Does Edwards know what he is talking about?

[penguin7]

I listened to Edwards on the Moveon.org forum. He suggests that bio-fuels are the answer to the energy problem. It is clear that bio-fuels at best have some rather serious problems. An important one being the cost of food. He didn't bother to address any of these problems.

The man is running for president and apparently he has not given this issue a whole lot of thought. This is a rather important issue.

[drm604]

1. Do you have a link? n/t

[wordpix]

2. i don't agree, i thought he gave one of the most knowledgeable answers

he has a vision of green collar jobs, wind, solar, biofuels, putting the nation back on track and get off the oil addiction. What's wrong with that?

[Nikki Stone1]

3. Or corporate farms making a killing?

Dunno

:shrug:

[RufusTFirefly]

4. Listen again. He was talking about cellulosic ethanol

It's not a food, but it is a biofuel.

[penguin7]

5. This will compete with food.

Edwards laid out a whole scenario about how bio fuels would enrich the USA, and also Africa.

The whole thing struck me as extremely naive and simplistic. If we use land for energy, how then will we grow our food?

[jsamuel]

6. I agree, I have been saying this about biofuels for a long time.

No one seems to listen. Even Gore talks about biofuels. But I wouldn't say that they don't know what they are talking about. I would say that they are thinking about getting us to be energy independent.

[Igel]

10. If it's cellulosic ethanol, only minimally.

A lot of marginal land can grow the plants for producing it, and much more can be made from some of the organic waste from growing corn. There doesn't need to be a great deal of farmland used for food production switched over to simple cellulose production.

[WCGreen]

14. And then they don't have to use a lot of fertilizer to grow the

crops that are used to produce cellulosic ethanol...

And, I believe they are all talking about bio fuel as a gap bridger instead of a long-term solution...

[tech3149]

7. Seriously dude, can you provide some more accurate info to answer?

It makes me question your intellect or intent when your post count equals your profile age. Are there problems with developing and implementing bio-fuels? No doubt! Should I expect someone with a background in law to be able to express the technical detailed plan to make it happen (even if advised by the best scientific minds) in an undescribed format to be accurate? I could wish in one hand, well you know the rest. Where he wants to go is where I'd like to be. How to get there might not be something you can describe in the 5 minutes you get from an "in-depth" analysis or the 30 second sound byte, but that's our media world. I don't care if the non-functional link did point to Moveon, I saw how disorganized they were in 2004, but I still respect what they're trying to accomplish.

Hey, I'm more than willing to kick around the policies of every candidate and try and balance out the the good and bad of each one, but you really put yourself behind the eightball by calling out a candidate without providing reasonable details and a functional link to discuss apples to apples. Sorry if I don't respond quickly, I just don't feel like cooking, going out to get some food.

[penguin7]

9. www.moveon.org

[bunnies]

8. Kucinich said that ethanol is a transitional fuel...

imho... he gave the best answers.

[calteacherguy]

11. No he doesn't....and that applys to a wide range of issues. It's why his support is plummeting. nt

[Tellurian]

12. Food stuffs do not have to be used to produce biofuels...

Brazil grows sugar cane to produce bio fuels. Hemp is the perfect source for bio fuels. When and if this government comes to it's senses and decriminalizes growing hemp for bio fuels, the Coal and Oil industries will become obsolete and so will all the "fat cat" trusts! Happy Days!

[tkmorris]

13. "An important one being the cost of food"

With that one sentence you have proven that you aren't really up to date on the issue of biofuels. That's cool, there are tons of issues that I can't speak authoritatively about. However you would never catch me criticizing someone else's views on those issues, let alone saying that he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Biofuels are one tool we can use to reduce our dependence upon petroleum. At this point it isn't clear whether they will provide very significant contributions, or whether their maximum impact is more limited. No they will NOT solve the problem and as far as I can tell Edwards knows this.

Furthermore, after watching the Edwards clips you mentioned, he does not assert "that bio-fuels are the answer to the energy problem". He spoke of wind farms, and increasing CAFE standards, among other things. Why would you make such a demonstrably false claim as that?

Candidate smearing is rampant here at DU, the LAST thing we need is another poster joining the fray and slinging about baseless accusations. Please, stop.

[penguin7]

15. "Bio fuels which is where the transition will have to lead to."

Above is a direct quote from Moveon.org taken from the Edward's video.

Further, now that I listened to him again, he is talking about the price of oil dropping.

The only possible way to interpret his spiel is that the price of oil will drop because of the use of bio fuels. And this will enrich the economies of Africa and America because they have land.

This strikes me as a typical politicians and a typical Edward's speech, promising the impossible to pander to the electorate.

I also don't think he knows what the hell he is talking about.