Word: ethanol
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Environmentalists are generally ecstatic about Chu, but at a time when coal plants and heavily subsidized corn ethanol are creating huge environmental problems, some question his enthusiasm for "clean coal" and "third-generation biofuels," which do not yet exist, as well as his support for new nuclear power, which has become wildly expensive. They recall President George W. Bush talking up future technological miracles as an alternative to present-day action, and they want Chu to focus on proven technologies that can help boost efficiency and conservation to reduce energy demand now, plus on renewables to create zero-emissions supply...
...free food, and corn comes with hidden costs. The crop is heavily fertilized - both with chemicals like nitrogen and with subsidies from Washington. Over the past decade, the Federal Government has poured more than $50 billion into the corn industry, keeping prices for the crop - at least until corn ethanol skewed the market - artificially low. That's why McDonald's can sell you a Big Mac, fries and a Coke for around $5 - a bargain, given that the meal contains nearly 1,200 calories, more than half the daily recommended requirement for adults. "Taxpayer subsidies basically underwrite cheap grain...
Globally, average alcohol consumption per person is the equivalent of about 1.6 gallons (6.2 liters) of pure ethanol a year, or about 12 units a week. Annual consumption per person was found to be highest in Europe, where it equals 3.1 gallons (11.9 liters) of ethanol (21.5 units a week). That compares with 2.5 gallons (9.4 liters) a year (18 units a week) in North America and 0.2 gallons (0.7 liters) a year (1.3 units a week) in the eastern Mediterranean, which has the lowest levels. Those figures, according to Rehm's study, mean that "globally, the effect of alcohol...
Comprehensive energy reform will be even harder to push through Congress in a form that still looks like reform; Agriculture Committee chairman Collin Peterson of Minnesota has already watered down the House version to protect subsidized industrial farmers and their catastrophic ethanol boondoggles, and the legislation faces even rougher rapids in the Senate. But a less ambitious effort to bring the entire country in line with the six states that have already decoupled utility profits from electricity sales - and the 16 that have done the same with natural gas - would be less controversial as well. Most utilities would be delighted...
...Peterson allowed that the Obama Administration could weigh in on the EPA's role in the issue, if any). And Waxman agreed to bar the EPA for five years from calculating how much greenhouse-gas emissions are generated when forests are converted to crop fields for the production of ethanol and biofuels, which many environmentalists believe do more harm than good. The move helps get these controversial sources of energy counted as renewable, and therefore eligible for the Renewable Energy Standard, which obliges large electricity providers to use at least 20% renewable energy sources...