Word: biodiesel
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...article on the emerging ethanol industry was both chilling and truthful, it's damaging to demonize the global effort to develop clean fuels as "myth," "scam" and "hype" [April 7]. It is no myth that thousands of scientific teams are working feverishly to create biofuels such as ethanol, biodiesel and biobutanol from nonfood plants grown on land unsuitable for food production. We could not have landed on the moon without first launching at Kitty Hawk. We are getting better at this every day. Mark Beyer, Detroit...
...viable alternatives that inhibit our breakneck carbon-emissions trajectory and have a potential to make a serious dent on the worldwide release of greenhouse gases. Among these are ethanol derived from sugar cane, which already drives approximately 85 percent of Brazil’s cars, and soy-derived biodiesel, which helps power all the diesel-burning trucks on our campus, according to David E. Harris, Jr., the general manager of operations and finance for Harvard University Transportation Services...
...According to National Geographic, soy-based biodiesel such as is used in Harvard’s fleet, contains 2.5 units of usable energy for every unit of energy used in its production (which compares favorably to corn ethanol’s ratio of 1.3:1), and decreases the emissions of carbon dioxide by 68 percent compared to standard diesel...
...This means that the 50,000 gallons of 20 percent biodiesel used by campus vehicles yearly cut total emissions of CO2 78,000 pounds—the equivalent of taking about eight average American cars off the road. That isn’t bad for one relatively small college. Moreover, soy-derived biodiesel is a byproduct of soybean processing, and its production does not decrease the food supply as greatly as that of corn or sugarcane ethanol...
Your cover story provides a distorted, inaccurate picture of biofuels. The overwhelming body of data demonstrates the carbon benefits of biofuels. For every unit of energy it takes to make domestic biodiesel, 3.5 units are gained, giving biodiesel the highest energy balance of any liquid fuel. It also has a 78% life-cycle carbon dioxide reduction. In 2007 alone, biodiesel's contribution to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions was the equivalent of removing 700,000 passenger vehicles from America's roadways. The U.S. biodiesel industry strongly opposes rain-forest destruction and nonsustainable agricultural practices. It is implementing a major initiative...