Word: biofueled
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Rural states like Montana - where there is significant capacity for both wind power and biofuels - also stand to benefit from the transition to clean power. Montana can't produce a lot of the corn that currently goes to make most biofuel in the U.S., but it does have vast acreage that could be used to raise waste crops for cellulosic ethanol in the future, or biodiesel today. Schweitzer points out that his administration was able to pass a renewable energy portfolio standard, mandating that 15% of the state's power come from alternative sources by 2015. That's exactly...
...fastest way to start a fistfight among environmentalists is to bring up the topic of biofuels - plant-based liquid fuels like ethanol that could potentially take the place of petroleum. Biofuel revolutionaries - like Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla - see plant power as a way to break America's dependence on foreign oil, and produce auto fuel that doesn't kill the climate. Opponents dismiss biofuels - most of which are currently distilled from crops like corn and sugar cane - as a blind alley, one that drives up food prices without saving the earth...
...Farmers in 10 fields of 15 to 20 acres each in Nebraska and North and South Dakota grew switchgrass over five years, and kept track of how much fuel and fertilizer they used during the trials. Vogel and his colleagues showed that switchgrass yielded 540% more energy as a biofuel than the amount of energy used to grow, harvest and process it. (Corn ethanol yields just 25% more energy.) Greenhouse gas emissions from switchgrass fuel would be 94% lower than emissions from petroleum fuel - almost carbon neutral. Previous studies had come up with similar numbers in small-scale trials...
CONTEXT The alternative-fuel boom has caused a leap in demand for corn. In turn, many farmers looking to jump on the biofuel bandwagon have abandoned staples like barley and hops in favor of energy crops. Exacerbating the trend: last year's droughts, floods and unusual temperatures...
Technology has gotten us into the climate change mess, and we assume that technology will get us out of it. Hybrid cars, wind turbines, algae biofuel - businesses and policymakers alike are searching for the technological fixes that will decarbonize our lives. But the deeper problem may be how - and where - we live our lives. The dominant pattern of development in America - large houses and sprawling, auto-dependent suburbs - requires a heavy input of fossil fuels and an output of carbon emissions. The adoption of cleaner technologies will take us part of the way, but what we really need...