GM’s FYI blog has a post up profiling Lori Wingerter. She looks like a nice enough person, and what I’m about to say has no bearing on what I think of her as a human being or a professional.
But have you read this stuff? It’s full of half-truths, omissions, disingenuous statements, and out-and-out lies. Here are a few examples.
They make little mention of where hydrogen or ethanol come from, instead focusing on how they’ll “replace” fossil fuels. Hydrogen isn’t an energy source, it’s an energy storage medium. It’s a fancy battery, and depending on the advancements in battery technology, a pretty mediocre one. And where do we get the power to generate it? Sure, we could use solar or wind or tidal or wave. But the cheapest power, and the industries with the largest lobbying budget, are coal and nuclear, which is where the hydrogen. Of course, that’s if we use electrolysis to crack water. The easiest way to get hydrogen now is by processing natural gas. So there’s another status quo industry who will benefit immensely from the hydrogen economy.
And what of ethanol? Well, there’s not mention of the fact that, since we get ethanol from corn, we’re using immense amounts of fossil fuels to grow it and fertilize it and also to process it. Ethanol isn’t carbon neutral if you use coal power to run the processing plants. And it’s only truly green if you farm the corn or switchgrass or hemp organically. And if there’s anything big agribusiness doesn’t do, it’s organic farming on a large scale. And that’s who’ll profit if we mandate ethanol. Them and GM.
Also, there’s no way to retrofit a car to run E85. That means people need to buy brand new cars! From who? GM of course. Because they’ve invested millions telling people that the Tahoe isn’t a gigantic SUV, it’s an earth friendly ecomobile because it runs on E85. If you can find it.
Finally, there’s no talk of energy conservation. This is the cheapest and easiest way to make more energy available. If our population grows by 20%, but we cut individual energy usage by 20%, we can support more people using the same amount of generating capacity. Is there mention of this anywhere on there? Of course not. Efficiency isn’t nearly as profitable as pie-in-the-sky technologies that make the corporation look good. Turn down the thermostat? Drive less? Use different light bulbs? Put on a sweater? Not in America, you commie pinko treehugger.
Essentially, this is a big GM ad campaign. Kids will learn about hydrogen and ethanol and will run home and tell mommy and daddy who will go out and buy a GM car because it runs on corn and think they’re ’saving the environment’, but won’t be able to find an ethanol fueling station and will still get 20 miles per gallon. But they’ll have their big-block, pushrod, 300 horsepower V8. Just like every good American.
To their credit, GM has posted my questions on their blog. I can’t think of many other corporations that would allow dissenting voices to use their soapbox. Of course, they’ve deleted my trackback to the article.
