ethanol

Media Shower: An addendum

When I was asked to start writing this weekly column, I toyed around with the idea of having myself a slogan: "I watch TV so you don't have to." It is a good thing I didn't, because I'm failing miserably.

First, Brendon directs me to CBS's The Amazing Race, which is in its ninth season. I gave up watching the show a few seasons ago. But without Brendon's tip I wouldn't have realized that in episode two, which takes place in Brazil, the teams had to make their own ethanol:

In Brotas, Brazil, Teams needed to travel to Camping Bela Vista, an old plantation, and process raw sugar cane into juice. Then, Teams had to distill fermented juice to create 500 milliliters of ethanol, an alternative fuel source. After completing the task, Teams would have to pour the newly created ethanol into their gas tanks before continuing on. While the task wasn't demanding, completing the scientific process could take a long time. Dave & Lori, Wanda & Desiree and Lisa & Joni took the scientific route.

And then it takes New York-based blog Groovy Green to inform me that the King County government here in Washington State is running a progressive campaign called "EcoConsumer." From the website, you can watch a variety of television PSAs (airing on KOMO4, Seattle) on topics ranging from "remodelling" your home to reducing junk mail to efficiency.

Methinks I need a Tivo. (Could I write that off as a work-related expense? Hmm ...)

Ethanol is suddenly all the rage in D.C. and Detroit

It’s as befuddling to see the “Live Green, Go Yellow” slogan splashed across the General Motors ads running throughout the Olympics as it was to hear the term “switchgrass” uttered by President Bush in his State of the Union speech last month. Here we have GM and Dubya, two of the world’s most entrenched and […]

What’s the most energy-efficient crop source for ethanol?

Biofuel is the hot topic lately in the green blogosphere. There's legitimate dispute about the political and environmental wisdom of plant-based fuels, but at the very least everyone should be starting from a valid, shared set of numbers (oh, to dream).

In an attempt to offer up such numbers, I'm going to ... rip off somebody smarter than me. Namely, Lester Brown, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, founder of the Earth Policy Institute, and author of the recently released Plan B 2.0, which is the best big-picture summary of our environmental situation I've ever read (and I'm only 2/3 through it!). The entire thing can be downloaded for free from EPI's site.

There are two key indicators when evaluating various crops for biofuel: fuel yield per acre and net energy yield of the biofuel, minus energy used in production and refining. This table (taken from Chapter 2) compares crops based on the first indicator:

Just because General Motors calls it green doesn’t mean it is.

Joel Makower reports that General Motors will lead a joint demonstration project "to learn more about consumer awareness and acceptance of E85 as a motor vehicle fuel by demonstrating its use in GM's flexible-fuel vehicles."

The California Department of Transportation will use some flex-fuel vehicles and work with Chevron Technology Ventures to make sure there are filling stations that offer E85 (gas w/ 85% ethanol). A company called Pacific Ethanol will provide the liquid fuel. Filling stations that sell E85 will be receiving "a lucrative federal tax credit."

Joel passes rather lightly over the central problem with biofuels, a problem advocates have never satisfactorily resolved. We're always told that biomass for ethanol could come from crop waste, fryer grease, turkeys, or what have you, but what it inevitably will be made from is whatever's cheapest.

Right now it's cheapest to use corn, sugarcane, soybeans, and palm oil -- heavily-subsidized agribusiness products. Joel holds Brazil up as a model, boasting that it just became a net exporter of sugarcane ethanol. But right there in Brazil rainforests are being plowed down to plant crops, making carbon sinks into carbon sieves.

If there were more confident predictions and fewer just-so stories about how genuinely renewable sources of ethanol will become cheaper than biodiversity-destroying, CO2-increasing agricultural crops, I would feel more comfortable biofuel boosting.

I'm not ready to walk blindly into this future, holding General Motors' hand for comfort.

Bush’s pick to head the USDA is a big ethanol booster

At a White House ceremony last week announcing the nomination of Nebraska Gov. Mike Johanns (R) to succeed Ann Veneman as agriculture secretary, President Bush called his pick “a strong proponent of alternative energy sources, such as ethanol and biodiesel,” later adding that “in a new term, we’ll continue policies that are pro-growth, pro-jobs, and […]