RSS Feed MenuBill Maher tossed off this claim during an appearance on ABC’S This Week on Sunday: “I could criticize America in general for not attacking this problem [dependency on fossil fuels] in the Seventies. I mean, Brazil got off oil in the last thirty years we certainly could’ve.”
An attentive George Will turned on Maher: “Bill, can you just explain to me in what sense Brazil ‘got off oil’?”
It was an uncomfortable moment of reality TV. Maher, whose Real Time studio is routinely stacked with like-minded panelists and an obsequious studio audience, seemed unused to being challenged and stammered: “Uh…I believe they did. I believe they, in the Seventies they had a program to use sugar cane ethanol and I believe that is what fuels their country.” Will corrected the comedian: “They still burn a lot of oil and have a lot of it off-shore.”
The facts are on Will’s side here.
Brazil produces 2.4 million barrels of oil per day and consumes roughly 2.52mm bpd—ranking it #8 on the list of oil consuming nations. It is true that they may soon be a net oil exporter…but this is because their production capacity has steadily increased as new fields are tapped while consumption has remained steady, not because they are “off oil.” In fact, the largest oil discoveries in recent years have come from Brazil’s off-shore, pre-salt basins in which Brazil’s state oil company Petrobras is investing $220 billion to explore. Off-shore exploration rights have also been sold this year to BP for $7 billion. Maher’s ideology notwithstanding, Brazil remains very much an economy tied to oil.
I’ll wager that Mr. Will’s beloved Chicago Cubs will win the World Series long before George Will is ever invited to appear on Real Time.
Slide // May 3, 2010 at 11:41 am
Yes, it was almost as uncomfortable when Will, discussing the Arizona law, said I have to show my ID if I enter an government building… etc. The Rev Sharpton had to remind Will that EVERYONE has to show their ID. That is not what the law in AZ does. It was an embarrassing moment for Will to use such a silly argument.
balconesfault // May 3, 2010 at 11:41 am
First, it’s good to see Maher get a slap – I like him, but he too often falls into entertainer mode and makes claims that just aren’t true. Anything that motivates people to “up their game” should be encouraged, and if Maher wants to play in the political pundit world he should up his (just like Will was taken to task for some of his climate change data misrepresentations awhile back).
That said, I doubt that Will’s non-appearance on Real Time would have anything to do with his challenge to Maher there. I’ve seen guests rebut Maher there before, and he seems to understand that living in the reality-based world means admitting you’re wrong every once in awhile.
Then again, Will’s general disposition would seem to make him unwilling to appear on the show.
thijsvn // May 3, 2010 at 11:44 am
Sugar cane ethanol has the disadvantage that you have good and bad harvest years. In comparison, oil production is a lot more reliable. One bad year for sugar cane can cause all sorts of problems. And if one assigns all that land to the growth of sugarcane to ensure proper supply, could Brazil still produce enough food?
Bill Maher’s ignorant remark put aside, it’s still pretty impressive that consumption has remained steady in a growing economy like Brazil. And perhaps there are some lessons to be learned in how they’ve handled things.
Jeffry1 // May 3, 2010 at 1:52 pm
Don’t mess with George Will. He’s even smarter than Otto! (If that’s possible)
steevlak // May 3, 2010 at 2:40 pm
I’d like to watch this. Bill Maher isn’t someone who is used to having to back up what he says. He’s more of an ideologue than a rational thinker.
Banty // May 3, 2010 at 2:51 pm
As much as I enjoy Bill Maher, he is a bit of an ideologue and loose with his facts. I like watching him in his topical-comedy gig. But to appear on a show like This Week takes another level of knowledge and insight, and I just don’t think Bill Maher is up to it. Guests on the better Sunday morning talking-head shows are expected to add something, not just spout off.
nwahs // May 3, 2010 at 3:33 pm
I’ve read two conservative blogs on this and both used the phrase “smack down.”
Have conservatives become the the x-treme wrestling party?
Maher made an erroneous statement and Will corrected him. Why not leave smack downs in the phony wrestling ring?
Carney // May 3, 2010 at 3:41 pm
The point that Maher mangled is that Brazil no longer depends on FOREIGN oil.
See page 20 here:
http://www.iowarfa.org/documents/ZubrinEnergyVictory.pdf
Yes, offshore drilling has contributed to this, but far more noteworthy and innovative has been Brazil’s unique and substantial commitment to ethanol.
The role of domestic oil here should not be overly celebrated either, because in effect ALL oil is “foreign” oil. The world oil market acts like a unified whole since oil’s a fungible commodity. Even American-drilled, -refined,- bought, and -consumed oil funds the Iranian nuclear program, al-Qaeda style terrorism, etc., and the extremist schools, TV channels, mosques, and “charities” that fuel and spread the radicalism necessary for them. How? Because the oil available for sale on the world market at any given time is limited, and thus taking any oil off that market reduces the available supply, makes what remains that much more scarce, and allows the Irans of the world to charge that much more for the oil they sell. ALL OIL IS ENEMY FUEL.
The only way out is to leave petroleum behind. The most practical, affordable, easy and quick to adopt alternative fuel is alcohol fuel (ethanol, methanol, etc.) in fully flex-fueled vehicles. Flex fuel technology costs only $130 per car for automakers to add; a tiny fraction of the amount we spent for OPEC oil in 2008.
Jeffry1 // May 3, 2010 at 3:44 pm
nwahs. If you make such a broad claim as “Brazil is off oil” as your case for why Americans are stupid for not doing the same, you’re damned right a guy like Will should go in there an correct him hard. It WAS a smack down. A smack down of Maher’s pompous ignorance. I bet he stays in the coccoon of his show with guest he can hand pick from now on. Sitting across from Will is not the same as having Tim Robbins, Chris Matthews and Eric Dyson on your show all nodding in agreement to anything you say no matter how ludicrous like bobbleheads.
Jeffry1 // May 3, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Our GDP is 14.6 trillion compared to Brazil’s 1.58 trillion. 9x larger and we use 8x as much oil. They have half our population implying much lower living standards. What woulld Brazil’s dependence be is their GDP was ours juxtaposd against their 2mmbl/day output? Brazil is an unfair example all the way around.
Carney // May 3, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Jeffry1, we have much more wealth, and thus more “slack”, to be able to afford transition costs than Brazil did. We have no excuse.
Jeffry1 // May 3, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Carney…transition to what exactly? After 30 years of an ethanol program Brazil still cannot function without oil.
Carney // May 3, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Jeffry, all vehicles sold in Brazil today are flex -fueled, and have been for several years, meaning that if they decided to ban gasoline, a large and growing portion of automobiles on the road would “function” just fine. Even now with gasoline-only cars becoming older and fewer, only about 50% of the fuel sold there today is gasoline, and even that has an over 20% ethanol mix. Brazil is clearly pointing the way forward here.
The key missing element is methanol, which is much cheaper per mile than ethanol or gasoline. Methanol can be made cheaply from natural gas or coal, and can also be made from any biomass at all, including crop residues (so a corn ethanol farm could use the stems, leaves, cobs etc. to multiply its per acre alcohol fuel yield), trash, and even sewage. Methanol’s resource base is vast and essentially inexhaustible, making its low price fully scalable. The one-two punch of methanol as the bargain fuel and ethanol as the mid-range fuel, supplemented with biogasoline or higher alcohols such as propanol or butanol, is the way out of this.
Banty // May 3, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Carney <>
But that would not be Maher’s point as to our current situation in our Gulf waters, now would it?! He was trying to make a point about oil consumption, period.
Carney // May 3, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Banty, regardless of Maher and Brazil, “drill baby drill” is not the way out. OPEC has over 78% of world reserves and rising (since they are consuming it at a lower rate than the non-OPEC producing world), and we have 3% and falling. If we expand offshore and OPEC, even if we avoid future environmental catastrophes, we will simply burn through our meager reserves that much more quickly and be at our enemies’ absolute mercy even sooner.
ktward // May 3, 2010 at 5:51 pm
I’m all for humbling moments. But flicks to the forehead are common on these talking head round tables. The juicy part is: who’s the flicker, and who’s the flickee?
During an ‘08 ‘This Week’ (with Stephy), Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman took to task George Will’s creative revision of FDR history:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yAyQV8gOjo
I’ll bet Will’s forehead suffered a bigger ding to his bona fides from Krugman’s flick, than did Maher from Will’s flick. Maher’s smart, but no one expects wonk from him.
A much more interesting take:
George Will Quietly Shuts Down Bill Maher On This Week’s Fiery Roundtable
http://www.mediaite.com/online/george-will-quietly-shuts-down-bill-maher-on-this-weeks-fiery-roundtable/
franco 2 // May 3, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Why are these shows ridiculous? Because we have as panelists Al Sharpton, Katrina Van den Huevel (marxist lenninist) and Bill Maher and George Stephanopolis (Clinton War Room director) as the moderator. And people say Fox News is biased. My God….
oldgal // May 3, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Why would anyone listen to either Maher or Will to get facts about anything? I find it occasionally interesting to listen to their opinions based on facts I have researched elsewhere.
Oskar // May 3, 2010 at 8:45 pm
Maher, like most in the media, is a cultural marxist.
Jeffry1 // May 4, 2010 at 8:45 am
Carney. It is good to see that there are people out there not just complaining about oil dependency but actually have solutions to propose. I obviously do not know much about the topic of methanol to weigh in on the feasibility of your idea. But I do respect you for answering in a forthright and thoughtful manner. No one wants to be dependent on forign powers for our energy needs. Unfortunately there are some mighty powerful interests out there who are just fine keeping us married to the internal combustion engine for a long time.
Carney // May 4, 2010 at 10:24 am
Thanks, Jeffry1.
And not to be pedantic, but I haven’t proposed ditching the internal combustion engine, just switching the liquid fuel it runs on from petroleum to alcohol. There are some non ICE technologies that seem promising — battery-electric vehicles are just starting to hit the market and methanol/oxygen fuel cells may become practical in the future. But for the short to mid term at least, I think fully flex fueled ICE cars running on alcohol fuel are the way out of the trap.
For more, see:
“Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil” by Dr. Robert Zubrin
http://www.energyvictory.net
“Turning Oil Into Salt: Energy Independence Through Fuel Choice” by Gal Luft and Anne Korin
“The Methanol Economy” by Dr. George Orlah (Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry) and others
Jeffry1 // May 4, 2010 at 10:55 am
Carney. Oh absolutely I could see you didn’t mean getting rid of the I.C.E. cold turkey. You strikle me as far too grounded in reality for that. Apologize if it came off that way. I was just saluting you for actually having those rarest of commodities these days in the political discourse…an IDEA
I will definitley read up on methanol. Thanks for that.
Carney // May 4, 2010 at 11:46 am
thijsv said, “Sugar cane ethanol has the disadvantage that you have good and bad harvest years. In comparison, oil production is a lot more reliable. One bad year for sugar cane can cause all sorts of problems.”
That’s essentially an argument to give up on agriculture altogether. I mean if the US wheat crop fails, millions starve, right? Personally, overall, I think adopting agriculture has been a consistent enough success to stay with it for the long haul, and I oppose returning to hunting and gathering.
As for fear of lock-in, ethanol can be made in worthwhile quantity from at least 17 different plants grown in a wide array of climates. And it is impossible to reduce the availability of feedstock material for methanol (everybody poops).
By contrast, with OPEC’s hands irreversibly around the throat of oil production, we are vulnerable at any time to:
the whims of the cartel leadership to cut us off (as in 1973 when our economy was devastated – and we were only half as directly dependent on foreign oil then);
or to wars or revolutions constricting production (as in 1979);
or to the merciless slow squeeze – OPEC’s reason for existence – reducing production below market demand in order to artificially drive up the price (such as from $10 a barrel in 1999 to a global collapse-inducing $140 in 2008).
As for food vs. fuel, US and EU per-acre crop yields and food production rise constantly as rural areas steadily depopulate, especially among the young. Only half of US arable land is farmland, and well under half of US farmland is even cultivated. Similarly, much tropical farmland is tied up in low-efficiency subsistence farming; switching to high-efficiency cash crops could dramatically increase production without reducing food availability. So there’s enormous unused slack capacity in the ag sector, both in land and manpower, for expansion of agriculture to produce biofuels without at all affecting the food supply.
And we’ve already seen that – ethanol corn production is up several fold is the last decade, while food corn and other staple crop production has risen as well.
theCardinal // May 5, 2010 at 6:10 pm
I enjoy This Week’s roundtable but the inclusion of Maher and Sharpton did nothing to elevate debate – it was absurdist theater. Will appeared uncomfortable throughout, having to engage with a pair of dimwits.