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The climate is ideal for biofuels

By DAVID ADAMS
Published January 4, 2006

Have you heard the buzz about biofuels?

I hadn't either until recently when the St. Petersburg Times sent me on a trip to Brazil. To my astonishment I learned that sugar can just as easily go in your gas tank as into your cup of coffee.

Ethanol, which can be distilled from sugar cane, has become a major substitute in Brazil for more expensive gasoline. That has yet to happen in this country. But things are changing. Midwest farmers are now producing large quantities of ethanol from corn. More and more gas stations across the country are offering E10, a gasoline blended with 10 percent ethanol, as well as biodiesel made from vegetable oils.

What we are seeing is a curious evolution in the energy debate.

For years the renewable energy advocates were mostly environmentalists concerned about the health of the planet. By switching to clean-burning biofuels, they argued, we could reduce carbon dioxide emissions and slow the effect of global warming. Not only are biofuels clean burning, the plants used to make biofuels consume carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through photosynthesis.

Sounds great, but it seems there were never enough tree huggers to make this argument sufficiently persuasive. There was simply too much cheap oil.

Not anymore, it seems. Type the words "Hubbard's Peak theory" into your Internet search engine, and you'll discover that many experts now say the era of cheap oil is over. Having passed the peak of world oil production, supply will fall steadily in future decades. The $60 barrel of oil is here to stay. (One expert recently predicted we'll see $100 by winter.)

The price of oil is having several effects on our economy and public opinion. Once expensive biofuels begin to look more economically viable. And the environmental argument for biofuels is being overtaken by the advocates of "energy independence."

What makes this phrase more catchy than "global warming?" To begin with it's more bipartisan. However true the dire warnings about global warming, it was always associated with a left-wing fringe. But energy independence appeals across the spectrum, bringing together political conservatives and environmentalists.

Biofuels have also done the seemingly impossible by uniting left and right over the contentious issue of free trade. Third World aid groups such as Oxfam argue that free trade will help poorer commodity-rich countries generate jobs and income by selling cheap, agricultural products - such as ethanol and biodiesel - to Europe, Japan and the United States.

Every day the argument wins new advocates. Hillary Clinton, who used to be a critic of biofuels, recently leapt aboard, realizing perhaps that it might expand her popularity beyond urbanite New York to rural America's corn belt where ethanol is king.

Former CIA director James Woolsey is a member of the Energy Future Coalition that advocates alternative fuels. Bill Gates recently bought into a company building ethanol plants in California.

Hollywood is also joining in. Interviewed recently on ABC's Nightline, actor-director George Clooney made the case for biofuels, saying it was the logical conclusion to be drawn from his new movie, Syriana, which depicts how the CIA is beholden to oil companies in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, some cherished myths are exploding. For years oil companies have resisted the government giving any sort of leg up to biofuels by way of federal fuel mandates and tax credits. Don't mix energy and social policy, they chided.

It's odd they should say that given the hidden subsidies paid to guarantee oil supplies. The Economist magazine, a bastion of conservative free market thinking, recently reported that the oil industry is perhaps the greatest beneficiary of tax credits and government underwriting. It calculated the cost at $80-billion a year.

The United States has typically spent some $50-billion annually to protect its oil interests in the Middle East. Imagine all those billions being invested instead in new energy technology to make us independent of foreign oil.

It has taken time for biofuels to build steam. Research and development funding wasn't there. The Bush administration still seems to think more oil is the only answer to rising energy costs. Just look at its determination to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration.

But that's harder to argue these days. "Drilling is never going to be a very complete solution," Florida Sen. Mel Martinez told me the other day. (Martinez is a convert to biofuels who got hooked after a trip to Brazil last summer.)

Florida, an agricultural state that imports 99 percent of its fuel needs, stands to be a big winner if biofuels take off. Home-grown production of ethanol could make the state less dependent on fuel imports, while exploiting its own natural resources.

In mid January Gov. Jeb Bush is due to receive a report outlining the state's future energy strategy. Promotion of alternative fuels is likely to figure prominently.

The incontrovertible truth is that biofuels are not just good for the environment, they are good for the economy, too. And today, there's no more powerful argument than that.

David Adams can be contacted at dadams@sptimes.com

[Last modified January 4, 2006, 01:08:07]