Perpetual montion does not work any better in economics than it does in technology

In David Roberts' post on the carbon policy dilemma, David defines an "efficient" carbon policy as follows:

First, in a given sector, you set up a system that transfers capital directly from those over-emitting to those reducing emissions, in an agnostic fashion -- that is, preferencing no particular set of technologies or practices. A ton of CO2 ought to be worth the same no matter how it is emitted or prevented, and there should be no net loss of capital in the sector (as there would be if the feds took the revenue and spent it on other things). Second, you remove existing regulatory barriers to that capital flow. As long as capital continues flowing from emitters to savers, you've got a perpetual economic motion machine.

My guess is the use of a perpetual motion machine as a metaphor was a message from David's subconscious, because it is impossible to set up a mechanism where the transfer "to" is as efficient and automatic as the transfer "from."

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Time bashes grain ethanol

This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.

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All that glitters is not gold. And all that grows is not green.

That is the belated realization about grain ethanol -- in fact, about any ethanol whose feedstock is grown on cropland. Joe Romm has done a good job posting on this issue, including his report on the recent studies featured in Science magazine. I'd like to weigh in with a few additional points.

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Corn hits a new record — $6 a bushel

At the end of February, I blogged on a Fortune article that had the subhead "The ethanol boom is running out of gas as corn prices spike." That article noted:

Spurred by an ethanol plant construction binge, corn prices have gone stratospheric, soaring from below $2 a bushel in 2006 to over $5.25 a bushel today. As a result, it's become difficult for ethanol plants to make a healthy profit, even with oil at $100 a barrel.

Just six weeks later, we have an AP article with the subhead "Corn Prices Jump to Record $6 a Bushel, Driving Up Costs for Food, Alternative Energy."

And it gets better worse:

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Industrial agrofuels: enemy of the entire planet

Apologies for the terrible photo, but it was pouring (and snowing) when I took it. That's Duff Badgley again, the dirty hippie, protesting at a Safeway store. You can see the marquee advertising the price of B-5 (5 percent) biodiesel at $4.20 a gallon.

Biofuel proponents are not going to like having their fuel compared to coal, but think about it. Most of the CO2 in the United States comes from liquid fossil fuels. Replace them with today's biofuels, and you would have an unmitigated ecological disaster of planet-killing proportions. In other words, the more we use, the worse it gets.

Removing mountaintops and dumping the tailings in mountain streams is beyond bad, but biofuels have already razed more ecosystems than all the coal mines in history, and coal has never contributed to food shortages. So, which sign is more appropriate? The icing on the cake, of course, is the new science pointing out that biofuels are also worse for global warming.

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