…To Our New Renewable Fuel Source: Coal!

How can this be? You ask. Any idiot knows that coal is formed from organic matter compressed and heated by mass and time. And by any measure, a fuel source that takes three-hundred-million years to renew hardly fits the term Renewable.

Well think again. Apparently, we are not dealing with just any idiot here. Or even one idiot. Which reminds me of that old IT saying: “Strive to idiot-proof your software knowing the real problem is they are building bigger and better idiots every day.”

But I digress. We have the coal industry aligned with six congress-people wanting to formalize coal as a renewable resource. Also on board is the National Chicken Council (seriously), National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and the Grocery Manufacturers Association. All of whom claim coal is a renewable fuel source. Has avarice finally corrupted our incorruptible politicians? Impossible, I know. So what could be motivating these erstwhile leaders? Let’s look at the logic. It makes my finger tingle just to write that. I must confess that sometimes I only type with one finger. Guess which one.

Okay, so here are their thoughts…

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zzzzzzzz

Just kidding.

Seriously folks, this is their logic. Even though the word logic borders on being a malapropism in that sentence.

1. We in the US have something called the Renewable Fuel Standard.
2. It was put in place to limit our use of both foreign oil and other non-renewable fuel sources, like natural gas and, ah, C-O-A-L.
3. The standard mandates the use of 13.2 billion gallons of alternative fuels in 2012.
4. Ethanol is one kind of alterative fuel; sun and winds are other types of renewable fuel. (Oddly enough, some energy sources are not measured in gallons. Do I detect a bias in legislative efforts? Nah–couldn’t be.)
5. Ethanol can be considered a renewable fuel when it is made from plants, like corn or switchgrass, or algae because the feedstock can quickly be renewed by sowing more plants. Renewal in a year or less is a workable definition for a Renewable energy source.
6. BUT! According to a gang of six in Congress and certain industry groups, if ethanol is the result of a production process–that means the feedstock is renewable. So according to the gang, the time and course for renewal of the feedstock is unimportant to the term Renewable (Well, I never heard it before, but it sounds uncommon nonsense).

Mom, is that common sense cooking in the furnace? Yum!

7. Which means: Since coal and natural gas can be turned into ethanol, the gang says coal and natural gas fit into the Renewable Fuel Standard because coal and natural gas can produce ethanol.
8. That’s like saying graft in politics is good because it produces laws.

I am having such a good time with this one. Wait, there’s more, uh, logic.

9. Over ten years the Renewable Fuel Standard rises to 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels a year. Again, don’t ask me why they based it on gallons and not Joules…
10. More than 1/3 of the corn crop in this country is used for ethanol and not food–a complaint fielded against ethanol by environmentalists for years.
11. To their rescue sallies our new-found-gang-of-environmentalists mumbling that we need many other sources of feedstock besides corn. After all, (ready?) food prices will rise as a result of using corn for fuel.
12. Conclusion: Let’s use coal to make ethanol instead of corn. That will free up corn for human consumption (…We’re painting the roses red…) while ignoring the whole point of the legislation: developing Renewables. Curiouser and curiouser.

Can you see the advertisements?

Alice and The March Hair are in the food store. The March Hair stares at the local newspaper. He speaks:

Alice, they’re using our food to make fuel. That must be why food prices have gone up so much recently.

Alice grabs a fat nugget of anthracite from the organic coal shelf and places it in the shopping basket. A proud mother would pale.

Yup, that’s right.

The March Hair nods, glorying in the compressed lump of feedstock that took 300,000,000 years to produce.

Truth is I had been worried about global warming costing too much. Thank goodness, we have a renewable source of ethanol like coal. I just love the way anthracite glows. Don’t you?

Zoom in to Alice’s benevolent smile.

We need renewables to slow the changing climate. But remember, global warming isn’t a problem for us.

The March Hair scratches his ear.

But Alice, if we are taking food off the table and putting it into our gas tanks to slow the changing climate, doesn’t that make global warming the cause of our increase in food costs?

             CUT!!!

Developing an array of Renewable energy sources is important.

Saying the end result of ethanol makes a feedstock renewable is just plain embarrassing. Below is a list of the bill’s co-sponsors, naming coal a renewable resource. Note this glowing example of non-partisan politics.

• Rep. Gene Green, D-TX
• Rep. Joe Pitts, R-PA
• Rep. Jim Costa, D-CA
• Rep. David McKinley, R-W.VA
• Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, D-TX
• Rep. Peter Olson, R-TX

Do you think they are embarrassed?

Lastly, consider how much energy it takes to mine the coal, transport the coal, and then process the coal into ethanol. Heck, soon some might say, “We’d be better off just burning the coal. Forget the ethanol.”

You read it here first.