Can words describe how bad corn ethanol is?

Well, maybe my words can't describe how bad corn ethanol is, or Mayor Bloomberg's, or those of top scientists, but I think I have found someone's words that do: Opus's from Bloom Country.

First, however, the lastest grim news from Fortune: "The ethanol boom is running out of gas as corn prices spike." Yes, "plans for as many as 50 new ethanol plants have been shelved in recent months." Why?

Spurred by an ethanol plant construction binge, corn prices have gone stratospheric, soaring from below $2 a bushel in 2006 to over $5.25 a bushel today. As a result, it's become difficult for ethanol plants to make a healthy profit, even with oil at $100 a barrel.

If you can't make money with oil at $100 a barrel, you are not much of an alternative fuel.

But I know what you're thinking -- if corn ethanol is so bad, what's wrong with plants being scrapped? Well, the corn ethanol business is here to stay. The corn ethanol mandate from the most recent energy bill requires doubling supply from current levels. Fortune explains what that means:

More notable stuff from a panel with the campaigns’ energy folk

Here are some bits and pieces that didn’t fit in to my other post about the presidential energy adviser panel:...

Slim down with the ‘Waste Diet’

There are people who talk about reducing, reusing, and recycling -- and then there's Maren Engelmohr.

Engelmohr, a St. Louis architect with an impressive set of green credentials, her husband, and her two children are embarking on a year-long "waste diet," and are challenging you (and me) to do the same:

Concentrated solar power is already doing great; no breakthroughs needed

Almost certainly not and absolutely not. I give two answers here because there are two very different types of solar energy:

1. Solar photovoltaics, PV, which is direct conversion of sunlight to electricity. It is well known, high-tech, uneconomically expensive in most parts of this country (but poised to resume dropping sharply in price), and intermittent (power only when the sun shines).
   
2. Solar thermal electric or concentrated solar power (CSP), which uses mirrors to focus sunlight to heat a fluid to run a turbine or engine to make electricity. It is, as I've blogged, "The solar power you don't hear about." It is relatively low-tech, competitive today (and poised to drop sharply in price), and can be made load-following (matching the demand curve during the day and evening) and possibly baseload (round-the-clock).

Absent major subsidies, solar PV is simply not a big-time winner (in terms of kWh delivered cost-effectively) in rich countries with built-out electric grids in the near term. It is, however, a big winner in the medium-term (post-2020). I don't agree with the Scientific American article that calls for a massive $400 billion 40-year plan for solar. I have been meaning to blog that it has many weaknesses, in my mind. No energy efficiency. No wind. Heck, nothing but PV and CSP, and it looks to be mostly PV, which needs expensive storage.

Sierra Club removes leadership of its Florida chapter

The following is a guest essay from Peter Montague¹, executive director of the Environmental Research Foundation.

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The Sierra Club's national board voted on March 25 to remove the leaders of the Club's 35,000-member Florida chapter, and to suspend the chapter for four years. It was the first time in the Club's 116-year history that such action has been taken against a state chapter.

The leadership of the Florida chapter had been highly critical of the national board's decision in mid-December 2007 to allow The Clorox Company to use the Sierra Club's name and logo to market a new line of non-chlorinated cleaning products called "Green Works." In return, Clorox Company will pay Sierra Club an undisclosed fee, based partly on product sales. The Clorox Company logo will appear on the products as well. A 2004 report [PDF] by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund named The Clorox Company as one of the nation's most chemically dangerous.

700 college students and the Clinton Global Initiative in New Orleans for spring break

Commitments to start social-change initiatives and spirited discussions of global issues -- these aren't typical results of 700 college students heading to New Orleans during spring break season. But last weekend, students from a diverse group of colleges, several dozen university presidents, and prominent social change agents -- not to mention Bill Clinton -- spent a day and a half on Tulane University's campus for Clinton Global Initiative University (with a cameo by Brad Pitt).

Trying to live-blog an event while you're also trying to finish your senior thesis -- not a good idea. Nonetheless, a belated report from the Clinton Global Initiative's new youth event:

Why are biofuels losing steam in Europe — and barreling ahead in the U.S.?

The signs are cropping up — we just need to heed them. Photo: iStockphoto “Biodiesel: No War Required,” reads a...

Daylight saving time wastes energy, study says

I have been asked this question about daylight saving time many times. I have long believed it was not an energy saver -- even though that is how it is typically justified. Turns out there is quantitative proof.

For those who are interested in this relatively obscure issue -- I doubt Congress would change DST on the basis of this or any other study -- you can read a very good article in the Wall Street Journal. "Springing forward," as we will do March 9, "may actually waste energy":

Fewer folks are regularly getting out in nature, says study

Kids — and adults — these days are “videophiliacs” who prefer their nature through the TV screen rather than personally...