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Archer-Daniels Midland’s stock soars on ethanol, biodiesel hype

Earlier this year, after Archer Daniels Midland reported surging profit for the fourth quarter of 2005 -- largely driven by its ethanol unit -- I dubbed the company the Exxon of Corn.

As if to prove my thesis, the grain-processing giant tapped an oil exec as its new CEO last week. And, like any respectable would-be oil company, it also reported another quarter of robust profit growth. The ascension to CEO of Patricia Woertz, most recently executive vice president at Chevron, marks the end of a four-decade run at ADM's top by the Andreas family. That venerable clan, whose chicanery runs from a key role in the Watergate scandal to a price-fixing scheme in the 1990s, built ADM into one of the U.S.'s most politically connected corporations. Congressional beneficiaries of ADM's campaign generosity likely need not fear; G. Allen Andreas, who has served as CEO since 1997 (when his uncle and predecessor was convicted of fixing the price of lysine, a corn product used in animal feed), will stay on as chairman of the board of directors.

In a country run by oil execs, why shouldn't the largest food-processing firm also be run by oil execs?

The move eloquently signals ADM's intention to continue its rush into the auto-fuel market. The company has made billions over the years extracting the Midwest's soil fertility and transforming it into crappy food products like high-fructose corn syrup, buoyed by government commodity policy and the sugar quota. Now it intends to do the same in service of the internal-combustion engine.

The Love Vote

Grist wins Webby People’s Voice Award for Best Magazine! Thanks to all of you — our dear, beloved readers — for wading through the labyrinthine Webby Awards site to vote for us. It worked! We won the Webby People’s Voice Award for Best Magazine. Some outfit called “National Geographic” won the “official” Webby (whatevs!), but […]

Corrode to Perdition

BP closes two more North Slope pipelines Oil giant — oops, beyond oil giant — BP is shutting down two more of its pipelines on Alaska’s North Slope, at the expense of 22,000 barrels of crude (worth some $1.5 million) a day. Neither pipe had leaked yet, but BP officials have been monitoring serious corrosion […]

Village of the Dammed

China nears completion of massive Three Gorges Dam, plots more dam-building Construction of the world’s largest hydroelectric dam — the Three Gorges Dam in China — may be completed as soon as May 20, nine months ahead of schedule. The $22 billion dam on the Yangtze River will eventually flood the homes of some 1.3 […]

Curses, Fideled Again

U.S. lawmakers see offshore drilling near Cuba and feel left out The U.S. has a years-old ban against offshore drilling in the Florida Straits, but it looks like the area might get drilled anyway — by Cuba. The island country has rights to resources in half of the straits under a 1977 agreement, which President […]

Has the corporate-responsibility movement lost sight of the big picture?

Just as people sailing full-tilt into an iceberg zone can get distracted rearranging deck chairs, those of us advocating corporate responsibility may be guilty of spending too much time fiddling with the nuances of the language that describes our work. We do this even as abrupt climate change, pandemics, and other mega-trends float, quiet but […]

Move over HGTV, here comes GBTV

PBS is going to start airing a show called Building green in September.

A green-building TV show sounds interesting, but also makes me nervous. Will it be more of the shallow consumerism that defines most home shows? Or will it actually seek to give average people the comfort and confidence to try green-building projects themselves.

Another action item for renewables

I just got an email from the Solar Energies Industry Association (SEIA) asking for people to let their representatives know they support extending the 2005 investment tax credits for residential solar power and fuel cells. The credits are set to expire in 2007, but there's a bill being proposed to extend it another 8 years.

The next big vote on renewable energy

The next big vote on renewable energy won't take place in Washington. It will take place in Phoenix.

Some time this summer, the five commissioners on the Arizona Corporation Commission will vote on a proposed rule to significantly expand renewable energy in Arizona -- 15% renewables by 2025, 30% of that from distributed-generation resources like solar. We are talking on the order of up to 1,800 MW of solar: a very big deal. The emissions reductions are roughly equivalent to removing 1 million cars from the road -- not to mention jumpstarting the clean technologies of the future.

There is a precarious 3-2 majority on the Commission right now, and the usual suspects are gearing up opposition.

There's a public comment period culminating in a public meeting on May 23. Demonstrating the public mandate for renewable energy is critical. We've set up a petition -- if you live in Arizona, here's your chance to stand up and be counted. Or no complaining later.

All mixed up

Everyone knows you have to be careful about taking more than one prescription medicine at a time, since drugs can interact in strange and dangerous ways. A Google search of "dangerous drug interactions," for example, yields nearly 10 million hits.

Apparently the same is true of chemical contaminants in the environment. From Scientific American comes this troubling but none-too-surprising story (only part of which is free, unfortunately) suggesting that mixtures of toxic chemicals are often more potent and damaging than the compounds in isolation.