The Entrepreneur

Sometimes little things lead you to the most interesting discoveries. A week or so ago I got a new Twitter follower in the shape of Amelia Sharman, a student at the London School of Economics. LSE is of course the stamping ground of BH favourite, Bob Ward, and I was therefore interested enough to go and take a look, and not entirely surprised to find out that Sharman works at the Grantham Institute and has an interest in sceptics.

But it wasn't this that caught my eye.

Biofuels have been attracting a minor surge of media interest recently, after Friends of the Earth published a report claiming that they probably produce more greenhouse gases than they save. Maybe it was this that caused my attention to alight on one of Sharman's papers - the one entitled "Evidence based policy or policy-based evidence gathering? Biofuels, the EU and the 10% target".

Sharman and Holmes 2010 (as the paper is more snappily known) is not publicly available (paywalled here) to the best of my knowledge, but Amelia Sharman was good enough to send me a copy, and I have to say it's pretty amazing stuff.

The paper examines the EU's mandatory 10% target for biofuel use and in particular the way in which scientific advice impinged upon the decision to introduce it. It's a murky tale, which Sharman has uncovered by means of interviewing key players in the policy machinery.

In 2009, when the target was introduced, it was far from clear that biofuels were a feasible approach to greenhouse gas reduction. But the 10% target was introduced nevertheless. As one of the interviewees explained:

The idea is that normally you should not propose legislation until you’ve got the evidence to justify it. But there, you had the prime ministers and heads of state signing up to a target that no-one had done any impact assessment at all . . . they got them to sign up to these targets, 20% renewables and 10% biofuels, and then only later in the year did they do the impact assessment. And basically they said they didn’t need to [properly] impact-assess the 10% because it had already been approved by the heads of state! . . .”

As Sharman and Holmes pithily comment:

The fact that the EC was endorsing a target without having seen a full impact assessment provides the first indication that motivations other than scientific evidence related to environmental sustainability and GHG emissions reductions played a part in the policy
decision to establish the 10% target.

There were several forces acting upon the main players in the policy process. It was mooted at one point that energy security should be a factor in the decision, but in fact since the EU was going to have to import crops to meet the 10% target, it was clear that this was a spurious consideration. Grubbier and less worthy goals - payoffs to various vested interests - appear to have been much more important. Specifically, those involved in the policy process were keen to push investment into biofuels businesses, and to provide a substantial sop to EU sugar beet producers who were unhappy about having to compete in world markets on price. As another interviewee explained:

There was a huge fight with the European farm lobby. The commission...was desperate to find some candies they could give to the farm lobby. Particularly they were desperate to find a way out, to all the sugar beet producers that was clear there was no future for them once they have to compete on selling sugar. And then the brilliant idea was, oh we can use this sugar for ethanol and in general we can create this subsidised market for farmers and it can allow us  basically to hide within the energy policy some of these subsidies that are becoming so unpopular in the agriculture policy. That’s been the initial main driver . . .”

Against this apparently slightly frenzied background, policymakers were confronted with conflicting scientific evidence on the viability of biofuels. Key in this debate was a paper by Searchinger et al (2008), which suggested that biofuels actually created more greenhouse gases than they saved, once indirect land-use changes were taken into account.

(As an aside you may have noticed at the start of this article I referred to a more recent Friends of the Earth article, which came to the same conclusion. The supporting result aside, it's interesting to speculate whether the Searchinger paper was published before or after Friends of the Earth stopped campaigning to have a biofuels obligation introduced in the UK.)

But to return to the main thread of this story, the Searchinger paper appears to have been a major bone of contention and the representatives of the biofuels industry seemed to have engaged in some pretty personal attacks on the paper's author in order to help get their policy put in place. However, as well as the Searchinger paper there was also a growing body of scientific evidence that was very critical of biofuels. In addition, although Sharman and Holmes do not mention it, one can hardly forget the words of the UN's special rapporteur on food, who in 2007 described biofuels as "a crime against humanity". The decision to go ahead and introduce the 10% target against this background therefore seems inexplicable.

The policy entrepreneur

So the vested interests were pushing one way and the scientific evidence the other. How was it that the biofuels target ended up finding its way into law? For this we have to thank a mysterious character, who Sharman calls "the policy entrepreneur" (I gather that Sharman and Holmes know who this is, but research ethics quite properly prevent his/her identity being made public).

Almost all interview participants pointed to an individual actor within the EC who had a strong influence on this policy decision but who stirred up a considerable degree of controversy with
other actors in the policy network in the process. This leads to two questions: how could an individual within the EC have such a high degree of influence over the policy process, and why did the increasing amount of scientific data questioning the ability of biofuels production to reduce GHG emissions not have more traction in the policy decision?

How indeed? Why indeed?

Sharman explains that the policy entrepreneur was widely seen by the other participants in the policymaking process as being a champion of the transport and biofuels industries and was said to be "dogmatic" in support of the target. The motivation of this single individual, in combination with the political pressure to provide support to the various vested interests involved in the biofuels industry, was a powerful force in bringing the biofuels target onto the statute books.

However, there was still the tricky problem of the weight of scientific evidence against the proposed policy, but this appears to have been no problem to the Entrepreneur. According to the insiders interviewed by Sharman and Holmes:

...internal EC documentation...which supported the decision to proceed with a 10% target was accorded a high degree of influence in the final policy outcome. However, evidence of a more critical bent...did not have the same sway.

Other interviewees were more specific about what had been done:

Some interviewees also indicated that the policy entrepreneur acted as an information gatekeeper, reducing the level of scientific controversy apparent to policy-makers by ensuring that only data which supported the desired end-point was able to influence the final decision-making process. The ability of the policy entrepreneur to command the scientific literature and argue for the benefits of the 10% target both within and outside the EC was identified as a critical factor. This indicates that it was not so much an absence of evidence but an adherence to evidence that was able to tell the desired story. However, none of this critique is intended to suggest that the policy entrepreneur acted in a deliberately malicious or underhand manner. An interviewee suggested that the entrepreneur “. . . probably still had the best intentions (even though he was completely wrong) . . .” (NGO) and the policy entrepreneur themself appeared to see the policy as an arbitrary victim of a values controversy–biofuels
being targeted as the environmental ‘baddie of the day’.

 When you think of the description of biofuels as a "crime against humanity", I wonder if a bit more cynicism about the "good intentions" of the Entrepreneur would be in order.

As I suggested above, his identity is not public. But I'm sure there is no harm in us speculating.

Update on Feb 20, 2012 by Bishop Hill

Ian Wishart picks up on the story here.

Comments

[Richard Drake]

One other thought about Matt Ridley, which is to contrast him with the rational destroyer or "Entrepreneur" of the blog post. He finishes his vital December article on bio-energy thus:

A declaration of interest. As a landowner I benefit from the recent increases in prices of wheat and wood caused by bioenergy. Recently I turned down a proposal to establish an anaerobic digester on my farm, even though it would have guaranteed a good income. So the views expressed here are against my financial interest.

Does that make him irrational - the irrational optimist indeed? No, I go back on myself. This is rational and it is good. The Entrepreneur produces destruction even for himself in the end.

[bill]

JOhn Shade 11.02: "false premise that rising CO2 levels were driving climate change was seized upon because of what would follow from it"

Interestingly enough the unspeakable David Appell is disporting himself at Climate Etc, now arguing that 'its not just CO2 y'know...' Maybe I'm misunderstanding what he's saying, or maybe the deckchairs are being shifted on the Titanic.

[Gareth]

Putting a fox in charge of the chicken coup is never a good idea. Confirmation bias makes institutions willfully blind to these conflicts of interest and the capturing of procedures for personal crusades.

[Harry]

CAROLINE SPELMAN

http://order-order.com/2010/05/14/farm-gate-spelmans-shady-lobbying-links/

[Richard Tol]

Such things are common practice in Brussels.

The Policy Entrepreneur is an insider, probably a senior eurocrat, but perhaps not a top one (as people would not have talked as freely) and most likely not a commissioner (as people would have used different language).

[Green Sand]

Harry Feb 20, 2012 at 12:22 PM

Thanks Harry, that makes very interesting reading!

[J. Branders]

Friends of the Earth in February 2000:

The potential for biofuels, particularly in Britain, is not as promising as some other alternative fuels. Though studies of their overall environmental impact are inconclusive, the production of vast amounts of crops for vehicle fuel alone could be extremely damaging and impractical.

Feb 2000: "Biofuels could be extremely damaging"
Nov 2004: "The Government should introduce a Biofuels Obligation"
Jun 2011: "Please tell your MP that biofuels are a false solution."

Flip-flop-flip

[Hector M.]

The EU policy fails properly to distinguish between different biofuels. Using corn for ethanol, or oilseeds for biodiesel, are actually ways to increase emissions in net terms, and their cost is generally not competitive. Instead, using lignocellulosic perennial grasses or bushes to make solid fuels, usable to power electricity plants or to heat dwellings, actually reduces emissions and is much more economical and competitive. The same goes for the Brazilian use of sugarcane residues (or the whole sugarcane in areas where using them for sugar is not competitive). All these second or third generation biofuels provide also other environmental services such as providing permanent green cover in otherwise not usable land. On the other extreme you have the most venerable forms of biofuel, namely fuelwood and charcoal, that our ancestors used for millennia in order to cook their meals or heat their homes: no environmental enthusiast would applaud those (in fact, Brazil and several other countries sharing the Amazonian basin are now rapidly introducing bottled or piped natural gas to keep people out of fuelwood and charcoal, which provides an interesting case study of using fossil fuels to reduce emissions and deforestation.

[John Shade]

A chap at Cambridge is studying all this for his PhD in geography there, and last year delivered a paper which uses this new, for me, word-pairing of policy and entrepreneur:

http://www.geog.cam.ac.uk/people/palmer/

'Policy entrepreneurs, persuasion and the politics of expertise: The case of biofuels and indirect land use change in the EU.' Royal Geographical Society Annual International Conference, London, September 2011

[cosmic]

This is what can be expected when a big, inflexible government bureaucracy takes up an idea and sets up to implement it with quotas and targets. Once it's started it can't stop and the targets have little to do with the effectiveness as measured by the original goal. We saw much the same sort of thing with Soviet Five Year Plans.

Something we see increasingly is big companies lobbying government to implement legislation, nominally for safety or environmental reasons, which pushes a product onto people which they would otherwise choose not to buy, e.g. compact fluorescent light bulbs. Effectively, such lobby groups become part of the government.

[The EUSSR]

A bit like the "energy saving" light bulb then. The only loser was the consumer of the incandescent lightbulb.

[John Shade]

Is the term 'political entrepreneur' a synonym?
Here is a piece by someone who seems to prefer the 'market entrepreneur':

'Biofuel mandates in the U.S. suffer from a high-octane blend of politics and special interest agendas that have corrupted physical science, economic analysis, and the policy prescriptions alike. This is the predictable outcome when process and policy are de-linked from basic economics and marketplace realities. Unintended consequences and distortions always result.

Historian, professor and author Burton Folsom in his book, The Myth of the Robber Barons, makes an important distinction between “market entrepreneurs” and “political entrepreneurs.” Market entrepreneurs compete by utilizing their own funds, resources and private investment in an effort to create and market a superior product. Political entrepreneurs, on the other hand, fund their business models off of government subsidies, federal protections and vote buying.

This is a useful distinction to keep in mind when evaluating the perverse outcomes of the subsidized U.S. ethanol industry where the participants consist mainly of political entrepreneurs.'

http://www.masterresource.org/2010/03/biofuels-as-americas-biggest-loser-with-apologies-to-nbc/

He concludes:

Ethanol production is economically unsound and makes the U.S. poorer as a result. It is arguably one of the most heavily subsidized energy programs of all times. The huge diversion of funds and resources to protect and prop up an industry that on balance degrades the environment, does not make us less dependent on foreign energy, and cannot deliver on volume mandates is a dysfunctional energy policy.

In private industry, when few to zero of one’s stated objectives for a major project are achieved, while burning through an organization’s resources, you are typically fired. But under the perverse incentive system of government, lacking accountability and with few repercussions for failure, even when documented on a massive scale, it’s more likely one will receive a budget increase to implement new mandates to “correct” the previous failures.

Albert Einstein is credited with stating; insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. U.S. biofuels policy is eminently qualified as insane.'

Might we therefore anticipate budget increases to help deal with bio-blunders in the EU? I think they may have already run low on other peoples' money, but maybe this will get some priority.

[David]

May well have something to do with why granulated sugar has gone from 68p to 99p per 2kg bag in the space of a very few weeks....

[Paul Matthews]

Here's the beginning of the conclusions of Sharman and Holmes:

This paper provides the 10% target in the RED as a case study of a policy decision mediated by a complex relationship of scientific evidence, political imperatives and individual motivation. The data gathered yield a first conclusion: that if the EU (and, specifically, the EC) was following its own guidelines on the use of evidence, the target should have a strong scientific basis. That the decision to proceed with the target does have a scientific underpinning is not contested; however, it appears doubtful that the breadth of scientific data available on the potential GHG emissions from biofuels production was adequately factored into the final policy decision. This initial conclusion questions the notion that the target could be considered an evidence-based policy decision. This is not only due to a degree of scepticism regarding the credibility of the process of collecting and using expert advice, but more importantly, the decision to proceed with the target appears to show that a requirement for plural viewpoints contained within the EC guidelines was not followed.

They go on to say that
"evidence appeared only able to influence the final policy choice when its findings matched the political imperatives driving the target. Scientific evidence that questioned the ability of biofuels to reduce GHG emissions appears to have been inadequately addressed in the policy process, despite an increasing amount of research pointing to such conclusions."

[Eddy]

John Shade, has Congress now removed the biofuels subsidy?

[Rick Bradford]

@John Shade

Using theories and conceptual tools developed in interpretive policy analysis and Science and Technology Studies, and drawing from semi-structured interviews conducted with a range of well-placed experts and policy actors involved in the debate over ILUC, my doctoral research ultimately aims to unpack these complex interactions and relationships

Does anyone have a Gibberish -> English translator?

[Pharos]

Re Harry comment- from Wiki

She was Sugar Beet commodity secretary for the National Farmer's Union from 1981 to 1984. She was deputy director of the International Confederation of European Beet Growers (officially known as La Confédération Internationale des Betteraviers Européens – CIBE) in Paris from 1984–9, then a research fellow for the Centre for European Agricultural Studies (part of the University of Kent and since 2000 known as the Centre for European Agri-Environmental Economics) from 1989 to 1993. She co-owns Spelman, Cormack & Associates, a lobbying firm for the food and biotechnology industry, with her husband.[3] Based in Dorridge (her constituency is in the borough of Solihull).

[Indur M. Goklany]

Even in the 1990s the trend toward subsidizing fuel farms to substitute for fossil fuels was evident (at least on this side of the Atlantic). In a paper on meeting global food needs through 2050, it was noted:

Care should be taken that as subsidies' for food crops are reduced, they are not replaced by subsidies for non-food uses of crop and agricultural land. One can well imagine future constituencies for subsidizing carbon sequestration and fuel farms similar to the one (sic) for ethanol today.

Source: Goklany, “Meeting Global Food Needs: The Environmental Trade-offs Between Increasing Land Conversion and Land Productivity.” Technology 6 (1999): 107-130.

The real surprise is that neo-Malthusians latched on so firmly to their carbon fixation that they forgot their original worry was land -- not enough land to meet human food needs. These days the latter seems to be a second thought, perhaps to be trotted out occasionally to raise money.

[Peter Dunford]

Are there other examples of that environmental activist body doing proper research? I might have to revise my opinion of them. That said, I doubt the people interviewed would have been as frank with a representative of the GWPF or the Bishop himself. If this is how the EU makes policy, why should we believe our government is any better? Beaurocracies are natural gatekeepers of keeping policy unsullied by inconvenient evidence.

[Vinny Burgoo]

The policy entrepreneur has to be the current Commissioner for Development, Andris Piebalgs. He has always seemed one of the brighter and more sensible Commissioners but he was at Energy and Transport when the targets were pushed through, so who else could it be?

[Retired Dave]

Harry - with regard to Caroline Spelman's past lobbying exploits. Strangely enough I had an exchange of letters with my MP recently on the subject of Plant Breeders' Rights (PBR) and of course her involvement in its continuation came up. I was prompted to jump in by this article, originally published in the Royal Horticultural Society magazine. The article writer Michael Wickenden mentioned to me that the minister has a previous vested interest.

http://www.callygardens.co.uk/pbr_article.html

The reply from my MP was thorough but just ticks the boxes - move along - no problem here - all is well.

[John in France]

Don't understand why it has to be food that has to be converted into combustible. I always thought that there were numerous ways of recuperating waste from food processing. I'm thinking for instance of bagasse and waste cooking oil. That seems to me a win-win solution.

[Richard Drake]

Indur M. Goklany:

In a [1999] paper on meeting global food needs through 2050, it was noted ...

You mean Indur Goklany was there first. Not a surprise.

In case you read this, thank you.

[Vinny Burgoo]

Another guess: Matthias Ruete, the DG at DG TREN from 2006, also pushed hard for ambitious biofuels targets. He's a more likely candidate than Piebalgs as apparently policy entrepreneurs are usually bureaucrats, like what he is.

[Bishop Hill]

An article by Matthias Ruete around the time of the introduction of the target can be seen here.

[James]

As an economist, I must protest against the claim that biofuels are inherently evil. Creating the ability to turn say corn into fuel in principle makes you better off. If I have corn, I now have two options...food or fuel. Before developing biofuels technology, I just had one option. I can still elect to use my corn for only food if that is desired.

I think the potential claim of evil comes about when you consider biofuel subsidies. In this case, you encourage the choice of creating fuel not food. The end result of this policy would be higher food prices, which creates the damage.

James

[Bishop Hill]

Before anyone goes soppy on the Grantham Institute's contribution to the sum total of human knowledge, it's worht pointing out that Sharman was not affiliated with LSE at the time of the paper's publication.

[Richard Drake]

Point taken Bishop. Sharman and Holmes when they wrote this elicited some critical comments from Brussels insiders about the Entrepreneur. That and the fact they wrote it up candidly is a significant good. A cloud as big as a man's hand - but not we now know anything to do with the Grantham Institute.

[A Criminal Mind ?]

Why would biofuels be a crime ? The EU has plenty of farmland that doesn't get used despite being paid for, or is used to produce food that is excess to requirements anyway. This excess food ends up being dumped in landfills, or is being exported to developing countries where it destroys the local farming economy. Switching to more efficient plants than rapeseed and corn would boost biofuel production.
Dino oil is going to run out, and isn't going to take centuries.
We'd better have an alternative ready by then.
The day it'll happen, we'll regret having burned off the chemically far more diverse and versatile dino oil rather than the biofuel we could have grown aplenty.

[Richard Drake]

James: point also taken. I almost always write "biofuel subsidies are evil" - and I do frequently write it. But sometimes, using the conveniences and ambiguities of natural language, one says biofuels when one clearly from the context means the subsidies that make them economically viable and a easier, more risk-free profit than the adventure of engaging fairly in food and energy markets that have not been tampered with.

[Bishop Hill]

A criminal mind

I think you will find that the set-aside scheme was ended at around the time the biofuels targets came in.

[hunter]

Rent seeking and biofuels. Who would have thought it possible?
Policy based evidence gathering has been the default standard for AGW promoters and profiteers from day one. At least some bright minds are beginning think about the implications of the status quo.

[Dreadnought]

The French Cours des Comptes (who audit the Government) find:

“That after 15 years of biofuel policy, including the last six years where Government has been more committed than earlier, the only impacts of these policies have been on agriculture (rapeseed, production of edible oil, cattlecake, new markets for sugar beet). There has been little or no impact either on energy independence or reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.”

http://www.skyfall.fr/

The best use for sugar beet ethanol is to send it to M. Pernod and M. Ricard who use it to make Pastis.

[John Shade]

This notion of a 'policy entrepreneur' has been getting to me. I should have been out in the garden today, but anyway here is a fruit of some messing around in the internet:

'Policy windows mostly open occasionally, and might not stay open very long. Thus, actors who promote a specific solution, the policy entrepreneurs, must act rapidly before the opportunity passes by, or they will have to wait until the next chance comes along.

Policy entrepreneurs are individuals who introduce and promote their ideas in many different fora and invest time and energy to increase the chances for an idea to be placed on the decision agenda (Kingdon, 1995). Policy entrepreneurs are active both in the problem stream and the policy stream. Politicians, civil servants, lobbyists and researchers could be policy entrepreneurs, but so could also private persons. Policy entrepreneurs may thus appear either inside or outside the organization where an idea is introduced. While decision makers often shift their attention from one problem to another, policy entrepreneurs keep to their issue. It is not enough with a problem, not even a pressing one, to get a subject on the decision agenda. A solution must be available within prompt and easy reach for the decision makers. Such solutions are often prepared by policy entrepreneurs. Even good proposals may, however, fail to be taken seriously if they are presented before the policy community is ready. ‘Softening up processes’, implying to prepare and educate both the public and the specialists, are often driven by policy entrepreneurs. Thus, both the problem recognition and the suggested solutions could be results of policy entrepreneurs’ efforts. '
Source: http://heapro.oxfordjournals.org/content/24/4/434.full

I think someone needs to go through the above and highlight words and phrases that might be classed as euphemisms.

I think Maurice Strong might be classed as a policy entrepreneur, one who saw the need for a 'softening up process' (aka the IPCC). His followers certainly 'acted rapidly' when the time was right. as evidenced by the headlong rush to produce the UK's Climate Change Act, and of course by the precipitate support for bio-fuels, for windfarms, and so on. Their problem, though, is that these are all blunders of the first water. Blunders that will cause further loss to society for some time to come. And public anger will grow when 'problem recognition' gets recognised in this case as 'problem invention'.

[Indur M. Goklany]

James on Feb 20, 2012 at 2:36 PM

Richard Drake beat me to it! Biofuels per se aren't a problem, but subsidizing and mandating them are. .. Same for wind, solar, waves, and, yes, fossil fuels...

I know someone will now start bleating about "externalities." I promise not to rise to the bait.

----------
Richard Drake I only got there first because no one else (other than environmentalists, carbon campaigners, and rent seekers) were paying attention to it.

[Dead Dog Bounce]

Bishop,

Would it be reasonable to whether the authors wish to confirm that one or more assurances of anonymity were given in the preparation for the paper?

If only to remove speculation on the subject...?

[Richard Drake]

Indur:

I know someone will now start bleating about "externalities."

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. I have a behavourial economist friend who bleats in exactly that way - as did the Oxford PPE guy I met in the pub in Camden in November. (And thanks for the WUWT post that helped me out that day, by the way.)

What does it all mean? (OK, you don't have to answer, as you've promised not to rise to the bait! But the naivety of these guys in the face of glaringly obvious and entrenched vested interests gets me.)

[Gawain Towler]

On the case.

Looking at it I think we can discount Piebalgs as too senior and too public to be the prson suggested as the 'entrepreneur'.

My suspicion is that Ruete is also too senior notwithstanding the article highlighted by BH.

I would suggests that we are lookingf for the person who drafted that article, probably at Head of Unit, or policy specialist level.
You must remember that a DG is a generalist, and this 'entrepreneur' relies on greater knowledge on he subject than the generalists in the Commision senior service.

[Vinny Burgoo]

GT: Ruete worked on energy policies before he was promoted to DG.

[Don Pablo de la Sierra]

Josh

Still waiting on the cartoon!

Greenpeace in 2000: Bio-diesel - green fuel we can use today

Greenpeace in 2011: How Europe’s biofuels policy threatens the climate

This surely says it all!

[Doug Proctor]

Re: the policy entrepreneur. What is most interesting is the number of persons considered potential for this individual. The individual is one who is motivated and intellectually prepared to subvert the course of reaching agreement through reason with a "bait and switch" strategy. He/she understands that ideology or philosophy drives many social actions rather than mathematics. For example, we open doors for others to pass through, not for profit, but for supporting social harmony and interaction. Though the math of biofuels may not make sense, securing the harmony of the farming community, and stabilizing both an industry and community, is in the social good. The biofuels policy in this way is a redistribution of costs within society to maintain a part of society which, without it, would suffer to the detriment of society as a whole.

The bottom line philosophy is that the free market does not operate to the best at a social level. I have read that wool funeral shrouds were introduced to help the British wool industry, in competition with the American cotton industry (here we have a trade-balance issue also), and that fish on Fridays was introduced to help the fishing industry/communities (and probably deal with an external source of cattle-purchasing, trade-balance issue also). Import duties do the same, using legislation to achieve that which the free-market will not.

It is somewhat disingenuous of us to say that policies must always be mathematically correct and driven by whole-economic analysis. We will buy from the corner store rather than from the nearby Walmart for philosophical and social reasons rather than economic ones. We hire the next-door kid to cut our lawns rather than engage a lawn-care firm from the same drive to do "right" as well as do well. The question on this policy entrepreneur is more with regard to his/her personal agenda, i.e. benefit, than his general motivation ideologically. It is a secondary, though serious, matter of whether the unintended consequences outweigh the actual benefits.

Policies lead to legislation. In the case of the United States, the Gore-supported biofuels legislation - subsidies and a ban on importing Brazilian ethanol made from sugar cane - were repealed in December of last year. That is what should happen to bad legislation. In the case of the EU/GB legislation, the same thing is appropriate now that the +/- accounts have been tallied.

But policy entrepreneurs? In general they are us. Who need to be monitored, certainly, but not banned, unless you believe that the whole planet, not your local area, is where the accounting is to take place. Which goes against every social consideration there is and has been and should be: people, not pure profit, are the ultimate arbiter of our existence.

[Richard Drake]

Doug Proctor:

It is a secondary, though serious, matter of whether the unintended consequences outweigh the actual benefits.

Gosh thanks, on behalf of the millions that have died. You've framed the issue so well - in order for this to be a secondary issue. Humanity at its finest.

[MikeT]

Hilary Ostrov, 9.06am

Exactly what I saw, Hilary. Jumps out and hits you in the face doesn't it.

[Nicanuck]

West Texas Intermediate crude currently trading at 17 dollars a barrel less than Brent crude due to massive increase in US oil production. Currently US has slashed imports by 8 million barrels a day from 2007 due to a glut of crude from frakking of new fields. New (massive) fields in Califonia (15 billion barrels est.) the Gulf and the Midwest set to come on line in the next 5 years. Est US shale gas reserves enough for 200 years of current use, Canada shale (?). It is unlikely that there will be structural price increases for natural gas, crude or refined products in US for the forseeable future. Canadian Tar Sands and Natural Gas producers are going to have to export to Europe - see upcoming free trade agreement - as US market will be too cheap to make a profit. Did someone mention "Peak Oil" - not in North America in mine or my children's children's lifetime. The oil speculators will have non of the volatility they cause and need with steady oil production from the US and Canada. Iranian and Russian "politicians" won't be able to spook the market. There is talk of the EU labelling Canadian crude "dirty" and I suppose that Saudi and Iranian crude is therefore "clean". Just like the EU to cut off its nose to spite its green-tinged face, at the moment when a siesmic (no pun intended) change is happening in the energy market of the Northern Hemisphere. Rest assured the captains of the good ship EU will blithely head straight for its own financial ice-berg with ne'er a glance around them as the real world slips by. Here's to gas from sugar beet and "energy" from the wind.

[Pharos]

Nicanuck

I'm all for optimism, but laced with sober reality. Like DeGolyer & McNaughton audited proven recoverable reserves.

[Gawain Towler]

Vinny,

Point taken but I still doubt it. Anyhow, I will report back when I have finished my digging, I don't rule him out.

[jamspid]

http://www.cannabisni.com/hemp/1797-hemp-biofuels-could-smoke-the-competition

This will please the hippies

[Ian Wishart]

Story now live in Google News
http://www.investigatemagazine.co.nz/Investigate/?p=2335

[3x2]

Speaking of Bob Watson (et al). Is that the sound of Rio +20 I hear fractionally below the cheering of Olympic athletes?

JHC - Watson, Hansen, Goldemberg and Ehrlich...all pitching snake oil from the one tent!

[Richard Drake]

Ian begins:

An academic paper from the London School of Economics has slammed the influence of an unnamed “entrepreneur” who managed to get governments to adopt climate change biofuels targets despite evidence showing biofuels may be more environmentally harmful than petrol.

The paper, highlighted this morning by British author Andrew Montford, was written by the LSE’s Amelia Sharman and John Holmes in 2010, but never brought to public attention until now.

Nice start. Which Google News search do one need to do to find it?