Grist | Topics | 166 Results

RESULTS		Results 151 – 166 of 166
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Headline	Author	Published	Section
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)

Call it what it is Ethanol subsidies, that is	David Roberts	09 Nov 2006	Gristmill
Oh great. The White House needs to recapture some political momentum after its party got shellacked this week. It also needs to make good on its laughable promise to "change the tone" and start working with Democrats to "get things done."So where does it turn? What issue can unite politicians across the fractious partisan divide?You guessed it: ethanol subsidies energy independence!The Bush administration will soon launch a big "energy independ ...
Topics: biofuels, energy, ethanol, politics (all these topics)

McCain's crooked talk express Flip flops on ethanol	David Roberts	01 Nov 2006	Gristmill
Today, Charlie Pierce wrote this: Someone please show me a single act of public political courage undertaken by John McCain since he won the New Hampshire primary in 2000 that he hasn't hedged, trimmed, or walked back completely. The Bush campaign trashed his wife and daughter, and he's spent the years since trying to get a job as the pool boy in Crawford. He gave a brave speech about the danger of political preachers, but he'd walk on his knees across broken gla ...
Topics: biofuels, energy, ethanol, John McCain, politics (all these topics)

Ethanomics 101 The shining promise of ethanol doesn't add up for farmers	Tom Philpott	25 Oct 2006	Victual Reality
No one can begrudge corn farmers their share of euphoria over the recent ethanol boom. Until very recently, their plight could be summed up by a bit of gallows humor I once heard from a dairy farmer: "I lose money on every gallon, so I try to make up for it on volume." Hopes are rising along with corn prices. That brief sentence sums up the desperation of large-scale farming. When p ...
Topics: ag policy, ag subsidies, agriculture, Big Ag, energy, ethanol, renewable energy, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Will ADM surrender gracefully to cellulosic ethanol?	David Roberts	10 Jun 2006	Gristmill
Don't miss a great piece by Sasha Lilley about Archer Daniels Midland and ethanol: "The dirty truth about green fuel." The latter part covers the environmental sins of corn-based ethanol -- familiar to Gristmillians -- but the first part provides some crucial context. It's about ADM. Here's a taste: ADM has more than 25,000 employees, net sales last year of $35.9 billion, with $1 billion in profits, as well as a recent 29 percent profit increase in the ...
Topics: biofuels, cellulosic ethanol, energy, ethanol (all these topics)

Pollan blogs on corn ethanol and local-food resources	David Roberts	26 May 2006	Gristmill
Did you know that foodie writer Michael Pollan (look for my interview on Tuesday!) has a blog? Probably not, because it's hidden behind the cursed NYT Select subscription wall. Too bad -- it's a great blog, and deserves wider readership. The latest entry reviews arguments against corn ethanol that will be familiar to readers of this blog, and concludes with this: So why the stampede to make ethanol from corn? Because we have so much of it, and such a powerful lob ...
Topics: agriculture, biofuels, ethanol, food, local food, organic food (all these topics)

Warts and Ethanol A new reliance on coal could sap green cred from the ethanol industry	Amanda Griscom Little	26 May 2006	Muckraker
As ethanol boosterism spreads far and wide -- from Bush's bully pulpit to the New York Times editorial page to green-group press releases -- a quietly emerging trend is threatening to undermine the biofuel's environmental credibility. How green is this ethanol plant? Photo: iStockphoto. More and more ethanol manufacturers are looking to power their plants with cheap coal i ...
Topics: coal, energy, ethanol, Muckraker (all these topics)

Big Ethanol ...	David Roberts	15 May 2006	Gristmill
... wins again. House Majority Leader John Boehner's attempt to lower the ethanol tariff (and thus allow ethanol-hungry oil refineries to purchase ethanol from overseas) has gone down in flames: Boehner, who is from Ohio, said last week that the United States was not producing enough ethanol to meet demand and that a temporary reduction in the 54-cent-a-gallon tariff could help boost available supplies and lower gasoline prices. ... Farm state ...
Topics: biofuels, economy, energy, ethanol, politics (all these topics)

ADM, high-fructose corn syrup, and ethanol A speculation about why ADM's HFCS business is booming.	Tom Philpott	10 May 2006	Gristmill
In the first quarter of 2006, as I reported yesterday, Archer Daniels Midland somehow managed to boost the price of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) despite mounting concern over the sweetener's health effects. The company booked a cool $113 million profit from HFCS over the quarter, more than three times more than it netted in the same period a year before ($33 million). This, despite a slowing domestic market for sweet soft drinks, as consumers increasingly switch to j ...
Topics: agriculture, biofuels, Brazil, business, ethanol, food, industrial ag (all these topics)

Ethanol dreams and ethanol realities	David Roberts	14 Apr 2006	Gristmill
Christopher Cook has a piece in the American Prospect identifying my central concern about the ethanol boom. To wit, here are the sustainability advocates: An array of ideas are afloat to encourage a more sustainable biofuels expansion: a diversified renewable energy policy that, rather than expanding corn crops, promotes more wind power and cellulosic energy from switchgrass and crop residues (which may favor localized, small-scale production); a federal vers ...
Topics: agriculture, biofuels, energy, ethanol (all these topics)

Ethanol and coal What's really disturbing about the new coal-fired ethanol plants.	Tom Philpott	27 Mar 2006	Gristmill
David's post about ethanol and coal inspired me to do a bit of research on just how much coal goes into producing G.W. Bush's favorite 'renewable,' 'clean-burning' fuel source. What I found is ... disturbing. First, some background. Before you can distill corn into fuel, you have to crush it. There are two ways to do so: wet milling and dry milling. According to this USDA document, dry milling accounts for about two-thirds of ethanol production, wet milling the rest ...
Topics: biofuels, coal, energy, ethanol (all these topics)

Media Shower: An addendum	Chris Schults	10 Mar 2006	Gristmill
When I was asked to start writing this weekly column, I toyed around with the idea of having myself a slogan: 'I watch TV so you don't have to.' It is a good thing I didn't, because I'm failing miserably. First, Brendon directs me to CBS's The Amazing Race, which is in its ninth season. I gave up watching the show a few seasons ago. But without Brendon's tip I wouldn't have realized that in episode two, which takes place in Brazil, the teams had to make their own et ...
Topics: biofuels, ethanol, green living, TV (all these topics)

Corn at the Right Time Ethanol is suddenly all the rage in D.C. and Detroit	Amanda Griscom Little	24 Feb 2006	Muckraker
It's as befuddling to see the "Live Green, Go Yellow" slogan splashed across the General Motors ads running throughout the Olympics as it was to hear the term "switchgrass" uttered by President Bush in his State of the Union speech last month. Here we have GM and Dubya, two of the world's most entrenched and heavy-hitting advocates of fossil-fuel consumption, sudde ...
Topics: business, energy, ethanol, Muckraker, politics (all these topics)

Biofuel: some numbers What's the most energy-efficient crop source for ethanol?	David Roberts	07 Feb 2006	Gristmill
Biofuel is the hot topic lately in the green blogosphere. There's legitimate dispute about the political and environmental wisdom of plant-based fuels, but at the very least everyone should be starting from a valid, shared set of numbers (oh, to dream). In an attempt to offer up such numbers, I'm going to ... rip off somebody smarter than me. Namely, Lester Brown, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, founder of the Earth Policy Institute, and author of the recently ...
Topics: biofuels, energy, ethanol (all these topics)

GM and ethanol Just because General Motors calls it green doesn't mean it is.	David Roberts	08 Jan 2006	Gristmill
Joel Makower reports that General Motors will lead a joint demonstration project "to learn more about consumer awareness and acceptance of E85 as a motor vehicle fuel by demonstrating its use in GM's flexible-fuel vehicles." The California Department of Transportation will use some flex-fuel vehicles and work with Chevron Technology Ventures to make sure there are filling stations that offer E85 (gas w/ 85% ethanol). A company called Pacific Ethanol will pr ...
Topics: biofuels, business, energy, ethanol (all these topics)

Mikey Likes It Bush's pick to head the USDA is a big ethanol booster	Amanda Griscom Little	09 Dec 2004	Muckraker
At a White House ceremony last week announcing the nomination of Nebraska Gov. Mike Johanns (R) to succeed Ann Veneman as agriculture secretary, President Bush called his pick "a strong proponent of alternative energy sources, such as ethanol and biodiesel," later adding that "in a new term, we'll continue policies that are pro-growth, pro-jobs, and pro-farmer." Johanns ( ...
Topics: agriculture, biofuels, cellulosic ethanol, Department of Agriculture, energy, ethanol, Muckraker, politics (all these topics)

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