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biofuels

  • Why electricity is the energy carrier of choice

    Our already substantial 120-year investment in an electric infrastructure in industrial countries, makes the transition to a electricity based energy economy less expensive. There are sound physical reasons why the three main contenders for the energy supply for transport turn out to be the three electron economies: renewables, nuclear, and coal CCS. We have determined […]

    Michael Hoexter Climate & Energy

  • What it means to put 4.1 billion bushels of corn into our gas tanks

    The USDA just raised its projection for how much corn it expects the ethanol industry to burn through this year by 150 million bushels. It now expects a total of 4.1 billion bushels of corn to be turned into liquid fuel.  That’s about double the amount of corn that went to ethanol in 2006 (2.1 […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • The five transport energy solutions and one imperative

    This is the second in a series on how we can build an energy future based on our best science and no longer critically dependent upon exhaustible and polluting fossil fuels. The Five Transport Energy Solutions and One Imperative There are five fundamental options to move into a post-oil, post-natural gas energy world and one […]

    Michael Hoexter Climate & Energy

  • The discredited agency upholds the biofuel mandate

    The environmental value of corn ethanol got a ringing endorsement Thursday from EPA chief Stephen Johnson. Johnson declined a request to cut the Renewable Fuel Standard embedded in the 2007 Energy Act. The RFS mandates 9 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol be blended into the fuel supply this year, rising steadily to 15 billion gallons […]

    Tom Philpott Politics

  • Globalization failed, cheap oil is gone, local production is the only way forward

    Bigger is always better, isn’t it? Big cars, big houses, big businesses, big farms. If you were big, you made more money. Clearly, that is the way of the world. When Europeans colonized the Americas, they wanted more land — not some of it; all of it. Napoleon wanted more land. Nothing stopped him until […]

    Jim Goodman Technology

  • Why the Bank itself bears its share of responsibility for the global food crisis

    Last week, I posted about World Bank economist Don Mitchell’s controversial report on biofuel and food prices. According to Mitchell’s calculations, U.S. and E.U. support for biofuels accounts for 70 to 75 percent of the recent rise in global food-commodity prices — one that could force an additional 100 million people worldwide into poverty conditions, […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • Guess which ‘alternative energy’ lobby is biggest?

    Between the start of the year and June 2008, the oil and gas industries spent $52.21 million lobbying Congress. Alternative energy industries spent $11.39 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And look who’s tops on the alternative energy lobbying pile, with more than double the expenditures of the next on the list: American […]

    David Roberts Politics

  • World Bank finally releases ‘secret’ report on biofuels and the food crisis

    Remember a few weeks ago, when The Guardian leaked word of a “secret” World Bank report that essentially blames U.S. and (to a lesser extent) E.U. biofuel policies for causing the global food crisis? You know, the food crisis that continues to generate excoriating hunger in the global south? Well, the World Bank quietly released […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • Umbra on diesel hybrids

    Dear Umbra, I have been wondering for years now — with the hot trend toward hybrids and the new “clean” diesels hitting the market, why doesn’t anyone talk about a diesel hybrid? Sounds like the best of both worlds to me. Just think: a hybrid running on biodiesel! Is this in the works? Mike H. […]

    Ask Umbra® Culture