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The author of this piece has an obvious bias (Geoff Cooper is the president and CEO of Renewable Fuels Association), but does he also have a valid point?
Let's prioritize American renewable fuels over foreign oil and minerals:
After suffering through more than a year of quarantines, stay-at-home orders, and travel lockdowns, millions of Americans have eagerly returned to the nation's highways this summer for long-awaited vacations and road trips. As a result, gasoline demand has surged to record highs and pump prices are at levels not seen since 2014.
In recent weeks, regular-grade gas prices averaged $3.17 per gallon, up almost 50 percent from the same time last year. With higher fuel prices threatening to undermine the nation's ongoing economic recovery, it's easy to see why the Biden administration is looking for ways to ease America's pain at the pump.
[...] Before the Biden administration looks to OPEC+ countries or mineral-rich nations like Afghanistan, China and Bolivia for help, it has an opportunity to turn to America's heartland for a homegrown solution. Renewable fuels like ethanol have a 40-year proven track record of success in helping to lower prices at the pump while simultaneously reducing carbon emissions, supporting good-paying clean energy jobs and curtailing crude oil imports.
Four decades' worth of investment and innovation by ethanol producers has resulted in real breakthroughs in lower-carbon transportation fuels. Today's corn-based ethanol reduces carbon emissions by 52 percent when compared directly to gasoline, according to a recent study from the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. Another study by scientists from Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Tufts University similarly shows corn ethanol achieves an average carbon reduction of 46 percent compared to gasoline, with some ethanol in the market today achieving a 61 percent carbon reduction.
[...] Before we turn to the Persian Gulf for answers to our nation's energy and climate challenges, let's give the American heartland a shot. The solution to high pump prices and decarbonization lies in the farm fields of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and other Midwest states — not in the oil fields of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other Middle East nations.
Journal Reference:
Uisung Lee, Hoyoung Kwon, May Wu, et al. Retrospective analysis of the U.S. corn ethanol industry for 2005–2019: implications for greenhouse gas emission reductions [open], Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining (DOI: 10.1002/bbb.2225)
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Tuesday August 24 2021, @06:56PM (8 children)
Our local gas stations continue to run out of gas. I asked the local attendant what was going on.
The attendant informed me that there is a shortage of truck drivers, that is so bad, that there are simply not enough drivers to deliver gas.
Hire more drivers? More money. Not enough gas at stations? Higher prices.
I asked him why he thought we didn't have enough drivers. He told me, "They're all sitting on their asses at home receiving stimulus checks."
Take if for what its worth....
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday August 24 2021, @07:01PM (2 children)
Middle/Tennessee/USA - The local Speedway gas station chain has this issue as well. To me "raise your prices to reduce demand" seems like a pretty obvious solution, but they haven't done that. They prefer to hang out of service flags on the pumps instead. My guess is this is because the higher price on the sign would hurt the in-store Food/Beverage/Nicotine sales where they make profit.
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Wednesday August 25 2021, @04:30AM (1 child)
if the stations raised prices people would complain loudly enough to their congress critters that they might actually do something to save their jobs.
Remember how the last time gas proces went this high? I think it was after Katrina. Gas in the San Fransico Bay Area hit US$4.50/gl and suddenly congress was talking about committees to investigate the prices.
Even if it was all just for show it makes people start thinking about all sorts of alternatives. The last thing the oil companies want is for the pot to be stirred.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday August 25 2021, @02:03PM
<opinion>A large portion of congress, but probably not a full majority, wants to see gasoline significantly more expensive to drive purchases of EVs and fuel efficient vehicles.
Like 'cash for clunkers' this hurts people with low incomes. That should be blatantly obvious, but for some reason it gets ignored. I assume that is ignorance and not malice.</opinion>
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Tuesday August 24 2021, @07:24PM (1 child)
There's probably some lack of incentive to work due to government payouts but it's not the whole picture. A lot of people who stopped driving during Covid aren't coming back no matter what. Truckers have been retiring faster than new truckers have been training for a while now. A lot of those truckers are Boomers, so it's a large cohort. There are simply not that many in later generations to replace the old truckers. Some of this is cultural. The "call of the open road" doesn't appeal to people like it used to. Younger people are not even getting their driver's licenses as much as they used to, let alone CDLs. Also, a lot of people think it's going to be automated so who wants to start a career only to get replaced by AI in 10 years?
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 25 2021, @12:37AM
> start a career only to get replaced by AI in 10 years
OK so not perky youtube
postercreator?(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 24 2021, @07:43PM (2 children)
Which isn't a lot. [npr.org]
The industry, namely the very large trucking firms, has been crying for many years about the "trucker shortage," but the issue isn't due to stimulus checks, but the fact that they treat entry level truck drivers like shit:
I'd be interested to hear what our own current or former truck driver experts think. Their problems are the same as the service industry, particularly the restaurant industry, where they're finding that people are wanting to be treated at least a little better than shit. The trucking industry's solution isn't to improve the working conditions, but to lobby Congress to drop the minimum age for cross-state truckers from 21 to 18.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday August 25 2021, @02:09PM (1 child)
(Heavy truck mechanic a touch more than two decades ago.)
There is another factor. Trucking is digesting a major disruptor, mandatory electronic logbooks. For many drivers this is a good thing; It reduces the administrivia of the job and forces dispatchers to accountability for their requests. Some drivers see it as a very bad thing. It wasn't uncommon to fudge a logbook to increase earning potential. That money is gone now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 25 2021, @08:01PM
Paying by the mile, on its face, sounds like a good idea until you take into account traffic jams and loading/unloading times. It is a shame that the industry won't make some reasonable changes, like pay by the hour or lump sum for the loading/unloading, or just pay by the hour regardless. Or, god forbid, put them on salary.
Maybe something a bit bigger needs to change, like increase long haul transport by freight rail, then have most of your truckers being relatively local so that they can drive the "last mile" and be in their own beds each night. But that probably would never happen unless the trucking companies had major stakes in the freight rail business. And I don't see the current situation changing much if their solution is to bring in teenage drivers (read: CHEAP) and invest in self-driving trucking.