3 ms·

Who ever thought the idea of biofuel was a good one? Is it just as much a blatant jobs program as it seems?

by throwaway27448 3mo ago

pfdietz 3mo ago
It's the result of politics, and that's not always pretty.
- throwaway27448 3mo ago
  What isn't the result of politics? This is a bad explanation—how is there so little will to act in rational self interest?
  - pfdietz 3mo ago
    Everyone, or at least almost everyone, acts according to personal interests. There's a whole branch of political science, Public Choice Theory, that deals with this. Where did you get this idea that altruism was common? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice
    - lazyasciiart 3mo ago
      How did you get the idea they think anyone is being altruistic? Usually the complaint that people won’t vote in rational self interest is suggesting that people are voting based on irrational evaluations of their self interest: for the benefit of their unlikely future selves.
      - pfdietz 3mo ago
        Public choice theory explains why irrational collective results obtain from individual rational behavior. To get rational collective results requires that people act altruistically, favoring the collective over themselves.
        lazyasciiart 3mo ago
        And they are asking why it is so hard to get rational collective results, aka in your wording why is it so hard to get people to act altruistically. So the answer to your question “why do you think altruism is common* is still “what are you talking about”.
        pfdietz 3mo ago
        Altruism isn't common because we're created by evolution, and nothing is created by evolution without a selfish (for the genes) payoff. Supposed altruistic behavior in evolved creatures always has a selfish alterior motive (group selection, tit-for-tat payoff, for example).
        lazyasciiart 3mo ago
        So the answer to your question "why do you think altruism is common" is still what are you talking about?
    - stymaar 3mo ago
      Public Choice theory is "a whole branch of political science" the same way "historic materialism" is though, with Buchanan instead of Marx, as it was created with the same kind of ideological motivations, with “state bad” instead of “capitalism bad” as the alpha and omega of the discipline. Interestingly enough, both shared the same contempt of democracy.
mrguyorama 3mo ago
While Bush Jr was definitely doing it to give yet another handout to corn growers, it solved a real problem. After we phased out TetraEthyl Lead from gas, we still needed an octane booster, because for gas to be cheap, it uses low octane components. So we used something called MTBE. The problem is that your average corner gas store has terrible infrastructure, and their gas tank leaks a lot. MTBE kept getting into water sources and hurting people. Ethanol is a good octane booster, and it doesn't poison anyone or the environment. It also slightly reduced dependence on foreign oil at a time when that was still an issue. So it's wasteful, not at all "Green", and inefficient, but do we have a replacement octane booster that wont poison people? It's not at all a jobs program. Corn growing is extremely mechanized. It's done entirely by megacorp megafarms. They are very wealthy companies owned by very wealthy people who continue to vote for republicans exclusively for lower taxes on wealthy people. They don't do it for better policy, as Trump alone has cost that industry over $30 billion in lost sales during his two terms, from poorly run trade wars.
- akiselev 3mo ago
  > So it's wasteful, not at all "Green", and inefficient, but do we have a replacement octane booster that wont poison people? I'm not sure it's all that wasteful. The waste product from biofuel production is distillers grains [1] which are just fed back to animals afterward for the protein, fiber, and fat content. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillers_grains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillers_grains
  - stymaar 3mo ago
    It's wasteful in the sense that we are exploiting lots of land for the limited value it brings.
    - akiselev 3mo ago
      The vast majority is grown on marginal land, just above pasture. They can't grow better crops without massive works of engineering and tons more fertilizer and energy use. The alternative is to just use slightly less of that land, because the animals are going to have to replace that feed from somewhere. Distillers grains are valuable because the fat and protein are used for finishing cattle for human consumption in feedlots so the sugars are either going to the cows or the biofuels. The "limited value" isn't so limited when we're talking about an additive to gasoline. The first thing we tried polluted the entire world with a background level of lead!
stymaar 3mo ago
> is it just as much a blatant jobs program as it seems? It's not a “job program” per se (these crops require basically no human work to do nowadays) but it's indeed a subvention program for farmers (and more importantly, land owners).

Who ever thought the idea of biofuel was a good one? Is it just as much a blatant jobs program as it seems?

pfdietz 3mo ago

It's the result of politics, and that's not always pretty.

throwaway27448 3mo ago
What isn't the result of politics? This is a bad explanation—how is there so little will to act in rational self interest?
- pfdietz 3mo ago
  Everyone, or at least almost everyone, acts according to personal interests. There's a whole branch of political science, Public Choice Theory, that deals with this. Where did you get this idea that altruism was common? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice
  - lazyasciiart 3mo ago
    How did you get the idea they think anyone is being altruistic? Usually the complaint that people won’t vote in rational self interest is suggesting that people are voting based on irrational evaluations of their self interest: for the benefit of their unlikely future selves.
    - pfdietz 3mo ago
      Public choice theory explains why irrational collective results obtain from individual rational behavior. To get rational collective results requires that people act altruistically, favoring the collective over themselves.
      - lazyasciiart 3mo ago
        And they are asking why it is so hard to get rational collective results, aka in your wording why is it so hard to get people to act altruistically. So the answer to your question “why do you think altruism is common* is still “what are you talking about”.
        pfdietz 3mo ago
        Altruism isn't common because we're created by evolution, and nothing is created by evolution without a selfish (for the genes) payoff. Supposed altruistic behavior in evolved creatures always has a selfish alterior motive (group selection, tit-for-tat payoff, for example).
        lazyasciiart 3mo ago
        So the answer to your question "why do you think altruism is common" is still what are you talking about?
  - stymaar 3mo ago
    Public Choice theory is "a whole branch of political science" the same way "historic materialism" is though, with Buchanan instead of Marx, as it was created with the same kind of ideological motivations, with “state bad” instead of “capitalism bad” as the alpha and omega of the discipline. Interestingly enough, both shared the same contempt of democracy.

mrguyorama 3mo ago

While Bush Jr was definitely doing it to give yet another handout to corn growers, it solved a real problem. After we phased out TetraEthyl Lead from gas, we still needed an octane booster, because for gas to be cheap, it uses low octane components. So we used something called MTBE. The problem is that your average corner gas store has terrible infrastructure, and their gas tank leaks a lot. MTBE kept getting into water sources and hurting people. Ethanol is a good octane booster, and it doesn't poison anyone or the environment. It also slightly reduced dependence on foreign oil at a time when that was still an issue. So it's wasteful, not at all "Green", and inefficient, but do we have a replacement octane booster that wont poison people? It's not at all a jobs program. Corn growing is extremely mechanized. It's done entirely by megacorp megafarms. They are very wealthy companies owned by very wealthy people who continue to vote for republicans exclusively for lower taxes on wealthy people. They don't do it for better policy, as Trump alone has cost that industry over $30 billion in lost sales during his two terms, from poorly run trade wars.

akiselev 3mo ago
> So it's wasteful, not at all "Green", and inefficient, but do we have a replacement octane booster that wont poison people? I'm not sure it's all that wasteful. The waste product from biofuel production is distillers grains [1] which are just fed back to animals afterward for the protein, fiber, and fat content. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillers_grains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillers_grains
- stymaar 3mo ago
  It's wasteful in the sense that we are exploiting lots of land for the limited value it brings.
  - akiselev 3mo ago
    The vast majority is grown on marginal land, just above pasture. They can't grow better crops without massive works of engineering and tons more fertilizer and energy use. The alternative is to just use slightly less of that land, because the animals are going to have to replace that feed from somewhere. Distillers grains are valuable because the fat and protein are used for finishing cattle for human consumption in feedlots so the sugars are either going to the cows or the biofuels. The "limited value" isn't so limited when we're talking about an additive to gasoline. The first thing we tried polluted the entire world with a background level of lead!

stymaar 3mo ago

> is it just as much a blatant jobs program as it seems? It's not a “job program” per se (these crops require basically no human work to do nowadays) but it's indeed a subvention program for farmers (and more importantly, land owners).