Grist | Topics | 7 Results

RESULTS		Results 1 – 7 of 7
Headline	Author	Published	Section
The farm bill ups the cellulosic ethanol ante Lost amid the crop-subsidy battle, a new biofuel regime	Tom Philpott	24 May 2008	Gristmill
Amid all the thunder and lightening about subsidies in the new farm bill -- which officially became law Thursday -- Congress made a major policy shift with regard to the goodies lavished on ethanol makers. Under previous policy, biofuel makers -- whether conventional or cellulosic -- benefit from a 51 cent a gallon tax credit conferred on gasoline blenders. No any more. According to a recent Environmental Law & Policy Center memorandum [PDF] summing up th ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, biofuels, energy, ethanol, legislation, politics (all these topics)

Perry and Thrust U.S. should back off from biofuels to bring down food prices, says Texas guv		28 Apr 2008	News
Posted at 4:56 PM on 28 Apr 2008 Has the U.S. push for biofuels contributed to rising global food prices? Well, yes, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday: "There has been apparently some effect, unintended consequence from the alternative fuels effort." But, she hastened to add, "biofuels continue to be an extremely important piece of the alternative energy picture" and & ...
Topics: ag policy, ag subsidies, agriculture, biofuels, economy, energy, food, news, politics, state politics, Texas (all these topics)

Cellulosic ethanol: not likely to be viable New study from mainstream ag economists at Iowa State	Tom Philpott	03 Mar 2008	Gristmill
Cellulosic ethanol represents a beacon on the horizon -- the justification cited by wiseguys like Vinod Khosla for dropping billions per year in public cash to prop up corn ethanol production. Corn ethanol, you see, is a bridge to a bright cellulosic future. But the beacon is looking more and more like a mirage, a ghost, a specter; the bridge we're hurtling down may well lead to a chasm. A quiet consensus seems to be forming among people you'd think would know th ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, biofuels, cellulosic ethanol, energy, ethanol, politics (all these topics)

Will the energy bill bail out ethanol? The corn industry hopes Congress will pull its fat out of the fire	Tom Philpott	28 Nov 2007	Gristmill
I used to love to start my writing day by taking a poke or two at the corn-based ethanol industry -- you know, the biggest greenwash ever. Photo: mrobenalt These days, the debunking of corn fuel almost seems like it's piling on. Today, two major newspapers -- the LA Times and The Wall Street Journal -- ran front-page stories that essentially say: everyone hates government support for corn-based ethanol, except for people with a direct financial (or polit ...
Topics: ag policy, ag subsidies, agriculture, biofuels, energy, ethanol, politics (all these topics)

A Bridge to Somewhere? What we've learned from the biofuels series	Tom Philpott	15 Dec 2006	Main Dish
Future or folly? Photo: iStockphoto After spending much of the last several months thinking about the biofuels boom and its implications in preparation for this special series, we've come to a few conclusions. Like other energy sources, biofuels have significant environmental liabilities. Boosters' rhetoric about "renewable energy" aside, topsoil -- from which biofuel feedstocks spring -- is ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, biofuels, cellulosic ethanol, energy, ethanol, politics (all these topics)

By the People, For the People Toward a community-owned, decentralized biofuel future	David Morris	08 Dec 2006	Soapbox
President Bush visits the Virginia Biodiesel Refinery in 2005. Photo: whitehouse.gov Biofuels won't single-handedly solve the climate crisis, nor will they deliver energy independence. But a base of widely dispersed, farmer- and citizen-owned biofuel plants can displace significant amounts of fossil fuels -- while also building local economies. What follows is a strategy for tweak ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, biofuels, energy, politics (all these topics)

The Big Three The numbers behind ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, and biodiesel in the U.S.	Maywa Montenegro	04 Dec 2006	Main Dish
America devours oil like no other country in the world. Representing 5 percent of the global population, the country consumes fully a quarter of the world's oil. Every year, to move ourselves and our goods around, we burn 140 billion gallons of gasoline and 40 billion gallons of diesel -- enough to propel the average U.S. car around the world 1.6 billion times. But rising price ...
Topics: ag policy, ag subsidies, agriculture, biofuels, cellulosic ethanol, energy, ethanol, politics (all these topics)

Stories About: ag policy AND agriculture AND biofuels AND energy AND politics