Molly Ivins says "the $150 million (a truly pitiful amount by
Washington standards) Bush promised would go to making biofuels more
competitive is $50 million less than what was in last year's budget
for that purpose."
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0207-31.htm
Is that right? They spent $200 million? On what? I do seem to recall
the NBB getting a few million to spend on "education". I'll bet the
Biofuel list did a lot better on zilch.
Anyway, if Ivins is right that's good business - it got much more
publicity than last year and cost $50 million less, just by pressing
a few jingo buttons. I wonder how many ("enough"?) of the Americans
who got the message about cutting US dependence on Middle East oil
didn't register the rapidly following message that he didn't really
mean it.
Best
Keith
>Keith Addison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>"Relatively modest subsidies for 'clean coal,' nuclear, ethanol,
>solar, and wind", Grist called the proposals. There's nothing there
>that the usual suspects aren't already investing in. Shell, eg,
>invests in biomass energy plantations, offshore wind, PVs, and
>indeed, ethanol from cellulose: "08 January 2006 -Volkswagen, Shell
>and Iogen to Study Feasibility of Producing Cellulose Ethanol in
>Germany." Ethanol from cellulose is a high-tech industrial process,
>not anything a farming community could do for itself.
>
>Shell etc don't invest in renewable energy that focuses on
>decentralised supply and local production. Shell does put funding
>into projects like improved cookstoves for 3rd World countries and so
>on, but that's greenwash, not investment.
>
>Bush's "call to reduce US oil dependence could help curb global
>warming but does not herald conversion to a UN-led plan to slow
>climate change, experts say", Reuters says.
>
>Bush says nothing about reducing energy use, which is mostly waste anyway.
>
>"A sustainable energy future requires great reductions in energy use,
>great improvements in energy efficiency, and decentralisation of
>supply to the local-economy level, along with the use of all
>ready-to-use renewable energy technologies in combination as local
>circumstances require." - Journey to Forever
>
>Bush says nothing about efficiency: "More efficient use is already
>America's biggest energy source -- not oil, gas, coal, or nuclear
>power." Amory Lovins (search "Negawatts" in list archives).
>
>Gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles - anything like the 80mpg PNGV
>diesel-electric hybrids that had billions spent on them but Bush
>shelved them in favour of the "Freedom Car"?
>
>Just more handouts for the good ol' boys at everyone else's expense.
>More greenwash this time, is all.
>
>"Bush proposed new tax credits and an "Advanced Energy Initiative --
>a 22-percent increase in clean-energy research" -- laudable ideas if
>not for the fact that the same promises have turned into giveaways
>for the energy industry throughout his presidency. This, a day after
>Exxon announced that it had turned an all-time record profit in 2005."
>http://www.alternet.org/story/31639
>Dead Man Talking
>By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted February 1, 2006.
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