Articles in Opinions
by Geoff Cooper (Renewable Fuels Association) You may not have noticed, but hedge and index fund investors have quietly returned to the agricultural commodities market in droves over the past few weeks. With the stock …
By Patricia Monahan (Capitol Weekly) This year we’ve had no shortage of examples of why we need to move away from fossil fuels, from the oil disaster in the Gulf and continued dependence on Middle Eastern …
Holly Jessen (Ethanol Producer Magazine) …The push against approving E15 has heated up in recent weeks. The U.S. EPA delayed the E15 decision until sometime this fall and industry groups on both sides of the …
by George Sterzinger (Renewable Energy Policy Project/Dissent Magazine) …Advanced biofuels in particular have the potential to change the coastal economies for the better. In 2005 and in 2007 Congress committed to providing 20 percent of transportation …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) …We see the battle over rural development flashing at other points around the globe, but nowhere so starkly do we have a choice between the War on Poverty and the War …
by Jim DiPeso (The Daily Green) The hidden health threat (and $100 billion annual cost) in the gasoline we pump into our cars.
…China supplanted the U.S. as the biggest energy consuming country in the world. …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) In Australia, a federal election last week which resulted in a hung parliament may find that the choice of government depends on biofuels policy. According to Digest sources and local …
(Friends of the Earth International) The African continent is increasingly being seen as a source of agricultural land and natural resources for the rest of the world. National governments and private companies are obtaining access …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) …Blue Marble’s effervescent CEO Kelly Ogilvie, well known on the renewables circuit for his high-energy presentations over the years, took us through the math.
“Over the past 18 months,” he said, …
by Nidhi Subbaraman (MIT Technology Review) …The company announced plans to build one of the first commercial-scale cellulosic-ethanol plants, in Kinross, MI; it would be able to produce 80 million gallons per year.
But as of the …
by Sasha Lyutse (Natural Resources Defense Council) …
As a result, the VEETC has not only concentrated the ethanol industry in just a handful of states, but siphoned scarce resources away from more competitive biofuel technologies …
by Gary Truitt (Hoosier Ag Today) A variable subsidy for ethanol producers could cost the government less and provide more security for producers than current fixed rates, according to a Purdue University study. A variable …
by Stephanie Dreyer (Growth Energy/RenewableEnergyWorld.com) Ethanol has been the Oil Industry’s favorite target for years. Big Oil has argued that the ethanol industry can’t compete with gasoline without taxpayer support. Ironically, a recent study by …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) …In a note at CO2science.org, a trio of authors contend: “There simply is not enough freshwater on the face of the earth to make the production of biofuels a viable …
by Chuck Woodside (Journal Star) In a recent speech about energy, President Barack Obama said: “If we refuse to take into account the full costs of our fossil fuel addiction — if we don’t factor in …
by Yans Felippe Geckler (IPS News) Brazil has begun a counterattack on the European Union’s measures for certifying crop-based fuels, which could lead to import barriers for this energy source coming from the South American …
(Algae Industry Magazine) An article by Rene H. Wijffels and Maria J. Barbosa, of Wageningen University in the Netherlands, published in the current edition of Science Journal, details the challenges and opportunities of algal biofuel …
(Ag Professional) …Concerns about net energy and greenhouse gas emissions, in addition to its effect on food and feed pricing are driving researchers at the Energy Biosciences Institute at the University of Illinois and at …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) …But even were the US EPA to approve E15 ethanol blending, there are some other significant walls and thresholds to keep in mind.
Here are the Digest’s Top 10.
1. The $60 …
edited by Reid Lifset (Journal of Industrial Ecology) Includes Corn Ethanol Articles Related to Debate over Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Corn-Ethanol
The Journal of Industrial Ecology is pleased to make the following articles on the greenhouse gas …
by Joe Irvin (Capitol Weekly) This week, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) convened a group of experts to discuss issues related to the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) that was approved last year. The …
by Dan Piller (Des Moines Register) Francis Thicke of Fairfield, the Democratic candidate for Iowa agriculture secretary, used his State Fair Soapbox speech Wednesday to call for a “new vision” for Iowa agriculture based on …
by Elton Robinson (Southeast Farm Press) …It’s not what President Barack Obama has been saying in recent speeches that worried several market analysts speaking at the Brock Decision 2010 Seminar in Memphis. It’s what he …
by Robert Rapier (Consumer Energy Report/R Squared Energy Blog) …Reader Paul Nash came up with a specific plan…
Specific Recommendations
Scrap the VEETC (since there is a mandate already and it expires at the end of 2010).
Maintain …
by David Fridley (Post Carbon Institute) excerpt: Unlike conventional fossil fuels, where nature provided energy over millions of years to convert biomass into energy-dense solids, liquids, and gases–requiring only extraction and transportation technolgy for us …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) …A significant number of voices in the community continue to caution that algal biofuels are 10 years away, or likely to arrive at commercial scale only in the waning years …
by John M. Sawyer and Michael C. Sawyer (The Daily News) …Corn ethanol is not responsible for destruction of forest land. Total U.S. crop acres are actually declining, total U.S. land devoted to crops will …
by John D. Graham (Lexington Herald-Leader/McClatchy-Tribune) Editorial …Due to large swings in oil prices, which are partly manipulated by OPEC, a domestic ethanol industry wouldn’t survive without government support. Countries with strong ethanol industries such as …
(People’s Daily) China’s industrial experts are advising the government to halt projects making ethanol bio-fuel with corn, as the projects are pushing up corn prices and sparking food security concerns.
Zhao Youshan, director of the Commercial …
byGen. Wesley K. Clark (Ret.) (New York Times) Letter to Editor: …The consequences include not only huge environmental risks, but a $300 billion-a-year drain from our economy to pay for imported petroleum.
Growth Energy’s Fueling Freedom …
Peter Jamison (SF Weekly) …The Examiner reported this morning that a facility that renders bones and fat from slaughtered animals into oil is moving to upgrade its facilities to make biodiesel from animal parts, as …
By Audrey McAvoy (AP) The federal government has turned to a 130-year-old Hawaii sugar grower for help in powering the Navy and weaning the nation off a heavy reliance on fossil fuels.
It will spend at least …
by Richard Keller (Cattle Network) As renewable fuels continues to be something that people of the world support in general, there also continues to be those complaints that crop production and land use for fuels …
by Don Siefkes (E100 Ethanol Group/Des Moines Register) The recent oil platform blowout in the Gulf of Mexico shows the madness of the United States continuing to use 140 billion gallons of gasoline a year …
by Holly Jessen (Ethanol Producer Magazine) At this year’s American Coalition for Ethanol Conference & Trade Show, two speakers gave particularly strong arguments for chipping away at the power and monopoly of Big Oil. It …
by Brent Erickson (BIO/New York Times) Letter to Editor: The refundable investment tax credit for wind, solar and geothermal energy proved the right policy at the right time to mobilize investment. …Parity in tax policies …
(National Academies of Science) Expanding Biofuel Production: Sustainability and the Transition to Advanced Biofuels: Summary of a Workshop (2010)
While energy prices, energy security, and climate change are front and center in the national media, these …
by Darrin Ihnen (The Hill/National Corn Growers Association) …Unfortunately, many of the articles we’re seeing don’t get the facts quite right. The New York Times, for example, asserts that the Renewable Fuel Standard mandates the …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) …Larry Nitz, GM’s executive director of hybrid and electric powertrain engineering, described ethanol as the the best short-term solution. GM has sold 5.5 million flex-fuel vehicles to date. “If the fuel …
(Algae Industry Magazine) As Congress takes action on critical tax incentive packages, leading advanced biofuel trade associations reemphasized the importance of advanced biofuels as promising opportunities for the United States to reduce its reliance on oil …
(Renewable Fuels Association) Further analysis of EPA’s Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) reveals more errors in the agency’s calculation of corn ethanol and other biofuels’ carbon intensity, according to new analysis by the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA). …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) …“Investors constantly ask us the simple question,” says AE Biofuels CEO Eric McAfee, “ If the EPA is not enforcing the cellulosic ethanol mandate and only providing a few months of …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) Back in 2008 the death watch began on Imperium Renewables.
Though its 100 Mgy multi-feedstock plant in Grays Harbor was, at the time, the largest and most modern biodiesel facility in the …
(Washington Post) Editorial: PRESIDENT OBAMA was back in Michigan recently, breaking ground on a plant that will make batteries for the Volt, the plug-in hybrid electric car forthcoming from government-owned General Motors. The Energy Department paid …
(AP) BP’s catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is fueling opposition to the University of California, Berkeley’s research partnership with the British company, with activists on the famously liberal campus demanding a severing of …
(Renewable Fuels Association) A newly released report from the Development Prospects Group at the World Bank, conludes that “…the effect of biofuels on food prices has not been as large as originally thought, but that …
(Heinrich Böll Stiftung North America) In cooperation with 25x’25, the Heinrich Böll Stiftung North America hosted a transatlantic roundtable discussion on its new report Beyond Biofuels: Renewable Energy Opportunities for U.S. Farmers.
As farmers struggle with …
by Tiffany Hsu (Los Angeles Times) Big Oil: the patron saint of biofuels?
Petroleum companies — and their pocketbooks — have been working their way into the biofuels industry in recent years. Wisconsin-based Virent Energy Systems Inc. …
(Growth Energy) The New York Times’ July 29th Editorial “Energy Subsidies – Good and Bad,” mischaracterizes Growth Energy’s proposal to open the American transportation fuels market and fails to acknowledge the technological advancements that have made …
by Jim Lane (Biomass Digest) Following the all-but-certain defeat of a renewal of the ethanol tax credit, left-wing environmental activists, confederated into the National Anti-Biomass Incineration and Forest Protection Campaign, are making a move to destabilize …
