ethanol
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Financial-reform bill limits the speculation in ag commodity markets that sparked food crisis
While we mourn the dead climate legislation, it's worth noting that something non-hideous emerged from Congress last week. Buried within the financial reform bill, there's a set of provisions that evidently limit excessive speculation in ag commodity markets -- something that drove more than 100 million people into hunger in 2008.
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Ethanol gets skewered by recent CBO assessment
In its calm and measured way, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just delivered a blistering assessment of the environmental value of corn-based ethanol. The CBO had been charged by Congress to calculate just what the public is getting for its investment in ethanol production: specifically, the $0.45/gallon tax credit that gasoline blenders get for mixing […]
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Rejoice! Grist cracks “Top Ten Ethanol Enemies” list
The writing life can be a rocky one. You slog it out in the trenches daily, trying to make a living and a difference. Progress can be slow, or nonexistent. And then you get an honor! And your dim worldview brightens. Such was my delight yesterday, when news came via Twitter and the Corn Corps […]
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King Corn subjects Washington to ad blitz
The debate around the farm bill, and its generous support for corn production, is already heating up. Long-enshrined subsidies for ethanol production stand on the verge of being phased out. The EPA is mulling whether the nation’s auto fleet can handle more ethanol to be blended into the gasoline supply. In other words, the exalted […]
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Cars and People Compete for Grain
At a time when excessive pressures on the earth’s land and water resources are of growing concern, there is a massive new demand emerging for cropland to produce fuel for cars—one that threatens world food security. Although this situation had been developing for a few decades, it was not until Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when […]
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Corn industry brazenly turns Gulf disaster into marketing opportunity
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (the dull gray color southeast of the Mississippi Delta) seen by satellite on May 1 Photo: NASAAs if being bombarded with oil from below and chemical dispersants from above weren’t enough, the Gulf of Mexico also has to endure marketing rhetoric from a long-time tormentor: the corn industry. Industrial corn […]
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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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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 […]
