ethanol
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Obama condemns mining reform package as too hard on the mining industry
Barack Obama is ticking me off. First he opportunistically attacks Clinton for not being enthusiastic enough in her support for corn ethanol — which he knows perfectly well is an environmental dead end. Then … this: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said he does not support mining reform legislation that recently passed the House of […]
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Hillary Clinton struggles to explain away her previous opposition to corn ethanol
Over the years, Hillary Clinton has voted against subsidies and mandates for corn ethanol in the Senate a number of times. If you know anything about corn ethanol, you know that’s a good thing. When Clinton released her (otherwise excellent) energy plan this week, it contained a whole boatload of … subsidies and mandates for […]
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Nature on ethanol
The editors at Nature discover that corn ethanol sucks: Biofuels are unlikely ever to be more than bit-players in the great task of weaning civilization from Earth’s coal-mine and oil-well teats. But they may yet have valuable niches — including some that allow them to serve some of the world’s poor, both as fuels for […]
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Fred Thompson half-heartedly justifies flip-flop on ethanol
Ol’ Fred Thompson has decided that ethanol’s great after all, even though he voted against subsidies as an allegedly-small-government conservative in the Senate. Why, Fred? We know it can’t be a craven pander to Iowa voters, so what’s the explanation? “I have voted against subsidies in the Senate,” said Thompson. “But I think it’s a […]
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Archer Daniels Midland sees glut as opportunity to consolidate the ethanol market
Over the past year, ethanol production has exploded — surpassing even the dramatically higher "alternative fuel requirement" in last year’s energy bill. And now we have a glut of ethanol on the market, which has pushed prices down dramatically and caused many ethanol plants — particularly independent farmer-owned ones — to struggle. But Archer Daniels […]
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U.S. conservation land may soon end up in your gas tank
Well isn’t this delightful (sub rqd): The Agriculture Department may allow farmers to plow up land in conservation agreements to plant row crops, despite a record corn crop this year, fueled by the ethanol industry’s thirst for the feedstock. Acting Secretary Chuck Conner told reporters this week that USDA is considering releasing some land currently […]
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Stratfor analysis of the backlash against ethanol
Stratfor’s Bart Mongoven on why the growing negative buzz around ethanol is having limited political effect: … the backlash against biofuels is in full swing. The critics, however, are running head on into the powerful agricultural lobbies in the United States and Europe that so successfully championed the issue in the first place. These advocates […]
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In related news, the ’07 corn harvest will break records
For decades now, the USDA has been dumping cash into cellulosic ethanol research (most recently through a joint venture with the DOE). So the USDA’s analysts should know something about the prospects for mass production of cellulosic ethanol, hailed by its boosters as a panacea that can wean us not only from oil, but also […]
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Notable quotable
From a Washington Post article about the transcendent potential of switchgrass: But such efforts [to persuade farmers to grow switchgrass] have hit a snag: Scientists haven’t perfected the process that turns switchgrass into ethanol. So for today, the Crop That Could Change Virginia is just hay with better publicity.
