biofuels
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Corn lobby cashes in on tax compromise
It wasn't just plutocrats who made out like bandits in President Obama's grand tax compromise. King Corn got his paws into the public till, too, snatching a cool $5 billion. So why does fiscal rectitude mean that school lunches only get a tiny boost -- offset by a cut in food stamps?
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King Corn's bad pre-Thanksgiving week
Tomorrow, millions of people will feast on flavorless turkeys raised in tight quarters and stuffed with industrially produced, genetically modified corn. You'd think King Corn would be grinning ear-to-ear this week. Instead, His Majesty is furious!
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The Climate Post: Climate scientists: It’s war
700 climate scientists agreed to speak out as experts about global warming. Plus, coal enjoys November and the Copenhagen failure costs $1 trillion.
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Biofuels Reduce The Biosphere's Capacity to Absorb Carbon
Crossposted from the Biodiversivist blog Brace yourselves for another thought exercise. Tim Searchinger is a researcher who has been published in the prestigious journal Science at least five separate times by my count. His, in hindsight, rather obvious, common sense observations have become a serious thorn in the side of the biofuel industry. He was […]
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Obama's riding the (cellulosic) ethanol pony — here's why he should buck the trend
Like countless politicians before him, Obama is striving to shore up his political support in the Midwest by dangling goodies for the ethanol industry. This time, though, it's cellulosic ethanol -- which, I argue, isn't nearly as ecologically benign as advertised.
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A close encounter with China's sewer-oil trade
The Chinese diet uses tons upon tons of cooking oil every day. Some of it comes disgustingly from the waste stream. Here's how the government could flush the sewer-oil black market down the drain.
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Our biofuel future: The bitter taste of land grabs and hunger
Stanford professor Roz Naylor lays out how a global ramp-up of ethanol and biodiesel production means land speculation and rising food prices for the world's poor. Can the world stomach such a fuel-ish transition?
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EPA hands the ethanol lobby a hollow victory
The corn lobby got what it's been clamoring for: the EPA lifted its "blend wall" on ethanol mixes to 15 percent. There's a catch, though, that will make King Corn's victory downright Pyrrhic.
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The limits and potential of plant-based energy
As oil reserves are being depleted, the world's attention is increasingly turning to plant-based energy sources from ethanol to electricity.