Conservatives Already Seeing Through Kristi Noem Facade

All conservatives got with Kristi Noem was looks. Observers outside South Dakota are already seeing that, far from a true Tea Party crusader, Noem is just another pork-seeking farm-state politico. Take her comments on subsidies for ethanol:

Speaking on the Scott Hennen Show Noem says “Ethanol has been very good to South Dakota.” She said that this is not the time to repeal the subsidy “when you look at taking away that subsidy it is the wrong decision.”

She says that supporting the ethanol industry with subsidy promotes investment and continued hiring “In the long run it will get the economy back on track faster” [Kurtis Workman, "New South Dakota Congresswoman Say Ethanol Subsidy Good For Recovery," PlainsDaily.com, 2010.12.09]

Wait a minute: isn't Noem the same lady who spent a lot of time this year blasting federal stimulus efforts?

Let's tour the blogosphere. Rob Port at Say Anything:

How are ethanol subsidies any different than Obama’s economic stimulus spending? The fiscal conservative argument against the stimulus spending spree was that government cannot create jobs because government cannot spend anything without taking away from someone else.

Given that, if Obama’s stimulus spending hasn’t resulted in job growth (and we know it hasn’t) then how is spending on ethanol subsidies any different? [Rob Port, "South Dakota Rep. Kristi Noem: Ethanol Subsidies Are Economic Stimulus," SayAnythingBlog.com, 2010.12.09]

Rand Simberg:

This is depressing. Kristi Noem hasn’t even taken office yet, and she’s already defending home-grown pork as “stimulus"... [Rand Simberg, "And So It Begins," Transterrestrial Musings, 2010.12.11].

The Lonely Conservative from New York:

Kristi Noem is conservative only when it suits her.... I'm glad I didn't waste my time blogging about this woman ["Just When I Was about to Praise Kristi Noem," The Lonely Conservative, 2010.12.12].

Ah, but we shouldn't be too hard on our Mrs. Noem. She's just following the lead of John Boehner and the other big Washington Republicans who are engaged in the same hypocrisy on the pending $855 billion tax-rate and stimulus deal. Stimulus packages and deficit spending are bad, bad, bad when Democrats will get the credit and we need to rile up the voters. But when stimulus packages and deficit spending send money to our favored special interests, be they the ethanol industry or the richest 1% of Americans who pay for our campaign ads, then spending money we don't have becomes our patriotic duty.

Dakota Ethanol Pays $75K Penalty for Environmental Violations

Dr. Blanchard has been hammering on the inefficiency and immorality of our federally subsidized ethanol industry. Now the EPA adds some black marks to the local ethanol industry.

Joe O'Sullivan at ThePostSD.com reports that back in October, Dakota Ethanol in Wentworth paid a $75,000 penalty to the Environmental Protection Agency for violations of the Clean Air Act. According to the EPA, Lake County's big ethanol plant emitted more volatile organic compounds than allowed, didn't do the right testing, and "failed to maintain the internal floating roof on the liquid inside several storage vessels at the plant."

The same settlement extracted $150,000 from ethanol producers Poet, James Valley, and Northern Lights for similar Clean Air Act at the Groton and Big Stone ethanol plants. Think of it as a rebate on our federal subsidies for the industry.

Now I know Dakota Ethanol was disappointed with the EPA for delaying adoption of the E-15 standard. But really, fellas, do you think breaking other EPA rules is going to encourage them to vote your way? Maybe this is why Kristi Noem was so intent on demanding the EPA administrator's resignation.

The Department of Justice has the full details of the Dakota Ethanol violations and Poet-James Valley-Northern Lights violations online.

Herseth Sandlin Among Top 100 in Bioenergy

Depending on your position on biofuels, the following may constitute a slim voting issue in South Dakota's Congressional race. Biofuels Digest includes Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin in its Top 100 People in Bioenergy. Our Congresswoman is listed at #30 alongside Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota and Rep. Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota.

Now Kristi Noem is able to wander through talking points on ethanol, too, but Herseth Sandlin is the recognized leader in promoting biofuels. If you dig biofuels, you probably stick with Herseth Sandlin's recognized performance rather than taking the chance that Noem will get out her GOP-Big Oil knives and gut government support for ethanol. And if you don't dig biofuels, you go for Noem and hope you can talk her back into the Republican free-market fundamentalism that would get her to reject government support for ethanol. (But good luck getting Noem to forswear subsidies).

Other persons of South Dakota interest on the Biofuels Digest list:

• Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, our neighbor from Iowa, is #1. The "runaway winner" in the poll on which this list is based, Secretary Vilsack "has been driving hard to implement a strong biofuels policy on behalf of the Obama Administration." Yes, that's President Obama, doing things most South Dakotans like. Hmmm....
  
• Jeff Broin of Poet Ethanol is #2. He knows who butters his bread: he's donated $1000 to Herseth Sandlin this year... and $1500 to Ohio Rep. John Boehner... and $30,400 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
  
• Senators John Thune and Tim Johnson make the list at #33 alongside their colleagues Charles Grssely from Iowa and Jeff Bingaman from New Mexico.
• Coolest name on the list: at #99, Hunt Ramsbottom of Rentech.

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Bonus Across-the-Aisle Advice: Hey, Kristi: wouldn't your position on ethanol be an easy write-up for your non-existent Agriculture Issues webpage?

Herseth Sandlin vs. Noem: Indirect Land Use Penalty for Biofuel

Part 5 of the Madville Times' South Dakota State Fair Congressional Debate analysis

Question 4 at Sunday's debate: what will you do about the international indirect land use penalties to protect biofuels? The indirect land use penalty is the idea of discounting the greenhouse gas emissions savings achieved by biofuels based on the carbon released when farmers convert forest and other previously unplowed land to cropland.

I know that now, thanks to Google and Wikipedia. I didn't know it Sunday, and from the sounds of the answer, Kristi Noem didn't know much about it, either. Noem said we need someone to promote a competitive market and avoid detriments to farmers' income. She said we need to pick the candidate who's been proactive on issues, gone forward and carried tough issues and fought for people.

Maybe Noem just assumed that the ag-heavy crowd already knew what the indirect land use penalty was. She certainly didn't explain it. Not one thing she said indicated she had a specific plan for dealing with it. Her answer was pure campaign-speak.

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin sensed he advantage and pounced. Her first words were a direct response to the question and to Noem's tactics: "By continuing to fight with the facts." Herseth Sandlin said Congress has already worked bipartisanly to change the definition to protect the use of woody biomass in the Black Hills. She addressed Noem's general call for "leadership" by pointing out that we're making progress now, because the EPA hasn't used the bad indirect land use definition. The USDA is doing its own calculation pushed by bipartisan work on the House Ag Committee.

Herseth Sandlin said the Ag Committee is fighting the attorneys who want to deep-six the ethanol industry. She said they are fighting this administration as much as the last to protect ethanol. She said the USDA is our ally and that her willingness to fight has prevented the bad indirect land use definition from being implemented. Fight, fight, fight... Herseth Sandlin was forceful, passionate... oh, but I suppose those are bad qualities, right, Pat?

Wrong. It could be that Herseth Sandlin sounds more passionate in these debates because she's more confident than the woman sitting next to her. Noem knows she's in deep water and her Fox News talking points will only float so far. She's terrified of real hard questions. On this hard question, Herseth Sandlin recognized Noem had just buffaloed the audience and missed the facts. Herseth Sandlin thus swung hard, owned the question, and owned the stage.

Assessment: Advantage Herseth Sandlin. Without a doubt.
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p.s.: Big scary Speaker Nancy Pelosi was backing Herseth Sandlin on this issue. In ACESA, the climate change bill, she supported an agreement with Reps. Waxman and Peterson to tighten the requirements for imposing any indirect land use penalty for biofuels. Under the ACESA provisions, USDA would have had to agree to any definitions along with EPA and DoE. The American Coalition for Ethanol loved this agreement and wanted the Senate to follow suit. Advantage Pelosi!

Herseth Sandlin vs. Noem: Cut Ethanol Subsidy?

Part 4 of the Madville Times' South Dakota State Fair Congressional Debate analysis

Question #3 at Sunday's debate put Tea Party sensibilities to the test, asking whether it's time to get rid of the ethanol subsidy. I can find Republicans and Democrats who would say yes to that question. None of them were on stage in Huron. Republican Kristi Noem said no; Democrat Stephanie Herseth Sandlin said heck no!

Noem offered an interesting nuance: she said that since the industry doesn't agree on whether the subsidy should continue, the subsidy should continue. (Hmm... sounds just like her position on climate change: since not every scientist agrees on climate change, climate change should continue.) Noem did not explain whether it would take a simple majority, two-thirds, or complete consensus from industry players to get her to end the ethanol subsidy.

Noem did say that ethanol is important to national security. She said we must rely on ourselves for energy, promote blender pumps, and put infrastructure in place so everyone who wants to use ethanol can. Noem wants to encourage flex-fuel vehicles and make sure people have opporuntities to invest in ethanol. (If she's talking about doing that from a perch in Congress, she's a Republican advocating some pretty active government intervention in the market.)

Noem concluded by saying we need someone in Washington who understands how the ethanol industry works. She mentioned her own experience of making the tough decisions with her family at the dinner table to invest in an ethanol plant.

Herseth Sandlin didn't mention her dinner-table investment decisions, but she stated emphatically that we need to do all we can to retain and modify tax credits and extend the tariff. She said continuing support for ethanol is essential to keep the ethanol industry growing and providing jobs in our communities. Herseth Sandlin went so far as to say our investment in tax credits and extending the tariff save taxpayers money.

Beyond the ethanol subsidy, Herseth Sandlin said she has introduced legislation to provide investment tax credits for ethanol research and development. She said such credits would help Poet and other South Dakota companies and promote cellulosic ethanol.

Herseth Sandlin also took free shots at Noem and the GOP. She commended the bipartisan work of State Representative Mitch Fargen and State Senator Dave Knudson for using stimulus money to promote blender pumps (Kristi voted for that, too, but oh! slap! pow!). Herseth Sandlin concluded by noting that the ethanol subsidy is a whole lot better than a subsidy for the oil industry (smack!).

Assessment: Not much daylight between the candidates, but Noem loses points for failing to live up to Tea Party ideals to unshackle the Invisible Hand. Then again, since Tea Party funders the Koch brothers are getting into ethanol, Noem may be right on the expected faux-conservative talking points. Advantage Herseth Sandlin on philosophical consistency and free shots.

Solar Cheaper than Nuclear; Ethanol Needs No Subsidy

A couple of energy notes of interest to South Dakotans:

Solar Cheaper than Nuclear: A study by two researchers at Duke (Duke! They've got basketball; they must be reliable!) finds solar power may now be able to generate electricity per kilowatt-hour more cheaply than new nuclear power. Photovoltaic systems have dropped 50% in price since 1998, while construction costs for new nuclear plants have boomed (though the industry guys would prefer we didn't use nuclear and boom in the same sentence). The Duke data looks at costs in North Carolina, which has about the same solar power potential as central South Dakota. The Black Hills have even better PV potential—time for solarpanel hats on Mount Rushmore! Read the full report in PDF glory here.

No Need for Ethanol Subsidies: Here's South Dakota's big chance to get off the government teat! Iowa State University econ prof Bruce Babcock finds that ending the ethanol blenders credit and the import tariff would "have neither the dramatic, adverse effect U.S. ethanol producers claim, nor create the export bonanza Brazilian producers hope for." Professor Babcock says ending these industry subsidies would result in the loss of maybe 300 jobs, not the 112,000 to 160,000 the ethanol industry claims. Without subsidies, ethanol production would still increase, while we would save a few pennies per gallon at the pump and shave a several billion dollars off the deficit each year (just as all of our Congressional candidates want to do).

Of course, Babcock's study was funded by the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association. Brazil produces 7 billion gallons of ethanol from sugarcane each year, behind only the U.S., which makes 12 billion gallons of corn ethanol annually.

But note that U.S ethanol producer Valero—you know, the nice folks who bought VeraSun's ethanol plants after VeraSun went broke, and the third-largest ethanol producer in America—says it wouldn't reduce ethanol production one bit if we cut subsidies.

Reduce Gasoline Use by Ethanol Subsidy or Gasoline Tax?

Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) wants to end the ethanol subsidy. The chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee says $7.6 billion a year in taxpayer support is unnecessary for "a mature technology whose market share is well protected." Bingaman cites this CBO report that analyzes the cost-effectiveness of the biofuels subsidy at reducing petroleum usage and greenhouse gas emissions.

Note that the CBO study is about the subsidy for all biofuels, but in 2009, 94% of the 11.5 billion gallons of biofuel produced in the U.S. was ethanol.

The CBO report includes some useful numbers on the energy in gasoline and ethanol:

• One gallon of gasoline contains 125,000 BTUs of energy.
• One gallon of ethanol contains 85,000 BTUs of energy.
• You thus need 1.48 gallons of ethanol to get the same amount of energy as you can get from one gallon of gasoline.
• By current techniques, ethanol producers burn 11,000 BTUs of petroleum fuel to produce each gallon of ethanol.
• An ethanol producer thus needs to put 1.69 gallons of ethanol on the market to replace the energy from one gallon of gasoline at the pump and petro-fuel taken off the market to make that ethanol.

Remember: the ethanol credit is 45 cents per gallon (which goes to blenders, not farmers). So the net subsidy to support the 1.69 gallons of ethanol needed to replace one gasoline gallon's worth of energy is 76 cents. Displacing fossil fuels also causes a decrease in excise tax receipts, so the total taxpayer cost for replacing gasoline energy with ethanol energy, says CBO, is $1.78 per gallon of ethanol.

Harvard's Professor Mankiw asks an interesting question: if our goal is to reduce gasoline consumption, might we not do so more cheaply and in a better targeted fashion simply by adding a dollar-per-gallon tax to gasoline and charging those who keep consuming rather than levying additional income tax on all taxpayers?

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Bonus note on energy: CBO says that corn ethanol production and use emits maybe 15%–20% less carbon dioxide than gasoline per 125,000 BTUs of fuel made available at the pump. Cellulosic ethanol production and use beats gasoline on CO₂ emissions by well over 80%. In other words, cellulosic ethanol promises one-fifth the carbon footprint of corn ethanol.

Oil, Tsunamis, Ethanol -- Grim Notes

Two dozen tabs open on my browser—time to clear the cache and lament the ongoing disaster of our irresponsible energy practices.

1. Scott and Megan at The Post revisit that amazing BP oil spill overlay map and find the great blob of careless greed stretching from Sissteon to Rapid City.
2. Maybe mushrooms can clean up the BP oil spill. I'd certainly give that a shot before trying the mushroom cloud option.
3. Fungus or nukes, the eggheads had better find a solution fast. If you think oily birds and beach tarballs are bad for tourism, try double exploding methane-triggered tsunamis.
4. Maybe someone should have mentioned tsunamis to Judge Feldman before he overturned the federal moratorium on further deepwater oil exploration. One rig blowing up and spewing millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico doesn't mean all such rigs are dangerous, does it? I susecpt such a conclusion makes more sense to a judge who has invested in numerous oil companies, including the outfit that owned the Deepwater Horizon rig.
5. The solution is not magic mushrooms or more drilling. The solution is for us Americans to grow up, sacrifice for future generations, and get the heck off oil. That change will be slow and painful, but we Americans ca do it. At least that's what conservative commentator David Frum will tell you:

   We want to get the country off oil? Tax it. (Politicians may not wish to say it, but their advisers can at least think it.) Then liberate people to find their own best alternative -- and incentivize industry to develop alternatives that make sense at the new higher price. And be prepared to argue candidly and straightforwardly in the marketplace of ideas why this new tax is right and justified [David Frum, "Getting off Oil Easily Is a Fantasy," CNN.com, 2010.06.21].

   I'll make that argument. Tax oil hard. Game on!
6. And for those of you thinking ethanol is the best way to get off oil, there's a strong argument that ethanol, via corn production and fertilizer runoff, has been contributing to hypoxia, algae blooms, and the massive "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico for years. But hey—that ongoing disaster is only the size of New Jersey.

And now I'm hopping in my car to burn three gallons of gasoline and ethanol to go to Brookings. I smell exhaust and hypocrisy.

Dakota Wind Energy Gets 300 Megawatts of Big Stone II Transmission

Once upon a time, the Big Stone II power plant was going to need 600 megawatts of electrical transmission capacity. Then Otter Tail and other backers backed out, realizing like numerous other investors that since the business case for coal doesn't make as much sense as the case for wind.

But Big Stone II was supposed to be a Pyrrhic victory for environmentalists, according to various conservative commentators and governors desperately propping up their fossil fuel fetish. With Big Stone II dead, wind energy would lose access to the big transmission capacity needed to make more wind farms feasible.

What's that sound I hear? Wind picking up?

Dakota Wind Energy, along with its managing member, National Wind, announces today the acceptance by the Midwest ISO (“MISO”) of its 300 megawatt (MW) interconnection request into the Big Stone II Transmission backfill study group. Regional electrical transmission operator, MISO, identified wind projects that can utilize, or “backfill,” the electrical capacity once reserved for the Big Stone II coal plant. As a result, Dakota Wind Energy’s interconnection request will move into a more advanced MISO study phase, in which additional required system upgrades will be identified. Once all of the upgrades are studied and established, Dakota Wind Energy can enter into a generator interconnection agreement, allowing us to interconnect the initial 300 MW portion of the Dakota Wind Energy project to the transmission grid [press release, National Wind, 2010.05.05].

Note the word initial. Dakota Wind Energy has leased 60,000 acres in Day, Marshall, and Roberts counties, with the intention of building up to 750 megawatts of wind energy generation capacity. 750 megawatts. That's more than Big Stone II. And that's community-owned South Dakota power. From a fuel source that transports itself. A fuel source that will be as plentiful 10, 20, or a 133 years from now.

I know, I know, Mike, contrary to our experience walking slantwise this week, the wind doesn't always blow, and that plays heck on meeting load requirements. But I imagine the development of wind power will go somewhat like the development of ethanol (as a Republican friend suggested to me earlier this week). Both renewable energy sources require significant technological improvements (wind: massive storage; ethanol: cellulosic fuel stocks). But as we develop wind and ethanol in their imperfect forms now, we'll build the momentum and market for engineers and entrepreneurs to develop the technologies that will make renewables more efficient and profitable.

And contrary to the wishful whimpering of the coal criers, the collapse of Big Stone II doesn't seem to have slowed down wind development one bit. Forward!

Curd and Noem: Obama Stimulus Evil (Except When It Funds Programs We Like)

Badlands Blue highlights more hypocrisy from million-dollar mansioneer R. Blake Curd and millionaire-subsidy rancher Kristi Noem. Curd and Noem like to make hay by criticizing the Democrat they hope to unseat, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, for voting for the stimulus package. But Curd and Noem are perfectly happy to spend that evil money to support things like ethanol blender pumps that they think are good for South Dakota.

These Republicans just can't be honest with South Dakota. They want to win by telling you they oppose deficit spending and big government. But they know full well that keeping the state budget afloat, promoting South Dakota priorities, and climbing out of the recession all depend on aggressive government action. Curd and Noem know Obama and the rest of us Dems are right; they just can't admit it.

Make Money from Ethanol... or Vice Versa?

I don't do April Fools (I do recommend tickling as an alternative).

But if you think government subsidies for ethanol are a waste of money, you might want to read this humor from the Environmental Working Group, which announces simoleonase, a new enzyme that might be the ethanol industry's salvation:

With today’s breakthrough, we no longer have to engage in the grossly inefficient process of using taxpayer subsidies to fund cultivation of feedstocks like corn that are then converted into ethanol. With simoleonase enzyme, we are converting cold, hard US dollars directly into clean, green ethanol produced right here in the US. We’re eliminating the middleman, delivering a quality product to the American taxpayer and moving closer to energy independence.

Our initial tests show that $50 bills have the right moisture content and density for maximum ethanol output, and therefore our agency will ramp up printing of those bills in order to feed the demand expected by ethanol producers ["New Simoleonase Enzyme a Magic Bullet for Ethanol Industry?" Environmental Working Group, 2010.04.01].

Who says environmentalists have no sense of humor?

Ethanol Pipeline Needs Federal Loan Guarantee... and Eminent Domain?

The market and I remain open to a debate on the merits of ethanol as a good alternative fuel. Ethanol creates jobs and market opportunities for local farmers. We're less likely to go to war to protect South Dakota farm fields than to secure oil shipments from the Persian Gulf. Ethanol profits are less likely to fund Hugo Chavez, al-Qaida, and Russian oligarchs.

But the ethanol industry still depends on government for its growth and existence. Consider Poet & Magellan's proposed 1800-mile, $4-billion ethanol pipeline. It sounds like a heck of a project, pumping South Dakota ethanol all the way to New York City with less carbon footprint than trucks or trains. But it also won't happen without Uncle Sam:

This is a big pipe... and it won't happen without an equally big boost from taxpayers. On Feb. 25, corn-state congressman Leonard Boswell (D-Iowa) reintroduced the Renewable Fuel Pipeline Act [HR 4674]. (Similar legislation is pending in the Senate.)

The bill's key provision is an 80% government loan guarantee. Without it, says Magellan CEO Don Wellendorf, there won't be a pipeline: "We're not willing to spend the kind of money it would take on a project that's viable only as long as the government continues its interest in ethanol" [David Whitford, "Building the World's Longest Ethanol Pipeline," Fortune via CNN Money, 2010.03.12].

Whitford further notes that this pipeline probably wouldn't have made the drawing board the government's biofuels mandates, enacted by big-government President George W. Bush in 2005 and expanded by the similarly minded President Obama.

Mentioned just briefly in the article is eminent domain. Poet and Magellan aren't there yet, but I wonder: how much right of way will they have to acquire? Will they deal more fairly with landowners along this route through much more populated territory than foreign TransCanada did when plowing through our prairie? And if they do, how will we feel about that?

Poet may find landowners more willing to play ball if they can demonstrate that local producers will be able to directly use and benefit from the pipeline, as TransCanada is now saying oil producers in Montana, North Dakota, and even South Dakota may be able to do with "on-ramps" into the Keystone XL pipeline. (If TransCanada would have offered a deal like that on Keystone I, I might have bought their "common carrier" justification for stealing our land.)

But remember: when Poet comes a knocking with its offer for your land, the only reason they can afford to be there is government help.

GAO Report: Ethanol Has High Water Cost, Especially in South Dakota

I've written previously that, among other things, increasing corn ethanol production may drain water supplies and be harm water quality. The General Accounting Office has issued a new report that supports the idea that, even if ethanol is a good domestic alternative to foreign fossil fuel, we need to consider the other resources we'll pour into the ground to get it.

The report notes that South Dakota is part of a twelve-state region that produced 89% of America's corn in 2007 and 2008 and 95% of the corn ethanol in 2007. The states in USDA Region 7 (that's us, along with North Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas) rely heavily on irrigation to get corn to grow. In our neck of the woods, growing one bushel of corn requires 865 gallons of irrigated water. In the other big corn-producing states (the rest of the Midwest, from Minnesota and Iowa over to Michigan and Ohio), it rains enough that the same bushel of corn requires only 19 to 38 gallons of irrigation.

Given an average yield in 2008 of 153.8 bushels per acre, another section of grassland turned to corn grown with irrigation will consume another 88 million gallons of water. That's as much water as South Dakotans consume for domestic use every eleven days. And that's a single section turned to corn. Look bigger: South Dakota's ethanol refineries use 291 million bushels of corn each year. That corn took a staggering 252 billion gallons of water to grow, almost 90 years worth of South Dakota domestic water consumption.

Ninety years of domestic water supply, traded for one year of ethanol production. How long can we sustain that trade-off?

p.s.: U.S. Farm Service data suggest that between 2002 and 2007, 475,000 acres of grassland in North and South Dakota were newly plowed for crop production.

Poet Cuts Cellulosic Ethanol Production Costs 43%

Expect CE commercial competitiveness by 2011, says CEO Broin.

April was right: Jeff Broin's Poet Ethanol has achieved a cost breakthrough on cellulosic ethanol

POET announced today that cost reductions achieved over the past year of operating their cellulosic ethanol pilot plant have exceeded expectations in their drive to commercialize the process. Reductions in energy usage, enzyme costs, raw material requirements and capital expenses have reduced POET’s per gallon cost from $4.13 to $2.35 over the course of the past year, and the company’s goal is to be below $2 by commercial plant start-up ["On first anniversary of pilot plant start-up, POET announces cost reductions in cellulosic ethanol," press release, Poet, 2009.11.18].

Poet CEO Jeff Broin expects to get production costs down a commercially viable level below $2 a gallon by 2011, when it plans to open its 25-million-gallon/year cellulosic ethanol plant in Emmettsburg, Iowa (brought to you in part by $100 million dollars from Uncle Sam—you're welcome!).

Dr. Mark Stower, senior Poet sci-tech VP, explains it all:



Forget sending that federal money back; let's roast those corn cobs and start sending oil back to Saudi Arabia and Canada!

Feds, Lobbyists, Corporations Invade Classrooms; Conservatives Oddly Silent

Given some conservatives' vociferous efforts to keep President Obama from fomenting Marxist revolution in the classroom, I'm surprised I still have a job.

I'm also surprised that I haven't heard those same conservatives raise the red flag about some other intrusions on the sanctity of the classroom:

• South Dakota gubernatorial candidate sends out a press release trumpeting Constitution Day (that's tomorrow) as a celebration of "free enterprise and individual initiative"—words that appear nowhere in the Constitution, which created a stronger central government to solve the problems that the individual states under the flimsy Articles of Confederation could not. Munsterman fails to decry Constitution Day as a faux non-holiday enacted by the federal government in 2005 and mandating specific educational programs at all schools. This isn't just an optional speech from the President; this is required curriculum, demanded by Washington! Where's the outrage?
• I've heard some conservatives argue that ethanol is bad fiscal policy, bad food price policy, bad wildlife policy. I'm waiting to hear conservatives scream about the ethanol lobby's efforts to indoctrinate our kids in the classroom. The Renewable Fuels Association, Renewable Fuels Foundation, and National FFA are putting an ethanol-focused curriculum into our schools. They're even offering money to bring kids to Orlando, Florida, for further brainwashing. Oh, our poor kids!
• And last I checked, our schools are still rife with corporatist propaganda, as Coke, Pepsi, et al. take advantage of our stingy funding of schools to insert their advertisements into gyms, hallways, classrooms, and school signs to subject captive audiences of impressionable youths to their marketing. I await the explanation of how President Obama's call to homework does more damage in the classroom than corporate America's call to consume.

If I hear even half the ruckus over any of these intrusions into our kids' education that I heard over President Obama's speech last week, I'll be happily flabbergasted.

Smithfield May Shutter John Morrell in Sioux Falls

The Sioux Falls John Morrell plant celebrated 100 years of chopping up pigs in its current location last May. Now, with the pork market declining, a Minneapolis commodities analyst says Morrell's owner Smithfield Foods could halt operations at its Sioux Falls and Sioux City plants. There's just too much pork being produced and not enough being eaten.

We'll do what we can about the demand side of that equation at the South Dakota Blogosphere Open House on July 25... but even if Hubba is really hungry, I don't think we'll single-handedly stave off a plant closing.

How bad is Smithfield's condition? The article an eager reader sends me notes that Smithfield reported its first yearly net loss since 1975 (–$190M, says Smithfield), due to higher grain-feed costs. Hmmm... anyone want to draw a connection to ethanol? (And remember: pork producers can't take advantage of ethanol byproducts as feed stock.)

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Should Smithfield decide it needs to close operations at Morrell's, might Sioux Falls workers follow the lead of their French brothers in labor? Some French car parts workers are threatening to blow up their old factory if they don't get better severance packages from Renault and Peugeot. Yikes!

More Eggs in the Basket Than Ethanol: Diversify!

T. Boone Pickens may be delaying his big wind farm, but the grid issues hindering his efforts tell me we should push more, not less, to diversify our energy portfolio.

A quick example of our previous bad planning: the federal government has given inordinate support to corn ethanol at the expense of other alternative energy sources that could bust our addiction to foreign oil (foreign oil: that includes TransCanada's tar sands oil). As the Environmental Working Group reports, in 2007, ethanol received 76% of all federal renewable energy tax credits ($3 billion out of $4B) and two-thirds of all federal renewable energy subsidies. Kick in the $2B in crop subsidies for corn, and you have a lot of federal eggs in one basket.

The Obama Administration still wants more ethanol subsidies, but it may take a more balanced approach to alternative energy. We can continue to debate the merits of ethanol as an energy source. But even if ethanol is a good energy solution, we should still make a greater effort to diversify our options for energy and for rural development. When wind and even carbon offer new revenue routes for South Dakota farmers, it makes no sense to pour the bulk of our cash into corn.

Wind Turbines Kill Goats with Noise?

Wind turbines and ethanol plants do make noise. But can that industrial noise kill goats? A farmer on the Penghu Archipelago off the western shore of Taiwain says that since the installation of eight wind turbines near his fields three years ago, 400 of his goats have died... of sleep deprivation. Taiwan's Council of Agriculture is investigating, and Taiwan Power is promising to compensate the farmer if their turbines are responsible for the farmer's losses.

Talk about unintended consequences! I'm all about wind and other alternative energy sources, but even we greenies need to be ready to acknowledge and solve the problems new technology may cause. And we also need to remind ourselves that instead of filling the planet with more noisy, stinky, and otherwise disruptive power plants, the greenest path, for us and our goats, may be simply to use less power.

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Update 13:10 CDT: Meanwhile, I hear from a neighbor of the Loomis, SD, ethanol plant that the company performed some bare minimum efforts to satisfy the county commission, like planting some 18-inch deciduous trees (meaning the leaves fall off, meaning they don't block sound for six months of the year) in a low ditch. No noise reduction whatsoever. Keep the earmuffs on your goats!

Valero to Local Farmers: What Contracts?

Say hello to our new corporate neighbor, Valero Energy Corporation. They just bought out bankrupt ethanol maker VeraSun.

"Investing in Excellence: Focused on the Future" toots their homepage slogan. Evidently that focus on the future doesn't recognize any excellence in the contracts VeraSun had with local farmers: San Antonio-based Valero says it won't honor the contracts VeraSun had with local farmers to pay prices negotiated when the corn market was a little better before VeraSun's bankruptcy. "We bought hardware, not contracts," says a Valero spokesperson. Clever devils.

Valero does at least promise to run the Aurora ethanol plant at full capacity. But farmers who thought they had their books balanced for the year will have the pleasure of renegotiating with a new batch of corporate sharks from Texas.

Forgive me if I don't send a basket of fruit to welcome Valero to town.

Run Cars on Trash and Corn: Rube Goldberg Lives!

Poet Ethanol, the City of Sioux Falls, and even the Environmental Protection Agency were down in the dump yesterday... for a ribbon-cutting to celebrate Poet's latest innovative source of power for its ethanol plants: methane from the Sioux Falls Landfill.

All that stuff we throw away generates methane, which usually just escapes into the atmosphere. Figuring we might as well use that methane for something, the City of Sioux Falls spent $4.3 million to capture that methane and pipe it ten miles down to Chancellor, where Poet will use the methane to provide up to 90% of the power needed to run its ethanol plant there (same plant where Poet has adopted pallet power!). The landfill-methane pipeline will cost the city $300K a year to operate... and in return, Poet will pay the city $1.8 million for the methane. Mayor Munson likes that:



(Hey, Madison neighbors: anyone want to go in with me on a bigger compost bin... and some pipe to run to Wentworth?)

The Environmental Protection Agency is a partner in this project (don't tell me the EPA never does anything good). Washington sent Swarupa Ganguli, Midwest coordinator for EPA's Landfill Methane Outreach Program, to congratulate Poet and the city. She noted that this project, one of only three such landfill–ethanol operations in the country, removes 27,000 cars' worth of greenhouse emissions from the atmosphere.



It's not quite Doc Brown's Mr. Fusion powering your car with trash, but it's a step in that direction. It feels a little Rube Goldberg—capture methane from trash, pipe it to run a factory that turns cattle feed into car fuel—but it shows that if we take a little creativity, a little engineering, and a lot of trash, we can produce our own power.