Jan 24, 2007

"Ethanol biofuel craze" is likely to divert attention from better ways...

The Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson, challenged by fivefold increase in the production of ethanol. "Naturally, corn farmers love this. They've been the program's main beneficiaries. Although ethanol displaces only tiny amounts of oil (slightly more than 1 percent)" "Further: Ethanol has only about two-thirds of the energy value of an equal volume of gasoline. When you do all the arithmetic, 60 billion gallons of ethanol displace just under 1 billion barrels of gasoline. If that merely offsets increases in oil use, it won't cut existing import dependence or greenhouse gases." Read full here