Techdirt points out that the farm subsidy program masquerading as a energy initiative, aka ethanol from corn, is going to hit the prices of many other products, causing ‘agflation’, a term I’m pretty happy to write about.
The ridiculous rise in corn prices because of ethanol subsidies is going to significantly affect the costs of many food products and produce as farmers shift over to corn. This is doubly loony because ethanol costs more than gas to manufacture, is not stable enough to deliver long distances and actually uses petro products in its manufacture.

Last week I drove from Rochester to Atlantic City NJ for a conference. For those not on the right coast, that’s about 800 miles round trip. My Honda Accord LX got amazing mileage- around 35 MPG which is actually higher than the rated higway mileage for a Hybrid Accord, in part because they’re selling the hybrid as a high powered car rather than a gas efficient car (it has a 250HP engine) which seems crazy to me. I know I’m not going to pay a hefty $5,000. premium for a hybrid that gets worse mileage than a conventional model.

But I digress. During my travels I observed a few things that interested me. First, wind farms. I saw three in the 400 mile one way trip. To me this indicates that we’re seeing a lot bigger uptake for these things. Then I saw these emergency notification signs that have solar panels mounted above them. I guess its a lot easier to install a sign that doesn’t require grid connections out there in the boonies of Pennsylvania.

Finally I was over at my parent’s house after returning and mentioned I was switching to flourescent bulbs. It turns out my father has already made the switch and I didn’t even notice any difference in the quality of light. One odd thing though- Dad said he thought the bulbs were getting brighter the longer they were in use. Weird.