In previous posts we’ve expressed concern - to put it mildly - over the role emerging biofuel markets are having in accelerating tropical deforestation. In our posts “Deforestation and Global Warming,” “Biofueled Ethanol,” “Reforest the Tropics,” “IPCC 2007 & Deforestation,” “Is Biofuel Carbon Neutral?,” “Biofueled Global Warming,” and many others, we make the case that [...]

In our previous post, “Earthly Heating,” we noted that because we want to limit CO2 emissions, carbon neutral biofuel plantations crowd out food crops, and in the inner recesses of mega-cities of earth’s equatorial regions, food costs more, and the poor starve.  This is an over-simplification.
It is true that biofuel crops may raise the price of food, [...]

One of the more interesting propositions to face California’s voters in November 2006 is Proposition 87, which would tax in-state oil producers to fund alternative energy projects.  Proponents of this bill air a television commercial, narrated by Bill Clinton, where the Brazilian ethanol industry is referenced.  The closing message is “If Brazil can do it, so can California.”
This is [...]

Biofuel production is limited by the quantity of biomass on the planet. As we’ve demonstrated in our report Biofuel vs. Photovoltaics, there isn’t enough arable farmland on the planet for biofuel to even begin to replace crude oil. But what if farmland is not the only source for biofuel feedstock?
There are two primary categories of [...]

If you live in the midwestern United States, it’s getting pretty easy to find gasoline-ethanol blends. “E85″ is a gasoline-ethanol blend that is 85% ethanol, with the ethanol typically refined from corn. This fuel can run in most automobiles with only minor alterations. Some new vehicles are designed now to run interchangeably on either an [...]

Increasing prices for gasoline are having the welcome side effect of increasing the supply of alternative fuels. Unfortunately, alternative vehicle fuels are kind of like alternative energy in general - rapid percentage growth sounds impressive until you remember what a small base exists. While there are 685 filling stations in the U.S. offering “E85″ bioethanol, [...]

Did you know that biofuel has two distinct types? There’s ethanol from crops such as corn or sugar cane, and there’s biodiesel from crops such as rapeseed and jatropha and oil palms. Some plants, like corn, can be processed for ethanol and biodiesel at the same time.
There is an excellent source of information about biofuel [...]