Biofuels – March 30 (2)
Corn is not the future of U.S. ethanol: DOE
Brazil’s da Silva: Our biofuels partnership
UK slams US biofuel subsidies
Huge jump in corn planting expected
Ethanol fuels jumps in Nebraska agricultural land values
Renewable Energy
Biofuels – Mar 28
Chinese biofuels expansion threatens ecological balance
Thailand looks to deadly nuts for biofuel
Ethanol boom a bust for ranchers
Brazil, Italy seek partnership on biofuel production
Biofuels – March 27
Economist: Biofuel may raise food prices
Farmers: future is not now for biomass ethanol
Energy companies rethink palm oil
Five years to save the orang utan
Monbiot: To save the planet, we need a five-year freeze on biofuels
Faustus and the monkey trap
What makes the crisis of industrial society so challenging to cope with is the way it unfolds out of the very strategies that worked so well in other contexts. Current attempts to replace oil with ethanol — in effect, pouring our food supply into our gas tanks — point to an urgent need to reconsider some of our most basic assumptions about what exactly the problem is.
Biofuels – March 25
Lester Brown: Massive diversion of U.S. grain to fuel cars is raising world food prices
WaPo: Corn can’t solve our problem
China’s corn exports may plunge as local demand rises
Al Gore and the wedges game
Whether they realize it or not, policymakers are deeply engaged in the “wedges” game – imagining how to replace energy technologies that produce greenhouse emissions with less-harmful alternatives. But we have to play the wedges game fair.
Renewables – Mar 24
Tidal power experts discuss technological advancements, roadblocks
A Wave Of Support For Tidal Energy
Singapore to invest in clean energy industry
Electricity rationing tightens in Ghana
Biofuels – March 23
The millenary history of sugar cane
Catholic bishops slam Brazil ethanol growth plan
Ethanol reaps a backlash in Midwest
Ethanol and biofuels
Non-partisan Congressional think tank concludes: “…there are limits to the amount of biofuels that can be produced and questions about the net energy and environmental benefits they would provide. Further, rapid expansion of biofuel production may have many unintended and undesirable consequences for agricultural commodity costs, fossil energy use, and environmental degradation.”
Solar: Payback analysis and Internal Rate of Return
One way to sidestep the gloomy verdicts of payback analysis is to do what most companies do when contemplating a long-term investment like solar energy — calculate the internal rate of return (IRR) on the invested capital.
Biofuels – March 19
Ethanol’s growing list of enemies
Ecuador petition – Palmoil firms robbing Indian land
Jakarta: Alternative energy needs to focus on waste recycling
Warmer, warmer
I don’t think I can be the only person who finds in myself a strong degree of psychological resistance to the whole subject of climate change. I just don’t want to think about it. Part of the problem is one of scale. Global warming is as a subject so much more important than almost anything else that it is difficult to frame or discuss. [Excerpts]
