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POPSGreens Pave Way for Republican Comeback
than most other sorts of development, whether they be new or expanding suburban communities, roads, farming or a green energy projects -- like wind farms, solar panel fields, and cellulosic ethanol plants. Consider, for example, how much “fragile” environment would be disturbed by T. Boone Pickens’ plan to build the largest wind farm in the world on 400,000 acres in the Texas panhandle. While the Greens say they support Pickens’ effort, in what way is the Texas panhandle less fragile than the Utah desert? Last spring, the BLM placed a moratorium on solar power projects to be built on public lands, pending environmental impact studies. The necessary transmission lines and water use might disturb the native vegetation and wildlife, says the BLM. But the solar power industry screamed bloody murder and the moratorium was soon rescinded. Given that the Greens oppose oil and gas drilling everywhere, the rest of us -- especially congressional Republicans --
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POPSBailout Bill Loops In Green Tech, IRS Snooping • One-year extension for wind and refined coal energy tax credits. A production credit for electricity produced from renewable marine energy sources Energy credits for "small wind properties," geothermal heat pump systems, and energy-efficient residential properties. • New renewable-energy bonds. Up to $800 billion in energy bonds may be offered to the public... • Tax credits for "cellulosic biofuels" and for "carbon dioxide sequestration." An extension of an alternative fuel credit. Tax credits for "new qualified plug-in electric-drive motor vehicles." Bicycle commuters get a nod,... The bailout bill also gives the Internal Revenue Service new authority to conduct undercover operations. It would immunize the IRS... federal laws, including permitting IRS agents to run businesses for an extended sting operation.. Anti-Drug Abuse Act in 1988, the IRS has possessed this authority temporarily, with occasional multiple-year lapses...such undercover authority would be made perma
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POPSBring on the switchgrass Though we need to improve upon the methods, it seems to make sense to use plant waste rather than corn to produce ethanol.
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POPSPoets Will Celebrate Al Gore 1,000 Years From Now Gore spotlights a number of these companies, including Smart Car, Amyris Biotechnologies, Altra Biofuels, Mascoma (cellulosic ethanol), Great Point Energy (biomass-to-gas and carbon capture technology), Altarock Energy (geothermal energy), Bloomenergy (fuel cells), Missole (solar technology) and Ausra (solar technology). Flashing their corporate logos on the screen, Gore states, “Here are just a few of the investments that I personally think make sense. I have a stake in these….” Putting aside the questionable legality of Gore’s promotion of his investments -- conduct that could very well be contrary to federal and state securities laws that forbid an unlicensed individual from promoting unregistered securities to the public -- it seems that it’s important to change the laws so that Gore can expand the $100 million-plus fortune he’s already accumulated since leaving public service in 2001.
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POPSNewsweek Interview: Craig Venter's CO2-Eating Miracle Bacterium "Venter hopes his bugs will supplant the need for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies by making CO2 a commodity, instead of a byproduct to be disposed of. According to Venter, large, bacteria-processing fermenters, similar to those used to make beer and wine, would replace traditional refineries. He expects the first generation of his engineered bacteria to be commercially available within the next year or two years. He made it a point to stress that he and his colleagues were thinking "in terms of years, not decades."
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POPSEasing the Ethanol Mandate Smart move on McCain's part. He gets to look like he's doing something to resolve the food crisis. Will EPA waive the increased ethanol production? Not a chance.
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POPSOklahoma: Home To The World's Largest Switchgrass For Energy Field Oklahoma has made an aggressive establishment of 1,000 acres of switchgrass: the first of its size anywhere in the world focused on biomass production. The fields also will serve as a "living classroom" where agricultural producers, policymakers and the general public can see and experience these crops, which will play a key role in the United States' energy future. A unique "living laboratory" to understand the production and long-term impact of bio-energy crops, as well as experiment with new production techniques and critical harvest, collection and transport methods. This dedicated land will allow us to demonstrate the advantages of switchgrass. A cellulosic bio-refinery currently being constructed by in Hugoton, Kansas (less than 35 miles from the fields) to process the switchgrass into bio-fuel. “Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain, and the wavin' switchgrass can sure smell sweet…”
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POPSCongress Considers Cellulose Ethanol In the Cato-at-Liberty blog post "Wishful Thinking on Cellulosic Ethanol," Indur Goklany, author of the Cato book The Improving State of the World, writes: "If cellulosic ethanol proves to be as profitable as its backers hope, farmers will divert even more land and water to producing the cellulose instead of food. All this means we'll be more or less back to where we were. Food will once again be competing with fuel. And land and water will be diverted from the rest of nature to meet the human demand for fuel.
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POPSHas the World gone crazy? We deplete oil, we sacrifice our rainforests, denude and wreck our agricultural land, we see basic food prices disenfranchise the poor - we simply are failing miserably to see the folly of our ways.
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POPSReplacing Petroleum with Switchgrass Ethanol The joint USDA-ARS and Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources study also found greenhouse gas emissions from cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass were 94 percent lower than estimated greenhouse gas emissions from gasoline production.
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POPSThe Myth Of Energy Independence Where did this notion of energy "independence" come from? Energy independence is not a new idea in American politics. Richard Nixon first started talking about it in 1974. The problem is it's no more feasible today than it was then. What about cellulosic ethanol, made from switch grass or corn stubble? I cite an analysis that was done by former CIA Director John Deutsch, who's now a professor at MIT. If his estimates are correct, producing enough cellulosic ethanol to displace just half of America's daily consumption of 20 million barrels of oil would require the U.S. to plant an area approximately equal to 1.5 times the size of Texas. That's a big area. If we could get the efficiency of the photovoltaic panels high enough, solar, ultimately, has more applicability. There are a whole lot of rooftops in this country you could put them on. Researchers are having better luck at converting larger parts of the light spectrum into energy.
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POPS Ethanol's Subsidy::It Has No Commercial Merit The truth is that if ethanol has commercial merit, it doesn't need the subsidy. And if it doesn't, no amount of subsidy will bestow it. The U.S. Energy Information Administration believes the practical limit for domestic ethanol production is about 700,000 barrels per day -- in 2030. In 23 years, that will translate into about 6 percent of the U.S. transportation fuels market. Ethanol does not reduce gasoline prices. If you lived in urban areas that used reformulated gasoline last summer -- that's the environmentally "clean" gasoline required for areas with air pollution problems -- you might have paid up to 60 cents a gallon more for gasoline. That's because the federal government required oil refineries to use 4 billion gallons of ethanol in 2006, regardless of price, and gas pump prices last summer reflected the fact that ethanol was twice as expensive as conventional gas in wholesale markets, and far more costly to deliver.
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POPSCan biofuels rescue American prairies? Guess who is making all the money on this? Global agribusiness companies. Of course, if policy changes, they would lose a lot of money, too. How can people and birds fight such huge vested interests in perpetuating catastrophic policies? Where is Ralph Nader ... or someone? See also - http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/CA81DCB3-F08B-4725-BECE-63F1B3043460/
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POPSThe plug-in hybrid-vehicle era begins For years, hobbyists and a few companies have been adding bigger battery packs to hybrid vehicles, which have both battery power and an internal combustion engine, and plugging them into electrical outlets. The idea of the "plug-in hybrid" has now caught the attention of government officials and researchers, who note that gas consumption would plummet if drivers could rely almost exclusively on electricity for average daily driving of about 33 miles.
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POPSWill Cellulosic Ethanol Take Off? That's good news because many experts estimate that corn-ethanol producers will run out of land, in part because of competing demand for corn-based food, limiting the total production to about 15 billion gallons of fuel. (Already, corn-ethanol plants--existing and planned, combined--have a capacity of about 11 billion gallons.) The greater productivity of cellulosic sources should eventually allow them to produce as much as 150 billion gallons of ethanol by 2050, according to a report by the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Cellulosic-ethanol companies are hopeful that they can meet this goal.
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POPSCheaper, Cleaner Ethanol from Biotech Corn If the researchers are able to overcome some of these challenges, the biotech corn could lead to more-efficient production of ethanol, starting by making better use of corn kernels. Much of the corn kernel contains cellulose that isn't converted into ethanol in conventional ethanol plants. Some developers are considering adding equipment to existing ethanol plants for processing this corn-grain cellulose.
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POPSCivilization Threatened by Global Warming - Six Leading Scientists Say See first source for the full article. Present knowledge does not permit accurate specification of the dangerous level of human-made GHGs. However, it is much lower than has commonly been assumed. If we have not already passed the dangerous level, the energy infrastructure in place ensures that we will pass it within several decades. We conclude that a feasible strategy for planetary rescue almost surely requires a means of extracting GHGs from the air. Development of CO2 capture at power plants, with below-ground CO2 sequestration, may be a critical element. Injection of the CO2 well beneath the ocean floor assures its stability (House et al. 2006). If the power plant fuel is derived from biomass, such as cellulosic fibres grown without excessive fertilization that produces N2O or other offsetting GHG emissions, it will provide continuing drawdown of atmospheric CO2.
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POPSFuel vs. Food USDA report And the fabulous thing is that many ethanol plants are converting to using cellulosic ethanol production; using the stalks and leaves of corn rather than the kernel itself. This movement brings the food vs. fuel debate to a dead end. Now you can have your corn (for fuel) and eat it too.
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