Grist | Topics | 16 Results

RESULTS		Results 1 – 16 of 16
Headline	Author	Published	Section
Danny sings the blues Seattle Times columnist needs a new ride	biodiversivist	07 May 2008	Gristmill
Via the Sunday Seattle Times: Danny Westneat has wrecked his car and needs a new ride. Now, I don't expect it to be easy being green. But this is ridiculous. What was hailed as our leading green alternative to petroleum [biodiesel] is now an affront to humanity? I wonder which print media gave him this false impression that biodiesel was our leading green alternative? But when we asked around about biodiesel, it didn't take long before the scolding started. Biodie ...
Topics: biofuels, cars, energy, oil, Seattle (all these topics)

Worse than coal Industrial agrofuels: enemy of the entire planet	biodiversivist	07 Apr 2008	Gristmill
Apologies for the terrible photo, but it was pouring (and snowing) when I took it. That's Duff Badgley again, the dirty hippie, protesting at a Safeway store. You can see the marquee advertising the price of B-5 (5 percent) biodiesel at $4.20 a gallon. Biofuel proponents are not going to like having their fuel compared to coal, but think about it. Most of the CO2 in the United States comes from liquid fossil fuels. Replace them with today's biofuels, and you would ...
Topics: biofuels, cars, energy, green living, oil (all these topics)

Bartlett opposes energy bill over RFS	David Roberts	07 Dec 2007	Gristmill
I'm a fairly enthusiastic supporter of the energy bill that just left the House, but I am painfully aware that the Renewable Fuel Standard, which would mandate (insofar as one can mandate ponies) 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2036 -- and worse yet, 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol by 2015 -- is a grotesquerie that will do far more harm than good. I tend to think that it will get ratcheted back by a subsequent Congress, particularly once the perversity becomes cl ...
Topics: biofuels, energy, ethanol, legislation, oil, politics (all these topics)

Gristmill community chastised! The global nature of global warming	biodiversivist	02 Dec 2007	Gristmill
This is my formal rebuttal to Brooke Coleman (director of the Renewable Energy Action Project), specifically to comments found in Tom Philpott's latest corn ethanol article. I'm using my access to the bully pulpit to pull it out of comments, like I did the last time a corn ethanol enthusiast joined the discussion. Welcome to the best environmental blog on the planet, Brooke. You don't seem to have a very high opinion of this community, but maybe you'll warm up t ...
Topics: agriculture, biofuels, climate, energy, ethanol, oil (all these topics)

The cash nexus Is there really so much money in environmental devastation that it can't be stopped?	Tom Philpott	26 Nov 2007	Gristmill
In the Nov. 12 New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert published an article (unavailable online; abstract here) typical of her style: spare, restrained, vivid, cogent, devastating. The topic was Canada's tar sands, now being profitably exploited by the major oil companies: Shell, Conoco-Phillips, Chevron, and ExxonMobil. And they've only just begun. According to Kolbert, the oil majors intend to invest more than $75 billion over the next five years in building infrastructure t ...
Topics: biofuels, Brazil, business, Canada, energy, oil (all these topics)

'Mideast Oil Forever?': Part III Abandoning the solution	Joseph Romm	04 Nov 2007	Gristmill
After the introduction and an explanation of 'The Coming Oil Crisis,' the next part of 'MidEast Oil Forever?' (subs. req'd) begins the discussion of the technology-based solution -- and how the Congress is working to block it. Yes, long before Shellenberger & Nordhaus claim to have pioneered the positive technology message that everyone else supposedly never tried, many of us were waging a public death-match (without their help) to save those technologies -- espe ...
Topics: biofuels, cars, energy, fuel efficiency, hydrogen, oil (all these topics)

How bad is peak oil, really? Would the biosphere care?	Jon Rynn	20 Aug 2007	Gristmill
Recently we've had a couple of discussions here at Gristmill concerning various aspects of peak oil; that is, the assertion that very soon (if it hasn't happened already) the global supply of oil will peak, and even though demand is going up, supply will start to come down, so prices will skyrocket. It seems to me that some of the contention in these discussions boils down to the question: would it really be so bad if the oil started running out? After all, we would ...
Topics: biofuels, climate, coal, energy, oil, placemaking, public transportation (all these topics)

Regular oil cleaner than ethanol Saving and restoring forests better for climate than switching to biofuels	Glenn Hurowitz	20 Aug 2007	Gristmill
A new study in the journal Science ($ub req'd) validates what many have been saying here in Gristmill: Biofuels, especially those from the tropics, are far worse for the planet than regular old crude oil. The study finds that we could reduce global warming pollution two to nine times more by conserving or restoring forests and grasslands than by razing them and turning them into biofuels plantations -- even if we continue to use fossil fuels as our main source o ...
Topics: biofuels, climate, deforestation, energy, ethanol, greenhouse-gas emissions, oil, rainforests (all these topics)

BioWillie pens a biodiesel book	Sarah van Schagen	19 Aug 2007	Gristmill
Willie Nelson is talking about biodiesel again. This time in book form, and the result is On the Clean Road Again: Biodiesel and the Future of the Family Farm. The 90-some-page pocket-size book (it's like a li'l Willie you can carry with you everywhere!) is divided into two parts: the past (or the history of petroleum) and the future (in Willie's world, that's biodiesel). Thankfully there's also an afterword to talk about the other future ... you know, wind and ...
Topics: biofuels, books, celebrity, energy, green living, oil (all these topics)

Replacing Oil With, Uh, More Oil National Petroleum Council pictures life after conventional crude		17 Jul 2007	Daily Grist
Replacing Oil With, Uh, More Oil National Petroleum Council pictures life after conventional crude There's a new voice in the crowd shrieking about waning oil supplies: the National Petroleum Council. OK, they're not actually shrieking. But in a draft report released this week, the group -- headed by former Exxon CEO Lee Raymond -- confirms that conventional crude oil supplies ...
Topics: Big Oil, biofuels, coal, energy, energy efficiency, natural gas, news, oil (all these topics)

The geopolitics of 'energy independence' More than meets the eye	Jon Rynn	15 Jun 2007	Gristmill
If you think that the current governmental and corporate interest in ethanol has something to do with global warming, think again. It is dawning on the U.S. government that (1) most of the remaining supplies of oil are in unfriendly hands, and (2) that there isn't enough oil remaining to feed a constantly growing global demand. With oil production plateauing, governments can turn to three main strategies to maintain fuel supplies: (1) consume what's left of the planet by ...
Topics: biofuels, energy, ethanol, international politics, oil (all these topics)

Don't worry about biofuels Say the developed countries to OPEC	David Roberts	08 Jun 2007	Gristmill
Biofuels will provide only a small proportion of the world's demand for fuel in the next decade, the developed countries' energy watchdog has said in an attempt to reassure OPEC that the need for oil will continue to grow.Well I feel reassured.
Topics: biofuels, energy, oil (all these topics)

OPEC threatens cut in investment because of biofuels Agrifuels creating insecurity of demand for their oil	Ron Steenblik	06 Jun 2007	Gristmill
According to an article by Javier Blas and Ed Crooks in the Financial Times (London), the Secretary-General of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Abdalla El-Badri, warned Western countries yesterday that their efforts to develop biofuels as an alternative energy source risked driving the price of oil 'through the roof'. Oh, the irony of it all.One of the main arguments used by proponents of the U.S. Government's heavily subsidized drive to d ...
Topics: biofuels, energy, international politics, oil (all these topics)

Samba Lessons What Brazil can teach the U.S. about energy and ethanol	Tom Philpott, Gordon Feller	14 Dec 2006	Main Dish
By Tom Philpott and Gordon Feller 14 Dec 2006 In 2006, Brazil officially achieved "energy independence" -- that is, its oil exports came into line with imports and cancelled them out. No longer beholden to foreign suppliers for its energy needs, the nation theoretically has no stake in costly Middle East military adventures to secure access to oil reserves. Grain alcohol? Haven't touched the stuff since college. Phot ...
Topics: biofuels, Brazil, energy, ethanol, oil (all these topics)

On the Road Again How the world got addicted to oil, and where biofuels will take us	Tom Philpott	04 Dec 2006	Main Dish
If oil is over, what's on the horizon? Photo: house.gov They may be hyped as the way of the future, but biofuels already count as a juggernaut. Supported by the government and embraced by the Big Three automakers, ethanol is surging in the United States. Biodiesel, meanwhile, is roaring ahead in Europe as the continent strives to meet its carbon-emission obligations under the Kyoto tr ...
Topics: biofuels, energy, oil (all these topics)

Biodiesel: The slippery facts	Clark Williams-Derry	23 Apr 2006	Gristmill
Biodiesel -- the cleaner-burning vegetable-based oil that can be substituted for ordinary petroleum diesel -- is getting a lot of press these days. That's not too surprising: alternatives to oil tend to get a lot of attention when fuel prices are rising, which they're certainly doing right now. Perhaps the biggest piece of recent policy news is Washington state's new renewable fuels standard, passed just last month, which mandates that 2 percent of the diesel s ...
Topics: biofuels, energy, oil (all these topics)

Stories About: biofuels AND energy AND oil