Even as organizations ranging from Consumers Union to the Cato Institute cast doubt on the environmental value of corn-based ethanol, facilities designed to make it are popping up by the dozen throughout the Midwest. Meanwhile, cellulosic ethanol -- which can be derived from just about any plant matter -- draws near-unanimous environmental raves. Trouble is, the technology required for producing it economically still hasn't quite emerged. Thus, like the kid in the back seat on a long family car trip, investors and other interested observers have for years been demanding to know, "When are we gonna get there?" Over and …

President Bush visits the Virginia Biodiesel Refinery in 2005. Photo: whitehouse.gov Biofuels won't single-handedly solve the climate crisis, nor will they deliver energy independence. But a base of widely dispersed, farmer- and citizen-owned biofuel plants can displace significant amounts of fossil fuels -- while also building local economies. What follows is a strategy for tweaking existing federal energy and farm policy to create such an energy landscape. Before getting to that, though, given the scorn heaped on biofuels by many well-intentioned and not so well-intentioned commentators, I'll make the case that biofuels have an important role to play in any …

As war simmers in the Middle East and oil prices rise along with global temperatures, Midwestern farmers and politicians aren't the only ones banging the drums for biofuels. Now big-time investors, security hawks, environmentalists, and even George W. Bush have joined their ranks. But is environmentally responsible bioenergy a real possibility, or are we bio-fooling ourselves? How green is your biofuel? Photo: gov.mb.ca The question is key, because current U.S. public policy is pushing biofuel production without giving much evident thought to sustainability. If present trends continue, the public could find itself funding environmentally ruinous projects in the name of …

Venture capitalist and ethanol booster Vinod Khosla. Billionaires are piling onto the biofuels bandwagon. Bill Gates is doing it. Richard Branson is doing it. The Google guys are doing it. Less well-known is the billionaire who kicked off the whole trend: Vinod Khosla, a cofounder of Sun Microsystems and former partner with Kleiner Perkins, the venture-capital firm that helped give rise to Google, AOL, Amazon, and Compaq. In 2004, he founded his own firm, Khosla Ventures, which has come to be known as a rainmaker in the ethanol world. To hear Khosla tell it, the burgeoning revolution in oil alternatives …

Any worthy idea can withstand and even be improved by naysayers; scolds and skeptics play the useful role of pointing out obvious flaws. The biofuels industry has no more persistent, articulate, and scathing critic than David Pimentel, professor emeritus of entomology at Cornell University. David Pimentel. Photo: Chris Hallman / Cornell University Photography. In 1979, with the price of oil surging and a politically connected company called Archer Daniels Midland investing heavily in ethanol production, the U.S. Department of Energy invited Pimentel to chair an advisory committee to look at ethanol as a gasoline alternative. The committee's conclusion: ethanol requires …

Nothing but blue skies from now on? Photo: house.gov Great news! We can finally scratch "driving less" off our list of ways to curb global warming and reduce our dependence on foreign oil! Biofuels will soon not only replace much of our petroleum, but improve soil fertility and save the American farmer as well! Sound too good to be true? Well, yes. But you could be excused for buying the hype. Ethanol and biodiesel are being promoted as cures for our energy and environmental woes not just by flacks for corporations like Archer Daniels Midland, BP, and DuPont, but by …

Tired of being cowed into drinking milk laced with artificial growth hormones simply because you can't kick the latte habit? Find it udderly disgusting that the largest food and beverage retailers in the world proliferate antibiotics? Wish Grist would stop milking the cow-related puns? Well, today you can join in with Food and Water Watch's Hold the Hormones campaign by calling Starbucks and asking them to stop buying milk from dairies that use artificial growth hormones. The D.C.-based nonprofit offers up 10 good reasons to get involved. With 6,000 stores nationwide, Starbucks buys a lot of milk. And as per …

They've seen the family farm become a factory farm. They've learned the truth about industrial dairy facilities. And now they're trying to escape the perils of a meatpacking plant. They are Leo, Moopheus, and Chickity, the animated stars of a series of short films by Free Range Studios and nonprof Sustainable Table. This latest version of the Matrix spoofs is Meatrix II½, and this time, they've partnered with Fast Food Nation to promote the film and help raise awareness about the production of fast food. Unfortunately, it looks like Fast Food Nation hasn't done too well in theaters. Opening weekend, …

America devours oil like no other country in the world. Representing 5 percent of the global population, the country consumes fully a quarter of the world's oil. Every year, to move ourselves and our goods around, we burn 140 billion gallons of gasoline and 40 billion gallons of diesel -- enough to propel the average U.S. car around the world 1.6 billion times. But rising prices, climate change, and seemingly endless crises in the Middle East have sparked a reckoning. We love to pump, and it shows. Photo: hawaii.gov While there is plenty of disagreement about how best to end …

Researchers hope new crops, methods will help farmers fight climate effects Agricultural researchers are joining the legions who are working to help the world respond to climate change. A coalition called the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (which goes by the just-shy-of-delicious acronym CGIAR) is launching an initiative today that will pour money into developing crops that can withstand floods, droughts, and other extreme events. The group is also looking at farming methods, like no-till or low-till, that can minimize the release of greenhouse gases. "We're talking about a major challenge here," says Louis Verchot of Kenya's World Agroforestry …