oil wants is for you to say “Screw it, I am getting OUT of this trap” by doing something to reduce your car dependence.

No, so long as you own a car, you are going to be buying thieir products, whether it be blend A with x% biofuels or blend B wih 2x% biofuels or whatever. And every bit of that x% biofuels represents big time use of fossil fuels. So they don’t care if you want to put a happy face on your gas pump and pretend that they aren’t behind that same gas pump.

Some biofuels types want to make it seem like they’re standing up for the little guy—by demanding that the little guy’s taxes go toward subsidizing biofuels rather than, say, health care or education. But biofuels aren’t freeing us from anything–they’re simply another way to power cars, and keeping us all chained to cars is the furthest thing from sticking it to the Man. It’s like telling Philip Morris “I’ll show you, you dirty old tobacco company. I’ll smoke TWO packs of your competitor’s smokes a day, rather than one pack a day of yours.” That kind of thing bothers them not at all … for every person switching in that direction, there’s another switching in the other direction. The main thing for those guys is that you KEEP SMOKING–just like the only thing the oil majors really care about is that you KEEP DRIVING.

Third, if we subsidize biofuels, that will only serve to further weave subsidies into the fabric of our energy policy, resulting in a crippling straightjacket. Rather than providing an actual alternative and forcing the subsidies OFF from fossil fuels, biofuels proponents seem to have decided that, what the heck, there’s a little bit of room at the trough for the little guys too.

And fourth, as I’ve noted before,

subsidies for biofuels

–which cost more than fossil fuels–

simply subsidize the fossil fuels again,

because they don’t reduce demand for fossil fuels. Instead, subsidizing biofuels means that fossil fuel demand and consumption continues to rise, maintaining the high prices for both.

Fifth, demanding biofuel subsidies is basically a statement of “no confidence” in their prospects, made by the people who ought to be the most convinced that biofuels are a good thing that can be made to pay.

Those biofuels promoters who demand subsidies (and there are biofuels promoters who don’t, and who will be entitled to every penny of their profits should they ever see any) are saying one of two things:

1) I don’t see a way to make this pay, but I’d kind of like to go in with you on those lottery tickets you bought in case they include a big winner. So, with my money, I’ll buy my own lottery tickets, and you give me a share of your tickets too.

2) I don’t care whether it pays or not, because I’m only doing this for the subsidy–if the subsidy stops, we stop. Don’t worry about topsoil depletion, competition between food and fuel, or anything else–just repeat “energy security” and a few other mantras over and over and keep those checks coming.

After all, you subsidized Johnny …

This entry was posted on Monday, April 16th, 2007 at 11:44 pm and is filed under Economy, Energy Future, Environment, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.