I resent opeds like this that suggest that none of us knew and that no one was warned. They was WARNED and the effects on the poor by the use of biofuels deserves coverage in their newspapers - but hey! we don't talk about poverty and hunger in the MSM in north america, do we??
Veeger
This is from Newsday:
Editorial: Don't be biofooled about biofuels
The nation's enthusiastic embrace of biofuels as a greener alternative to imported petroleum has run afoul of the law of unintended consequences.
Two authoritative studies show that ethanol and other biofuels actually hurt the environment. When the full emission costs of producing these "greener" fuels are considered, they create more greenhouse gases than fossil fuels.
Global warming, the studies demonstrate, is increased by the destruction of natural ecosystems - rain forests in the tropics and grasslands in North America - taken over for biofuel production.
The results of these studies, published in this month's issue of the prestigious journal Science, should not be lost on Congress and
Already, gasoline sold at Long Island pumps and elsewhere in the Northeast is at least 10 percent ethanol in the winter. Achieving Bush's goal of replacing 15 percent of gas with ethanol and other biofuels would eat up the whole U.S. corn crop.
Environmentalists, who had been early promoters of biofuels, have been taken aback by this scientific controversy. They had argued that biofuels would emit less carbon dioxide than petroleum products, but now many recognize what the new studies show: that the effects on land use had not been taken into account in the broader calculations on climate change. As a result, the European Union is now considering a ban on some biofuels.
Ethanol production is already jacking up food prices, another unintended consequence. A sound energy policy must take all this into account in the rush for greener alternatives.
The results of these studies, published in this month's issue of the prestigious journal Science, should not be lost on Congress and
Already, gasoline sold at Long Island pumps and elsewhere in the Northeast is at least 10 percent ethanol in the winter. Achieving Bush's goal of replacing 15 percent of gas with ethanol and other biofuels would eat up the whole U.S. corn crop.
Environmentalists, who had been early promoters of biofuels, have been taken aback by this scientific controversy. They had argued that biofuels would emit less carbon dioxide than petroleum products, but now many recognize what the new studies show: that the effects on land use had not been taken into account in the broader calculations on climate change. As a result, the European Union is now considering a ban on some biofuels.
Ethanol production is already jacking up food prices, another unintended consequence. A sound energy policy must take all this into account in the rush for greener alternatives.
From the comments left:
Well here is my assumption on ethanol or at least corn ethanol:
>not enough corn to produce ethanol
>takes three times the water to make ethanol
>it is corrosive and you need to use trucks not pipes
>it is corrosive and will wear your engine out sooner
>less fuel efficiency
>takes just as much fuel to make ethanol, so you gain nothing
>this is a money grab for the farm lobby
>this will not make a dent into the oil we get from the Middle East
>prices will go up in the stores on food and it already has
>will not be able to feed the world
>too much planting will ruin the soil
Biofuels cannot reduce greenhouse gases--simple consideration of the fact that all the carbon they remove from the atmosphere is subsequently released back into the atmosphere when they are burned shows that. and they can't even be carbon neutral, because farmers must burn carbon to produce biofuels, it takes fuel to get them to market, and we can't turn them into transportation and heating with perfect efficiency.
Biofuels might be good for other reasons--they might be good for fuel independence, they might be good for farmers. but so far even the latter is far from clear, as the ag bill clearly shows. Support for biofuels is just a price support (=welfare) for the big businesses that own corn farms in the midwest.
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