Does anyone know of any committee forecasts on the net?  Who will be sitting on which committee and subcommittee?  It might be reasonable to forecast the Chairs of the major committees (e.g., Rangel for Ways and Means, Leahy for Judiciary) at this early day.

Today ethanol is being produced from corn but technology exists today to produce it from grasses.  This would still have an environmental impact but it's something that needs to be weighed against the security-CO2 emissions of petroleum.  There are also strong economic and political incentives for the US not to import the majority of our transportation fuels.  Look to the partnership between Dupont and BP for better quality grass-based ethanol that will come out in 2007.  

If you get the facts straight it becomes apparent that ethanol is the way to start the transition to renewables with infrastructure that is already in place.  It is good that the Republicans are on board, it shows a strong basis of factual and political support for renewables when a crony of the oil industry like Bush is actually willing to shift his viewpoint.  Once that movement begins it will only produce increased investment needed to produce other alternatives like biodiesel and fuel cells in the future.

"...but technology exists today to produce it from grasses."

Tehcnology also exists to run cars on hydrogen, batteries, and compressed air. But like cellulosic ethanol, the technology isn't economically viable, and won't be until proven to be. Coicidentally, even corn ethanol can't claim economic viability. Without heavy subsidies, nobody could afford it.

"There are also strong economic and political incentives for the US not to import the majority of our transportation fuels."

1. If another buyer in another country is willing to pay more for our biofuel than a domestic buyer, wouldn't domestic producers sell it to them instead of to Americans? Answer: In a heartbeat. You do realize that biodiesel is being imported here already, and the only thing keeping foreign ethanol out is a tariff?

2. Similarly, you could argue that we should make all of our own cars thus reducing our dependency on foreign sources of cars, which is as ridiculous as it sounds for many obvious reasons.

It just isn't that easy to predict the future. It isn't apparent that supporting the multi-billion dollar corn ethanol industry will lead to anything positive. It could just as easily suppress competing technology. Atomic energy was going to be too cheap to meter.

Who predicted the success of the Pruis and its hybrid technology? Not me, not you, not the government.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

[Alan Hubbard, director of the National Economic Council and a Bush adviser, has seen the light: "I actually think from talking to Democrats they have the same concerns we do. They are concerned about energy, and recognize that we need to accelerate our efforts to cure our addiction to foreign oil."]

I'd swear that every Republican energy policy speech includes some reference to curing the U.S. addiction to FOREIGN oil. They never say oil, foreign and domestic. The average Democrat or Independent probably hears this as "we need alternative energy" while Republicans hear it as "yahoo, let's drill in Alaska". Thus, the Republican leadership can claim America is behind them in drilling in Alaska and off the Gulf and West Coasts.

I'd call them weasels, but that would be an offense to all weasels and their kin.

I watched a couple of TV programs today with pundits discussing the fallout of the election last Tuesday and what it portends for the future. The participants remarks all assumed we would have a future here in America much as the past has been. But with the media and politics focused on Iraq and a few other hot political issues like immigration was anyone seriously dealing with the threat to whether we will have a future anything like what we have known in the past?

The 800 pound invisible (for now) gorilla in the room is global warming and energy policy, and it is the issue determining whether the future will look anything like the past or something very, very different, and which makes what happens in Iraq and the middle east entirely moot. Jim Hansen the world's leading climatologist gives us just 10 years to reverse our use of carbon fuels and slow global warming. James Lovelock one of our most esteemed biologists is even more dire in his outlook: that we may reach the tipping point of global warming in even less than a decade, and if we do reach that tipping point much of the world population of some 6 billion will perish by 2050. What that may look like we have a picture of in the African countries now being decimated by drought, disease and governments powerless to deal with their country's problems.

Most of the experts who are talking about energy policy solutions, including Lovelock are talking about alternative energy sources like nuclear, wind, solar cells, and bio fuels. But sufficient replacement cannot be accomplished in time, particularly with nuclear. And. with the opposition of much of business predicting economic disaster from a policy change to alternatives, particularly the energy companies, opposing any reform, an even more draconian disaster will surely be upon the generation that is soon to inherit this earth.

There is one possible solution that is getting the least consideration: conservation, and one which can be implemented quickly, almost immediately if the government will act and mobilize public support. Of course the nay-sayers will yell it can't be done, that the economy will collapse. But. I am old enough to remember the 2nd World War when gasoline, oil, fuel, and many basic food stuffs were all rationed, and no private cars, refrigerators or much else for private consumption was produced or available, and we survived and flourished after five long years of depravation. If we want this nation and any part of the American dream to survive for the generation now in school, do we have any other choice?

The most interesting aspect of this is that a monumental conservation re-direction of the country would have many positive side effects because much of the planning has already been done on a small scale theoretically and in some cases practically by groups of people who have been promoting policies like sustainable agriculture, small world economics and slow food.

How much energy could be saved if corporations, business and government functions were required to have as much of the work their employees now do that can be, done at home by utilizing the very large base of home computers and other digital communications facilities instead of commuting long distances to work in some office as so many millions now do? The reasons employees go to centralized offices are not pragmatic and rational, they are emotional: fear of loosing control, traditional because that is how its been done in the past, and distrust of other people, namely employees by a bunch of insecure managers who behave like control freaks, not to mention those huge offices in urban centers that are mostly just wasteful monuments to the ego's of a very few in the executive class.  

The question is do we keep things as they are, which most people are now barely able to tolerate, keep a lifestyle that is making us sicker and sicker, when not changing will ensure the death and destruction of most of those who are now children by the time they barely become adults? Let's start talking about this like we really care what happens to American and the people of this small world we inhabit.

David B. Brooks

One of the leading examples involving closed-loop designs can be seen here:
http://www.neo.state.ne.us/neq_online/sept2006/sept2006.0...

The cow waste is sent to an onsite wastewater treatment plant where it is processed into biofertilizers and biogas.  This biogas production is very important since natural gas is one of the highest input costs for ethanol production.  

The byproducts used to feed the cows are also interesting from an environmental perspective.  The production of ethanol "eats" the starch in the corn, leaving behind the protein and fats, resulting in a high nutrient feed, giving the cows more of what they need.  From an industrial ecology point of view, this cascading of material flows results in the corn being used twice, leading to more benefits and likely a smaller ecological footprint than if the cows were just fed straight corn.

So I think much of what's being proposed now is more intelligent and systems-oriented than most people would expect.  Of course there will still be debates on topics such as factory farming ethics and the appropriateness of using corn as fuel source, but the environmental awareness of these projects is increasing and benefits are being realized by creating industrial ecologies where energy and materials are used much more efficiently.