Word: ethanol
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...think we need a new 'Apollo project' - this time to fundamentally change our energy policy and end our reliance on foreign oil." But Franken will also be representing Minnesota: his website lists much longer and more detailed positions on agriculture. In the House, the rural caucus - big supporters of ethanol - was among the measure's biggest hurdles, and Franken is a big ethanol devotee. Though he has not made his position known on the climate-change bill, he is perceived as being a likely vote in favor. "Franken would help provide strong support for the President's climate-change initiative...
...machinery and petroleum-based fertilizers it takes to grow corn and other biofuel feedstocks, the energy-intensive plants that convert the crops into fuel and the trucks that transport the fuel to market. A slew of studies have concluded that when you include all these life-cycle emissions, corn ethanol only produces about 20% fewer emissions than gasoline, although cellulosic ethanol produced from feedstocks like switchgrass can reduce emissions around...
...renewable-fuels lobby thinks the EPA should just ignore the indirect emissions, because they're hard to calculate. But Searchinger points out several ways the EPA gave biofuels the benefit of the doubt. Its analysis of direct emissions gave corn ethanol an advantage over gasoline nearly three times larger than most previous studies; it gave cellulosic ethanol savings 50% higher than nearly all other studies. It based most of its numbers not on what farmers and ethanol producers do now but on what it hopes they will do in 2022, assuming dramatic increases in crop yields and energy efficiency...
...starkest example of the problems with the analysis is the time horizon. When the EPA studied a reasonable 30-year time period, even with its generous assumptions, soy biodiesel and corn-ethanol plants powered by coal or natural gas actually produced more emissions than gasoline; corn ethanol only passed the stress test (and just barely) when powered by the cleanest possible power. And that analysis assumed it's a good trade-off to accept massive emissions today in exchange for reductions over 30 years, when in fact massive emissions today could help trigger devastating ice melts and other feedback loops...
...uncertainty when it comes to biofuels. But it's not good uncertainty. Study after study suggests that growing fuel could be a disaster for the planet, while raising global food prices and promoting global food riots. The amount of grain it takes to fill an SUV with ethanol could feed an adult for a year; we need every acre of farmland to feed the world. President Obama never claimed to be a reformer when it came to ethanol, and he and Vilsack have been big supporters of next-generation biofuels. Maybe there's nothing EPA officials can do to stop...