tagged w/ Ethanol
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There’s lot of gloom and doom being pushed, trying to link food prices to climate change by the usual howlers. As shown above, food prices surged to record levels in February despite February wheat and rice prices being essentially flat. Yet, February corn prices are up significantly even with 2010 being the 3rd largest U.S. corn crop ever. Why? Well part of the reason is that our cars now have a mandated, growing and voracious appetite for corn based ethanol.
Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. writes:
When certain information proves challenging to entrenched political or ideological commitments it can be easy for policy makers to ignore, downplay or even dismiss that information. It is a common dynamic and knows no political boundaries. Global Dashboard catches the Obama Administration selectively explaining the causes for increasing world food prices:
“The increase in February mostly reflected further gains in international maize prices, driven by strong demand amid tightening supplies, while prices rose marginally in the case of wheat and fell slightly in the case of rice.”
“In other words, this is mainly about corn. And who’s the biggest corn exporter in the world? The United States…And where is 40% of US corn production going this year? Ethanol, for use in US car engines.”
So here we having wailing and gnashing of teeth by the usual suspects over global food prices, and they are using this as an example of the supposed “climate change drive food prices” link. Of course there isn’t any link in this case. It’s the corn stupid.
The simple solution: stop burning food for fuel, drill for more oil, work on alternate energy system that actually might work, like thorium based nuclear power. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/05/the-reverse-of-uns-disasterous-oil-for-food-program-ethanol-uses-40-of-global-corn-crop/There’s lot of gloom and doom being pushed, trying to link food prices to... more
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For the first time ever, more of the corn crop may go into gas tanks than into the stomachs of cattle and poultry destined for kitchen tables.
The prediction drew little response last week when it was released by the USDA in its Crop Production and Supply/Demand Report for the 2011 crop season. The USDA kept its prediction for ethanol production demand for corn at 5.05 billion, but lowered demand projections for livestock feed by 100 million bushels to 5 billion bushels.
That fuel now tops livestock as the primary user of corn struck at least one observer as noteworthy.
“That’s a first-time-ever type of change,” University of Missouri Extension economist Ron Plain said in a statement released by the university.
“For forever,” Plain said, “ feed was the largest single use of corn.”
The news comes as criticism that pro-ethanol subsidies and policies are raising food prices globally seems to be reaching a crescendo. Critics didn’t seem to latch onto the USDA’s market prediction, however.
more at link...
Don't forget poor 3rd world children who die because of this eco-fascist Ponzi scheme. I'm sure Monsanto is raking in the dough. Let's not forget, hemp and trash put through a plasma-enhanced melter can provide plenty of cheap clean fuel, lower food costs and eliminate the massive landfills and waste issues, but Al Gore and Goldman Sachs aren't invested in that, so you won't hear about it on this site.For the first time ever, more of the corn crop may go into gas tanks than into the... more
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An international team of scientists has announced success in creating hydrogen at ambient temperature and pressure using a combination of sunlight and ethanol.
link :http://www.gizmag.com/upc-hydrogen-ethanol/18755/An international team of scientists has announced success in creating hydrogen at... more
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WASHINGTON - The biofuel company Gevo is about to break ground in the southwest corner of Minnesota on a system that will make it the first in the country to commercially produce a gasoline additive called isobutanol.
Gevo believes isobutanol could become an important alternative to regular gasoline. It burns more powerfully and efficiently than ethanol and runs just fine in existing automobile engines.WASHINGTON - The biofuel company Gevo is about to break ground in the southwest corner... more
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ptr23
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1 year ago
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Another year begins of holding biotech and Monsanto and friends accountable for what they are unleashing on our planet in the way of GMOs and their effect on our environment, biodiversity, climate, and health. In this edition I go over a couple of recent events regarding pathogens, ethanol GMO corn and GM cultivation in Europe.
Hope you get information and awareness from these reports and feel free to add to them in the thread. If you wish to see any other RoundUps click on the tag below.
Thanks,
Jan
Sustainable Agriculture GroupAnother year begins of holding biotech and Monsanto and friends accountable for what... more
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Breakfast cereals, including corn flakes, bread and snacks are under threat after the US authorities approved the growing of a new GM maize.
The warning is significant because it comes from the North American Millers' Association, a food industry trade body, rather than green campaigners.
The new maize or corn has been genetically modified to be used to create ethanol, which is being promoted as a substitute for petrol.
However, wheat growers, food companies and millers in America, fear that food crops will become contaminated with the GM maize, which has been developed by biotech company Syngenta.
They say that changes made to the corn would taint any food products that it gets into.
The US Department for Agriculture (USDA) has allowed the growing of Sungenta's 3272 Amylase Corn without water-tight controls to ensure it is kept separate from food crops.
Once the crop is grown on a large scale in the US, there is every chance it will become mixed with food standard corn and be exported around the world, including the UK.
The issue turns the spotlight on the attitude of the British Government and the beleagued Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman, to GM crops.
Britain is currently lobbying within the EU to allow crops tainted with low levels of non-approved GM varieties to be imported from other parts of the world.
The Millers' Association said it was 'disappointed' the GM corn had been approved without conditions.
It warned: 'Syngenta's own scientific data released last month shows if this corn is co-mingled with other corn, it will have significant adverse impacts on food product quality and performance.'
Association president, Mary Waters, said: 'USDA has failed to provide the public with sufficient scientific data on the economic impacts of contamination on food production.'
The corn contains a powerful enzyme that breaks down the starch inside the plant, which is a cost saving function for ethanol production.
The association said that it if were to enter the food processing stream, the same function that benefits ethanol production will damage the quality of food products like breakfast cereals, snack foods, and battered products.
The concerns are all the more important because the association is a well-known supporter of GM crops and food.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1359109/GM-cornflakes-Fears-U-S-approve-new-engineered-maize.html#ixzz1EeCgSJo1
cont.Breakfast cereals, including corn flakes, bread and snacks are under threat after the... more
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If you're in most parts of the United States, outside of the Midwest, you might wonder what the Ethanol brouhaha is all about. It's easy for some to dismiss the fuel as a diversion of resources, but there's more to it.
FlexFuel capable vehicles can use domestically produced E85 fuel, which has the potential to produce loads of horsepower and displace a significant amount of imported petroleum. While corn is the most prevalent Ethanol feedstock in America, this will change over time ...If you're in most parts of the United States, outside of the Midwest, you might... more
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"Today, the government decides and they misdirect the investment to their friends in the corn industry or the food industry. Think how many taxpayer dollars have been spent on corn [for ethanol], and there's nobody now really defending that as an efficient way to create diesel fuel or ethanol. The money is spent for political reasons and not for economic reasons. It's the worst way in the world to try to develop an alternative fuel." - Ron Paul
When bipartisanship breaks out in Washington DC, check to make sure your wallet is still in your pocket. Every time you fill up your car this winter you are participating in the biggest taxpayer swindle in history. Forcing consumers to use domestically produced ethanol is one of the single biggest boondoggles ever committed by the corrupt brainless twits in Washington DC. Ethanol prices have soared 30% in the last year as the supplies of corn have plunged. Only a policy created in Washington DC could drive up the prices of gasoline and food, with the added benefits of costing the American taxpayer billions in tax subsidies and killing people in 3rd world countries.
The grand lame duck Congress tax compromise extended a 45 cent incentive to ethanol refiners for each gallon of the fuel blended with gasoline and renewed a 54 cent tariff on Brazilian imports. The extension of these subsidies, besides costing American taxpayers $6 billion per year, has the added benefit of driving up food costs across the globe, causing food riots in Tunisia, and resulting in the starving of poor peasants throughout the world. This taxpayer boondoggle is a real feather in the cap of that fiscally conservative curmudgeon Senator Charley Grassley. He was joined in this noble effort by another fiscal conservative, presidential hopeful John Thune. It seems these guys hate wasteful spending, except when it benefits their states. The bipartisanship in this effort was truly touching, as Democrats Kent Conrad and Tom Harkin also brought home the pork for their states.
A bipartisan group of 15 senators signed a letter in late November demanding an extension of U.S. ethanol subsidies. I wonder if the fact they have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions during the past six years from pro-ethanol companies and interest groups like ADM, Monsanto, the National Corn Growers Association, and the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association had anything to do with this demand. You can always count on a Senator to do what's best for his re-election campaign rather than what is best for the country. These symbols of political integrity will always spout the standard talking points:
Full Article: http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article25621.html"Today, the government decides and they misdirect the investment to their friends... more
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A Virginia facility is now turning the drinks into fuel, by distilling their alcohol and recycling it into ethanol. MXI Environmental Services, one of three plants in the U.S. that can turn products with extractable alcohol into auto fuel, has contracted to buy Four Loko producer Phusion Projects' backlog of the stuff, which is now often unsellable as well as undrinkable.
link: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/01/four-loko-running-cars.phpA Virginia facility is now turning the drinks into fuel, by distilling their alcohol... more
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eva2
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1 year ago
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by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
Since national energy reform is on the rocks, ethanol subsidies for the Midwest and ballot propositions to roll back progressive energy legislation in California are the most important policy fights to watch right now.
Neither will revolutionize the way Americans get power, and in both cases, moving forward could actually mean moving away from a sensible energy future. In California, voters could turn back progress the state has made towards holding down carbon emissions. And Washington’s support for ethanol reveals the static thinking that’s smothering our ability to address climate change.
More important than legalizing pot
In 2006, California passed a law that would take effect in 2011 and put an ambitious plan in place to decrease the state’s carbon emissions by 2020. Even after the law passed, however, the debate over its merits continued. This being California, that debate made its way onto this November’s ballot.
The most commonly floated line of reasoning against the law focuses on negative impacts to job growth: Increasing the price on carbon increases the cost of doing business, limiting economic growth and the resources that businesses have to dedicate to expansion. Proposition 23, a ballot initiative that will come to a vote next Tuesday, would delay the carbon bill’s enactment until the state’s economy takes a turn for the better.
But Mother Jones‘ Kate Sheppard knocks down the economic argument against the 2006 law (AB32):
While enacting AB32 could cause job loss in some sectors, most independent experts actually forecast growth in jobs in the renewable energy, transportation, and efficiency sectors. In fact, green jobs are pretty much the only sector growing in the Golden State. The number of green jobs grew 36 percent in California between 1995 and 2008. The rate of growth for regular old jobs was only 13 percent.
Double trouble
Activists have focused on shutting down Prop 23 (check out, via The Washington Independent’s Andrew Restuccia, this clever campaign to flip “yes” voters), but as Amy Westervelt points out at Earth Island Journal, that initiative is not the only one that could free companies from their environmental responsibilities.
It turns out another California proposition, Prop 26, could raise the threshold legislators would have to meet in order to make companies pay for their pollution, including from oil spills. As Westervelt writes:
While some companies have steered clear of the Tea Party-backed Prop 23, which seems to be losing popularity every week, California companies interested in slowing down AB32 and maybe ridding themselves of responsibility for pollution altogether have been quietly funneling money to Prop 26.
California has long been a leader on energy issues. If either of these propositions goes the wrong way, it will be yet another troubling sign of the failure of progressive energy policy.
The other ethanol
Although environmentalists have fought hard since 2008 to pass cap-and-trade, the policy was always fundamentally conservative one. The Obama administration has always tried to map out a middle path on energy policy, and so far it has been ineffective. Ethanol is yet another case in point.
As Lynda Waddington reports at the Iowa Independent, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced last week that the administration was moving forward with a program that aids farmers producing crops (in addition to corn) that could be turned into ethanol. Switchgrass, the foundation of Brazil’s much-touted ethanol system is one example. Notably, the arguments Vilsack advanced for the program had more to do with the economy than with energy.
Pros and cons
This type of cellulosic ethanol, Brooks Lindsay explains at Change.org, would go mainly towards fueling cars. Lindsay weighs the pros and cons of producing this sort of ethanol in general, and comes down against it. His reasoning: “At best, cellulosic ethanol is just a stop-gap measure while electric cars slowly replace liquid-powered cars….But, a stop-gap fuel does not deserve massive investments and government attention.”
Indeed, progressives across the board have long argued that politicians’ support for ethanol derives from political calculation, not from practical policy. (Ethanol states are swing states.) Ethanol is energy-intensive to produce, and it has a slew of negative environmental consequences that outweigh the cuts in carbon emissions.
Rethinking the politics
Before they rush to back the Obama administration’s policies, however, policymakers should consider this news from Heather Rogers, author of Green Gone Wrong. Rogers reports for The Washington Monthly:
As I discovered on a recent reporting trip through Iowa, many farmers there would welcome a way to break free of the ethanol-industrial complex. The people I met said they’d rather cultivate crops using ecologically sound methods, if they could do so and still earn a decent living. It’s not as if midwestern farmers don’t know—better than the rest of us—that growing crops for biofuels damages their soil and keeps them at the mercy of predatory multinational corporations.
The article is worth reading in full, but fast-forward to the end to find Rogers’ sensible policy proposal. Instead of enlisting farmers in a complicated energy-production procedure that ultimately keeps Americans in their cars, why not aide the work they’re already doing to reduce carbon emissions on their farms? After all, farms are responsible for a huge portion of the country’s carbon burden — they just have lobbyists savvy enough to keep their business from being regulated. As Rogers puts it:
Paying farmers to sequester carbon is sound public policy, but it’s also, and just as importantly, good politics. By helping to preserve farmers economically while also allowing them to be the stewards of land most want to be, it peels farmers away from the agribusiness coalition that is pushing the Obama administration to bet the country on a failed biofuels energy strategy.
Now there’s a bit of thinking that could move energy policy forward.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
Since national energy reform is on the... more
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This documentary talks about getting America off oil and on biodiesel.
Josh Tickell, (activist, environmentalist and the director of this film), promotes sustainability, health and green living.
He examines our dependence on oil, its monopoly and its influential power on our politics through lobbyism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upTCSSkxlxE&feature=player_embedded
He also mentions the Iraq War as driven by the oil and the 9/11 tragedy that acted as a catalytic event for it.
He wants Biodiesel that comes from algae, from trees, garbage, cooked oil, solar and wind power to be the main source of energy.
He mentions the argument that biodiesel and ethanol, respectively coming from soy and corn, would compete with our food sources leading to food shortages and raising prices, therefore he suggests biodiesel that comes from algae farms instead which should harm no one.
That is correct and I couldn't agree more with him but what he does not mention is the other huge issue with these food crops and that is GMO.
Genetically engineered plants like corn, soy and canola, are one of the most terrible threats to our humanity and planet and that should be the first reason to be mentioned to dismiss this kind of biodiesel.
Companies like Monsanto are certainly expanding their power trying to push this false alternative energy.
Also, he never mentions HEMP as the greatest, most promising form of biofuel and also the least promoted.
I am definitely on the same page with Josh Tickell and his film when it comes to the elimination of our oil dependency and advice everyone to watch it.
A while ago, I grew tired to see temporary moratoriums and created this petition, the one petition that can change our WORLD, asking our government to eliminate oil, coal and gas altogether and forever.
The price to pay for these energy sources is too high, too many deaths, too much sickness, too much control and our Freedom and our choice as citizens and consumers is long GONE.
Take it back!
Please, sign this Petition and support alternative, safe, renewable energy sources now. http://environment.change.org/petitions/view/no_more_drill_baby_drill
No more waiting, no more killing, no more "Drill, baby, drill".
Thank you.
Join The Organic Movement:
http://current.com/groups/organicgreen/This documentary talks about getting America off oil and on biodiesel.
Josh Tickell,... more
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The first Rallycross event held in the USA took place this past weekend at the New Jersey Motorsports Park (NJMP). Rallycross is an outrageously fun automotive racing event that pits high-horsepower small cars - including the Subaru WRX STi, Mitsubishi EVO, and Ford Fiesta - against each other in a head-to-head format on a circuit that combines high-speed asphalt and dirt segments.
This report features X-Games and racing stars Tanner Foust, Travis Pastrana, Dave Mirra, and Andrew Comrie-Picard (ACP). ACP's Mitsubishi EVO was fueled with ethanol for this event, as well as at the X-Games.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfHUq8gGJgIThe first Rallycross event held in the USA took place this past weekend at the New... more
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While the BP oil gusher has been labeled the worst environmental catastrophe in recent U.S. history, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that a biofuel is contributing to a Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" the size of New Jersey that scientists say could be every bit as harmful to the gulf.While the BP oil gusher has been labeled the worst environmental catastrophe in recent... more
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In a groundbreaking legal settlement, the EPA has agreed to identify and investigate thousands of factory farms that have been avoiding government regulation for water pollution.
June 3, 2010
Photo Credit: Farm Sanctuary
In a legal settlement that could affect the entire U.S. meat industry, the Environmental Protection Agency has agreed to identify and investigate thousands of factory farms that have been avoiding government regulation for water pollution with animal waste.
The settlement requires the agency to propose a rule on greater information gathering on factory farms within the next 12 months. It will require the approximately 20,000 domestic factory farms to report such information as how they dispose of manure and other animal waste.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and Waterkeeper Alliance filed the suit in 2009 over a rule that exempted thousands of factory farms from taking steps to minimize water pollution from the animal waste they generate.
"Thousands of factory farm polluters threaten America's water with animal waste, bacteria, viruses and parasites that can make people sick," said Jon Devine, an attorney with the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.
"Many of these massive facilities are flying completely under the radar. EPA doesn't even know where they are," said Devine.
More than 30 years ago, Congress identified factory farms as water pollution sources to be regulated under the Clean Water Act's permit program.
But under a Bush administration regulation challenged by the environmental groups in this lawsuit, large facilities were able to escape government regulation by claiming, without government verification, that they do not discharge into waterways protected by the Clean Water Act.
Under the settlement reached May 26, the EPA will initiate a new national effort to track down factory farms operating without permits and determine if they must be regulated.
The specific information that EPA will require from individual facilities will be determined after a period of public comment. But the results of that investigation will enable the agency and the public to create stronger pollution controls in the future and make sure facilities are complying with current rules.
"The EPA's rules have failed to protect our rivers and lakes from polluting factory farms," said Ed Hopkins, director of Sierra Club's Environmental Quality Program. "Gathering more information to document factory farms' pollution will lay the groundwork for better protection of our waters."
The National Pork Producers Council expressed "deep frustration and anger" over the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's continuing efforts "to develop costly agricultural regulations that provide few if any additional environmental benefits."
"With this one-sided settlement, EPA yanked the rug out from under America's livestock farmers," said Michael Formica, NPPC's chief environmental counsel. "NPPC is looking at all appropriate legal responses to EPA's disappointing course of action."
Factory farms, also known as concentrated animal feeding operations, CAFOs, confine animals on an industrial scale and produce massive amounts of manure and other waste that can pollute waterways with dangerous contaminants.
These CAFOs apply liquid animal waste on land, which runs off into waterways, killing fish, spreading disease, and contaminating drinking water. The plaintiff groups cite EPA estimates that pathogens, such as E. coli, are responsible for 35 percent of the nation's impaired river and stream miles, and factory farms are one of the most common pathogen sources.
"This agreement sets the stage for new Clean Water Act permitting measures that will add to producers' costs, drive more farmers out of business, increase concentration in livestock production to comply and hurt rural economies," said Randy Spronk, a Minnesota pork producer who heads NPPC's environmental committee. "And the measures will do nothing really to improve water quality.
"Additionally," said Spronk, "the settlement was negotiated in private and without consultation or input from the regulated farming community. This flies in the face of the Obama administration's pledges to operate government more transparently. And, in this economy, the administration should be enacting measures that create jobs, not implementing regulations that put American farmers out of business."
Today there are more than 67,000 pork operations compared with nearly three million in the 1950s. Farms have grown in size; 53 percent of them now produce 5,000 or more pigs per year.
"The record is clear -- large CAFO operations, and many medium and small operations, commonly discharge pollutants into the surrounding environment," said Waterkeeper Alliance attorney Hannah Connor. "What is also clear is that if we want to continue to drink, fish and enjoy water that is not contaminated with raw animal excrement, these discharges must be stopped."
"We believe that the terms of this settlement will help reverse this industry's history of bad behavior by improving implementation and enforcement of the law," Connor said.
Litigation brought by these three groups has forced the EPA to revise its CAFO rules twice within the past decade to tighten the pollution control requirements on these facilities.In a groundbreaking legal settlement, the EPA has agreed to identify and investigate... more
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The prices of corn and other foods sit on the edge of a knife. Thanks to federally mandated ethanol standards, food prices could spike dramatically if drought or bad weather shrinks the U.S. corn yield this year, and the country lacks a good policy mechanism to handle such an event.
A report from two economists at the University of Illinois found that if the corn belt sees bad weather of the sort that has about a 10 percent chance of happening in any given year, the price of a bushel of corn could rise to $7 from about $3.50 today. The reverberations of such an event would be felt throughout food markets in the country, and, if history repeats itself, around the world. ...
http://solveclimate.com/blog/20100406/study-ethanol-mandate-creates-10-chance-corn-price-spikeThe prices of corn and other foods sit on the edge of a knife. Thanks to federally... more
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Biofuels are touted as a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels, but they come with their own set of problems.
One of the biggest concerns lies in the displacement of food crops like corn, which can raise food prices and have other indirect effects around the world on land use and agriculture.
Enter a new process that kills two birds with one stone: turning trash into biofuels.
http://solveclimate.com/blog/20100304/trash-based-biofuels-could-alleviate-land-use-emissions-issuesBiofuels are touted as a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels, but they come with their... more
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Many cellulosic fuel producers are working with enzymes to break down tough, inedible plant parts, such as corncobs or switch grass, into simpler sugars that can be fermented to ethanol. Now enzyme companies say they are near to breaking down another tough obstacle: the cost of enzymes that will make the next generation of low-carbon fuels.
The progress may help put cellulosic ethanol on course to compete commercially when the first large plants open next year.Many cellulosic fuel producers are working with enzymes to break down tough, inedible... more
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The twin-turbo V6 Ricardo Ethanol Boost Direct Injection (EBDI) engine is gunning to produce 900 NM of Torque along with fuel economy to go head-to-head with diesel.The twin-turbo V6 Ricardo Ethanol Boost Direct Injection (EBDI) engine is gunning to... more
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Farm state lawmakers and agribusiness have been hammering the EPA since it announced a plan last year for evaluating biofuels by their lifecycle emissions — including indirect land use changes.
It appeared then that corn-based ethanol wouldn’t make the cut. The proposed rules, based on the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, required renewable fuels’ lifecycle emissions to be at least 20 percent less than gasoline. An early EPA review calculated that, with greenhouse gases from indirect land-use changes included, most corn ethanol wasn't much better than regular gas.
The EPA has now finalized the renewable fuel standard, and agency Administrator Lisa Jackson announced today that corn ethanol will qualify after all.
“EPA has found that it is indeed 20 percent less greenhouse gas emitting than gasoline,” Jackson said. “Based on what we know now, including indirect land use analysis, there is no basis to exclude these fuels.”
So what changed in less than a year? ...
http://solveclimate.com/blog/20100203/epa-recalculates-land-use-changes-gives-corn-ethanol-thumbsFarm state lawmakers and agribusiness have been hammering the EPA since it announced a... more
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One-quarter of all the corn and other grain crops grown in the US now ends up as biofuel in cars rather than being used to feed people.One-quarter of all the corn and other grain crops grown in the US now ends up as... more
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