biofuels
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Gulf of Mexico: from magnificent resource to industrial sacrifice zone
Fire and a vast oil spill, on top of one of the globe’s most productive fisheries. Photo: U.S. Coast Guard The Gulf of Mexico is a magnificent resource: a kind of natural engine for the production of wild, highly nutritious foodstuff. Here’s how the EPA describes it: Gulf fisheries are some of the most productive […]
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With subsidies in the balance, Obama speaks up for ethanol
Lest we forget, he was once a corn-belt senator. While the BBC explores the dark underbelly of the biofuel craze, President Obama affirms his support for crop-based fuels. From The Hill: President Barack Obama on Wednesday touted ethanol–both the current variety and next-wave fuels–as a key part of his energy strategy and a way to […]
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BBC on the impact of biofuels on Paraguay’s ecology and farmers
A soy plantation in the Amazon rainforest, Brazil. Nilton Ricardo, BrazilPhotosEveryone should listen to this BBC report (unfortunately not embedabble) on the “price of biofuels.” It digs into a key question: what does Europe’s appetite for biodiesel mean for people and ecosystems in the countries that produce the feedstocks? Focusing on Paraguay, the BBC comes […]
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Jack Newman
Art: Nat Damm Jack Newman Cofounder and Senior Vice President of Research, Amyris Berkeley, Calif. He may look like an amiable Deadhead, but Jack Newman, 44—that would be Dr. Newman to you—is a Berkeley microbiologist who cofounded Amyris, a start-up that went from bioengineering a microbe to produce an anti-malarial drug to genetically tweaking a […]
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Scientists show ‘growing’ fuel is waste of energy
Burning industrial corn in your gas tank: just as dumb as it looks in this silly picture.It’s no mystery where Grist comes down on the food vs. fuel debate, aka the Great Ethanol Boondoggle. But it’s nice to see the science continuing to support our side of the argument (via Science Daily): Using productive farmland […]
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The trouble with Brazil’s much-celebrated ethanol ‘miracle’
Not as sweet as advertised: industrial-scale sugarcane production in Brazil.This is a post about Brazil’s sugarcane-ethanol “miracle,” but I can’t resist starting off with a look askance at our own corn-derived ethanol phenomenon. Has there ever been a “green” technology more ecologically discredited than corn-based ethanol? It may yield slightly more energy than it consumes […]
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Bizarre ag policy, ethanol cage match, and more
When my info-larder gets too packed, it’s time to serve up some choice nuggets from around the Web. —————- Get ’em while they’re hot. • Time’s Michael Grunwald on a truly absurd twist in U.S. farm/trade policy: in order to maintain subsidies to U.S. cotton farmers and avoid a trade war with Brazil, the U.S. […]
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Why are we propping up corn production, again?
News flash: high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is a lousy product. As Tom Laskawy reported here Tuesday, a recent study by Princeton researchers found that rats fed chow laced with HFCS gained more weight than rats fed equal calories of table sugar. All processed sweeteners add empty calories to food; but calorie for calorie, HFCS appears […]
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EPA capitulates on ethanol, hearts clean coal
Expect to see a lot more of this kind of thing. The press release could have come straight out of the utterly disgraced Bush EPA–and if it had, I can well imagine the howls of outrage it would have provoked, because I would have joined the chorus. Its headline read as follows: “Obama Announces Steps […]
