[graffis-l]bio fuels starving the poor

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>1. How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor Mark Graffis

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>1. How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor

>Posted by: " Mark Graffis " mgraffis mgraffis

>Sun May 27, 2007 6:44 pm (PST)

>Burning food

>

> " A recent paper in the US journal Foreign Affairs estimates that filling a

>95-litre fuel tank with pure ethanol will require about 200 kg of corn,

>which has enough calories to feed a person for a year. "

>http://tinyurl.com/26f425

>

>How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor

>By C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer http://tinyurl.com/3c6dlt

>

> From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2007

>

>Summary: Thanks to high oil prices and hefty subsidies, corn-based ethanol

>is now all the rage in the United States. But it takes so much supply to

>keep ethanol production going that the price of corn -- and those of other

>food staples -- is shooting up around the world. To stop this trend, and

>prevent even more people from going hungry, Washington must conserve more

>and diversify ethanol's production inputs.

>

>C. Ford Runge is Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Applied

>Economics and Law and Director of the Center for International Food and

>Agricultural Policy at the University of Minnesota. Benjamin Senauer is

>Professor of Applied Economics and Co-director of the Food Industry Center

>at the University of Minnesota.

>

>THE ETHANOL BUBBLE

>

>In 1974, as the United States was reeling from the oil embargo imposed by

>the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Congress took the first

>of many legislative steps to promote ethanol made from corn as an

>alternative fuel. On April 18, 1977, amid mounting calls for energy

>independence, President Jimmy Carter donned his cardigan sweater and

>appeared on television to tell Americans that balancing energy demands

>with available domestic resources would be an effort the " moral equivalent

>of war. " The gradual phaseout of lead in the 1970s and 1980s provided an

>additional boost to the fledgling ethanol industry. (Lead, a toxic

>substance, is a performance enhancer when added to gasoline, and it was

>partly replaced by ethanol.) A series of tax breaks and subsidies also

>helped. In spite of these measures, with each passing year the United

>States became more dependent on imported petroleum, and ethanol remained

>marginal at best.

>

>Now, thanks to a combination of high oil prices and even more generous

>government subsidies, corn-based ethanol has become the rage. There were

>110 ethanol refineries in operation in the United States at the end of

>2006, according to the Renewable Fuels Association. Many were being

>expanded, and another 73 were under construction. When these projects are

>completed, by the end of 2008, the United States' ethanol production

>capacity will reach an estimated 11.4 billion gallons per year. In his

>latest State of the Union address, President George W. Bush called on the

>country to produce 35 billion gallons of renewable fuel a year by 2017,

>nearly five times the level currently mandated.

>

>The push for ethanol and other biofuels has spawned an industry that

>depends on billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies, and not only in the

>United States. In 2005, global ethanol production was 9.66 billion

>gallons, of which Brazil produced 45.2 percent (from sugar cane) and the

>United States 44.5 percent (from corn). Global production of biodiesel

>(most of it in Europe), made from oilseeds, was almost one billion gallons.

>

>The industry's growth has meant that a larger and larger share of corn

>production is being used to feed the huge mills that produce ethanol.

>According to some estimates, ethanol plants will burn up to half of U.S.

>domestic corn supplies within a few years. Ethanol demand will bring 2007

>inventories of corn to their lowest levels since 1995 (a drought year),

>even though 2006 yielded the third-largest corn crop on record. Iowa may

>soon become a net corn importer.

>

>The enormous volume of corn required by the ethanol industry is sending

>shock waves through the food system. (The United States accounts for some

>40 percent of the world's total corn production and over half of all corn

>exports.) In March 2007, corn futures rose to over $4.38 a bushel, the

>highest level in ten years. Wheat and rice prices have also surged to

>decade highs, because even as those grains are increasingly being used as

>substitutes for corn, farmers are planting more acres with corn and fewer

>acres with other crops.

>

>This might sound like nirvana to corn producers, but it is hardly that for

>consumers, especially in poor developing countries, who will be hit with a

>double shock if both food prices and oil prices stay high. The World Bank

>has estimated that in 2001, 2.7 billion people in the world were living on

>the equivalent of less than $2 a day; to them, even marginal increases in

>the cost of staple grains could be devastating. Filling the 25-gallon tank

>of an SUV with pure ethanol requires over 450 pounds of corn -- which

>contains enough calories to feed one person for a year. By putting

>pressure on global supplies of edible crops, the surge in ethanol

>production will translate into higher prices for both processed and staple

>foods around the world. Biofuels have tied oil and food prices together in

>ways that could profoundly upset the relationships between food producers,

>consumers, and nations in the years ahead, with potentially devastating

>implications for both global poverty and food security.

>

>THE OIL AND BIOFUEL ECONOMY

>

>In the United States and other large economies, the ethanol industry is

>artificially buoyed by government subsidies, minimum production levels,

>and tax credits. High oil prices over the past few years have made ethanol

>naturally competitive, but the U.S. government continues to heavily

>subsidize corn farmers and ethanol producers. Direct corn subsidies

>equaled $8.9 billion in 2005. Although these payments will fall in 2006

>and 2007 because of high corn prices, they may soon be dwarfed by the

>panoply of tax credits, grants, and government loans included in energy

>legislation passed in 2005 and in a pending farm bill designed to support

>ethanol producers. The federal government already grants ethanol blenders

>a tax allowance of 51 cents per gallon of ethanol they make, and many

>states pay out additional subsidies.

>

>Consumption of ethanol in the United States was expected to reach over

>6 billion gallons in 2006. (Consumption of biodiesel was expected to be

>about 250 million gallons.) In 2005, the U.S. government mandated the use

>of 7.5 billion gallons of biofuels per year by 2012; in early 2007, 37

>governors proposed raising that figure to 12 billion gallons by 2010; and

>last January, President Bush raised it further, to 35 billion gallons by

>2017. Six billion gallons of ethanol are needed every year to replace the

>fuel additive known as MTBE, which is being phased out due to its

>polluting effects on ground water.

>

>The European Commission is using legislative measures and directives to

>promote biodiesel, produced mainly in Europe, made from rapeseeds and

>sunflower seeds. In 2005, the European Union produced 890 million gallons

>of biodiesel, over 80 percent of the world's total. The EU's Common

>Agricultural Policy also promotes the production of ethanol from a

>combination of sugar beets and wheat with direct and indirect subsidies.

>Brussels aims to have 5.75 percent of motor fuel consumed in the European

>Union come from biofuels by 2010 and 10 percent by 2020.

>

>Brazil, which currently produces approximately the same amount of ethanol

>as the United States, derives almost all of it from sugar cane. Like the

>United States, Brazil began its quest for alternative energy in the

>mid-1970s. The government has offered incentives, set technical standards,

>and invested in supporting technologies and market promotion. It has

>mandated that all diesel contain two percent biodiesel by 2008 and five

>percent biodiesel by 2013. It has also required that the auto industry

>produce engines that can use biofuels and has developed wide-ranging

>industrial and land-use strategies to promote them. Other countries are

>also jumping on the biofuel bandwagon. In Southeast Asia, vast areas of

>tropical forest are being cleared and burned to plant oil palms destined

>for conversion to biodiesel.

>

>This trend has strong momentum. Despite a recent decline, many experts

>expect the price of crude oil to remain high in the long term. Demand for

>petroleum continues to increase faster than supplies, and new sources of

>oil are often expensive to exploit or located in politically risky areas.

>According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's latest

>projections, global energy consumption will rise by 71 percent between

>2003 and 2030, with demand from developing countries, notably China and

>India, surpassing that from members of the Organization for Economic

>Cooperation and Development by 2015. The result will be sustained upward

>pressure on oil prices, which will allow ethanol and biodiesel producers

>to pay much higher premiums for corn and oilseeds than was conceivable

>just a few years ago. The higher oil prices go, the higher ethanol prices

>can go while remaining competitive -- and the more ethanol producers can

>pay for corn. If oil reaches $80 per barrel, ethanol producers could

>afford to pay well over $5 per bushel for corn.

>

>With the price of raw materials at such highs, the biofuel craze would

>place significant stress on other parts of the agricultural sector. In

>fact, it already does. In the United States, the growth of the biofuel

>industry has triggered increases not only in the prices of corn, oilseeds,

>and other grains but also in the prices of seemingly unrelated crops and

>products. The use of land to grow corn to feed the ethanol maw is reducing

>the acreage devoted to other crops. Food processors who use crops such as

>peas and sweet corn have been forced to pay higher prices to keep their

>supplies secure -- costs that will eventually be passed on to consumers.

>Rising feed prices are also hitting the livestock and poultry industries.

>According to Vernon Eidman, a professor emeritus of agribusiness

>management at the University of Minnesota, higher feed costs have caused

>returns to fall sharply, especially in the poultry and swine sectors. If

>returns continue to drop, production will decline, and the prices for

>chicken, turkey, pork, milk, and eggs will rise. A number of Iowa's pork

>producers could go out of business in the next few years as they are

>forced to compete with ethanol plants for corn supplies.

>

>Proponents of corn-based ethanol argue that acreage and yields can be

>increased to satisfy the rising demand for ethanol. But U.S. corn yields

>have been rising by a little less than two percent annually over the last

>ten years, and even a doubling of those gains could not meet current

>demand. As more acres are planted with corn, land will have to be pulled

>from other crops or environmentally fragile areas, such as those protected

>by the Department of Agriculture's Conservation Reserve Program.

>

>In addition to these fundamental forces, speculative pressures have

>created what might be called a " biofuel mania " : prices are rising because

>many buyers think they will. Hedge funds are making huge bets on corn and

>the bull market unleashed by ethanol. The biofuel mania is commandeering

>grain stocks with a disregard for the obvious consequences. It seems to

>unite powerful forces, including motorists' enthusiasm for large,

>fuel-inefficient vehicles and guilt over the ecological consequences of

>petroleum-based fuels. But even as ethanol has created opportunities for

>huge profits for agribusiness, speculators, and some farmers, it has upset

>the traditional flows of commodities and the patterns of trade and

>consumption both inside and outside of the agricultural sector.

>

>This craze will create a different problem if oil prices decline because

>of, say, a slowdown in the global economy. With oil at $30 a barrel,

>producing ethanol would no longer be profitable unless corn sold for less

>than $2 a bushel, and that would spell a return to the bad old days of low

>prices for U.S. farmers. Undercapitalized ethanol plants would be at risk,

>and farmer-owned cooperatives would be especially vulnerable. Calls for

>subsidies, mandates, and tax breaks would become even more shrill than

>they are now: there would be clamoring for a massive bailout of an

>overinvested industry. At that point, the major investments that have been

>made in biofuels would start to look like a failed gamble. On the other

>hand, if oil prices hover around $55-$60, ethanol producers could pay from

>$3.65 to $4.54 for a bushel of corn and manage to make a normal 12 percent

>profit.

>

>Whatever happens in the oil market, the drive for energy independence,

>which has been the basic justification for huge investments in and

>subsidies for ethanol production, has already made the industry dependent

>on high oil prices.

>

>CORNUCOPIA

>

>One root of the problem is that the biofuel industry has long been

>dominated not by market forces but by politics and the interests of a few

>large companies. Corn has become the prime raw material even though

>biofuels could be made efficiently from a variety of other sources, such

>as grasses and wood chips, if the government funded the necessary research

>and development. But in the United States, at least, corn and soybeans

>have been used as primary inputs for many years thanks in large part to

>the lobbying efforts of corn and soybean growers and Archer Daniels

>Midland Company (ADM), the biggest ethanol producer in the U.S. market.

>

>Since the late 1960s, ADM positioned itself as the " supermarket to the

>world " and aimed to create value from bulk commodities by transforming

>them into processed products that command heftier prices. In the 1970s,

>ADM started making ethanol and other products resulting from the

>wet-milling of corn, such as high fructose corn syrup. It quickly grew

>from a minor player in the feed market to a global powerhouse. By 1980,

>ADM's ethanol production had reached 175 million gallons per year, and

>high fructose corn syrup had become a ubiquitous sweetening agent in

>processed foods. In 2006, ADM was the largest producer of ethanol in the

>United States: it made more than 1.07 billion gallons, over four times

>more than its nearest rival, VeraSun Energy. In early 2006, it announced

>plans to increase its capital investment in ethanol from $700 million to

>$1.2 billion in 2008 and increase production by 47 percent, or close to

>500 million gallons, by 2009.

>

>ADM owes much of its growth to political connections, especially to key

>legislators who can earmark special subsidies for its products. Vice

>President Hubert Humphrey advanced many such measures when he served as a

>senator from Minnesota. Senator Bob Dole (R-Kans.) advocated tirelessly

>for the company during his long career. As the conservative critic James

>Bovard noted over a decade ago, nearly half of ADM's profits have come

>from products that the U.S. government has either subsidized or protected.

>

>Partly as a result of such government support, ethanol (and to a lesser

>extent biodiesel) is now a major fixture of the United States'

>agricultural and energy sectors. In addition to the federal government's

>51-cents-per-gallon tax credit for ethanol, smaller producers get a

>10-cents-per-gallon tax reduction on the first 15 million gallons they

>produce. There is also the " renewable fuel standard, " a mandatory level of

>nonfossil fuel to be used in motor vehicles, which has set off a political

>bidding war. Despite already high government subsidies, Congress is

>considering lavishing more money on biofuels. Legislation related to the

>2007 farm bill introduced by Representative Ron Kind (D-Wis.) calls for

>raising loan guarantees for ethanol producers from $200 million to $2

>billion. Advocates of corn-based ethanol have rationalized subsidies by

>pointing out that greater ethanol demand pushes up corn prices and brings

>down subsidies to corn growers.

>

>The ethanol industry has also become a theater of protectionism in U.S.

>trade policy. Unlike oil imports, which come into the country duty-free,

>most ethanol currently imported into the United States carries a

>54-cents-per-gallon tariff, partly because cheaper ethanol from countries

>such as Brazil threatens U.S. producers. (Brazilian sugar cane can be

>converted to ethanol more efficiently than can U.S. corn.) The Caribbean

>Basin Initiative could undermine this protection: Brazilian ethanol can

>already be shipped duty-free to CBI countries, such as Costa Rica, El

>Salvador, or Jamaica, and the agreement allows it to go duty-free from

>there to the United States. But ethanol supporters in Congress are pushing

>for additional legislation to limit those imports. Such government

>measures shield the industry from competition despite the damaging

>repercussions for consumers.

>

>STARVING THE HUNGRY

>

>Biofuels may have even more devastating effects in the rest of the world,

>especially on the prices of basic foods. If oil prices remain high --

>which is likely -- the people most vulnerable to the price hikes brought

>on by the biofuel boom will be those in countries that both suffer food

>deficits and import petroleum. The risk extends to a large part of the

>developing world: in 2005, according to the UN Food and Agriculture

>Organization, most of the 82 low-income countries with food deficits were

>also net oil importers.

>

>Even major oil exporters that use their petrodollars to purchase food

>imports, such as Mexico, cannot escape the consequences of the hikes in

>food prices. In late 2006, the price of tortilla flour in Mexico, which

>gets 80 percent of its corn imports from the United States, doubled thanks

>partly to a rise in U.S. corn prices from $2.80 to $4.20 a bushel over the

>previous several months. (Prices rose even though tortillas are made

>mainly from Mexican-grown white corn because industrial users of the

>imported yellow corn, which is used for animal feed and processed foods,

>started buying the cheaper white variety.) The price surge was exacerbated

>by speculation and hoarding. With about half of Mexico's 107 million

>people living in poverty and relying on tortillas as a main source of

>calories, the public outcry was fierce. In January 2007, Mexico's new

>president, Felipe Calderón, was forced to cap the prices of corn products.

>

>The International Food Policy Research Institute, in Washington, D.C., has

>produced sobering estimates of the potential global impact of the rising

>demand for biofuels. Mark Rosegrant, an IFPRI division director, and his

>colleagues project that given continued high oil prices, the rapid

>increase in global biofuel production will push global corn prices up by

>20 percent by 2010 and 41 percent by 2020. The prices of oilseeds,

>including soybeans, rapeseeds, and sunflower seeds, are projected to rise

>by 26 percent by 2010 and 76 percent by 2020, and wheat prices by 11

>percent by 2010 and 30 percent by 2020. In the poorest parts of

>sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where cassava is a staple,

>its price is expected to increase by 33 percent by 2010 and 135 percent by

>2020. The projected price increases may be mitigated if crop yields

>increase substantially or ethanol production based on other raw materials

>(such as trees and grasses) becomes commercially viable. But unless

>biofuel policies change significantly, neither development is likely.

>

>The production of cassava-based ethanol may pose an especially grave

>threat to the food security of the world's poor. Cassava, a tropical

>potato-like tuber also known as manioc, provides one-third of the caloric

>needs of the population in sub-Saharan Africa and is the primary staple

>for over 200 million of Africa's poorest people. In many tropical

>countries, it is the food people turn to when they cannot afford anything

>else. It also serves as an important reserve when other crops fail because

>it can grow in poor soils and dry conditions and can be left in the ground

>to be harvested as needed.

>

>Thanks to its high-starch content, cassava is also an excellent source of

>ethanol. As the technology for converting it to fuel improves, many

>countries -- including China, Nigeria, and Thailand -- are considering

>using more of the crop to that end. If peasant farmers in developing

>countries could become suppliers for the emerging industry, they would

>benefit from the increased income. But the history of industrial demand

>for agricultural crops in these countries suggests that large producers

>will be the main beneficiaries. The likely result of a boom in

>cassava-based ethanol production is that an increasing number of poor

>people will struggle even more to feed themselves.

>

>Participants in the 1996 World Food Summit set out to cut the number of

>chronically hungry people in the world -- people who do not eat enough

>calories regularly to be healthy and active -- from 823 million in 1990 to

>about 400 million by 2015. The Millennium Development Goals established by

>the United Nations in 2000 vowed to halve the proportion of the world's

>chronically underfed population from 16 percent in 1990 to eight percent

>in 2015. Realistically, however, resorting to biofuels is likely to

>exacerbate world hunger. Several studies by economists at the World Bank

>and elsewhere suggest that caloric consumption among the world's poor

>declines by about half of one percent whenever the average prices of all

>major food staples increase by one percent. When one staple becomes more

>expensive, people try to replace it with a cheaper one, but if the prices

>of nearly all staples go up, they are left with no alternative.

>

>In a study of global food security we conducted in 2003, we projected that

>given the rates of economic and population growth, the number of hungry

>people throughout the world would decline by 23 percent, to about 625

>million, by 2025, so long as agricultural productivity improved enough to

>keep the relative price of food constant. But if, all other things being

>equal, the prices of staple foods increased because of demand for

>biofuels, as the IFPRI projections suggest they will, the number of

>food-insecure people in the world would rise by over 16 million for every

>percentage increase in the real prices of staple foods. That means that

>1.2 billion people could be chronically hungry by 2025 -- 600 million more

>than previously predicted.

>

>The world's poorest people already spend 50 to 80 percent of their total

>household income on food. For the many among them who are landless

>laborers or rural subsistence farmers, large increases in the prices of

>staple foods will mean malnutrition and hunger. Some of them will tumble

>over the edge of subsistence into outright starvation, and many more will

>die from a multitude of hunger-related diseases.

>

>THE GRASS IS GREENER

>

>And for what? Limited environmental benefits at best. Although it is

>important to think of ways to develop renewable energy, one should also

>carefully examine the eager claims that biofuels are " green. " Ethanol and

>biodiesel are often viewed as environmentally friendly because they are

>plant-based rather than petroleum-based. In fact, even if the entire corn

>crop in the United States were used to make ethanol, that fuel would

>replace only 12 percent of current U.S. gasoline use. Thinking of ethanol

>as a green alternative to fossil fuels reinforces the chimera of energy

>independence and of decoupling the interests of the United States from an

>increasingly troubled Middle East.

>

>Should corn and soybeans be used as fuel crops at all? Soybeans and

>especially corn are row crops that contribute to soil erosion and water

>pollution and require large amounts of fertilizer, pesticides, and fuel to

>grow, harvest, and dry. They are the major cause of nitrogen runoff -- the

>harmful leakage of nitrogen from fields when it rains -- of the type that

>has created the so-called dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, an ocean area

>the size of New Jersey that has so little oxygen it can barely support

>life. In the United States, corn and soybeans are typically planted in

>rotation, because soybeans add nitrogen to the soil, which corn needs to

>grow. But as corn increasingly displaces soybeans as a main source of

>ethanol, it will be cropped continuously, which will require major

>increases in nitrogen fertilizer and aggravate the nitrogen runoff problem.

>

>Nor is corn-based ethanol very fuel efficient. Debates over the " net

>energy balance " of biofuels and gasoline -- the ratio between the energy

>they produce and the energy needed to produce them -- have raged for

>decades. For now, corn-based ethanol appears to be favored over gasoline,

>and biodiesel over petroleum diesel -- but not by much. Scientists at the

>Argonne National Laboratory and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory

>have calculated that the net energy ratio of gasoline is 0.81, a result

>that implies an input larger than the output. Corn-based ethanol has a

>ratio that ranges between 1.25 and

>1.35, which is better than breaking even. Petroleum diesel has an energy

>ratio of 0.83, compared with that of biodiesel made from soybean oil,

>which ranges from 1.93 to 3.21. (Biodiesel produced from other fats and

>oils, such as restaurant grease, may be more energy efficient.)

>

>Similar results emerge when biofuels are compared with gasoline using

>other indices of environmental impact, such as greenhouse gas emissions.

>The full cycle of the production and use of corn-based ethanol releases

>less greenhouse gases than does that of gasoline, but only by 12 to 26

>percent. The production and use of biodiesel emits 41 to 78 percent less

>such gases than do the production and use of petroleum-based diesel fuels.

>

>Another point of comparison is greenhouse gas emissions per mile driven,

>which takes account of relative fuel efficiency. Using gasoline blends

>with 10 percent corn-based ethanol instead of pure gasoline lowers

>emissions by 2 percent. If the blend is 85 percent ethanol (which only

>flexible-fuel vehicles can run on), greenhouse gas emissions fall further:

>by 23 percent if the ethanol is corn-based and by 64 percent if it is

>cellulose-based. Likewise, diesel containing 2 percent biodiesel emits 1.6

>percent less greenhouse gases than does petroleum diesel, whereas blends

>with 20 percent biodiesel emit 16 percent less, and pure biodiesel (also

>for use only in special vehicles) emits 78 percent less. On the other

>hand, biodiesel can increase emissions of nitrogen oxide, which

>contributes to air pollution. In short, the " green " virtues of ethanol and

>biodiesel are modest when these fuels are made from corn and soybeans,

>which are energy-intensive, highly polluting row crops.

>

>The benefits of biofuels are greater when plants other than corn or oils

>from sources other than soybeans are used. Ethanol made entirely from

>cellulose (which is found in trees, grasses, and other plants) has an

>energy ratio between 5 and 6 and emits 82 to 85 percent less greenhouse

>gases than does gasoline. As corn grows scarcer and more expensive, many

>are betting that the ethanol industry will increasingly turn to grasses,

>trees, and residues from field crops, such as wheat and rice straw and

>cornstalks. Grasses and trees can be grown on land poorly suited to food

>crops or in climates hostile to corn and soybeans. Recent breakthroughs in

>enzyme and gasification technologies have made it easier to break down

>cellulose in woody plants and straw. Field experiments suggest that

>grassland perennials could become a promising source of biofuel in the future.

>

>For now, however, the costs of harvesting, transporting, and converting

>such plant matters are high, which means that cellulose-based ethanol is

>not yet commercially viable when compared with the economies of scale of

>current corn-based production. One ethanol-plant manager in the Midwest

>has calculated that fueling an ethanol plant with switchgrass, a

>much-discussed alternative, would require delivering a semitrailer

>truckload of the grass every six minutes, 24 hours a day. The logistical

>difficulties and the costs of converting cellulose into fuel, combined

>with the subsidies and politics currently favoring the use of corn and

>soybeans, make it unrealistic to expect cellulose-based ethanol to become

>a solution within the next decade. Until it is, relying more on sugar cane

>to produce ethanol in tropical countries would be more efficient than

>using corn and would not involve using a staple food.

>

>The future can be brighter if the right steps are taken now. Limiting U.S.

>dependence on fossil fuels requires a comprehensive energy-conservation

>program. Rather than promoting more mandates, tax breaks, and subsidies

>for biofuels, the U.S. government should make a major commitment to

>substantially increasing energy efficiency in vehicles, homes, and

>factories; promoting alternative sources of energy, such as solar and wind

>power; and investing in research to improve agricultural productivity and

>raise the efficiency of fuels derived from cellulose. Washington's

>fixation on corn-based ethanol has distorted the national agenda and

>diverted its attention from developing a broad and balanced strategy. In

>March, the U.S. Energy Department announced that it would invest up to

>$385 million in six biorefineries designed to convert cellulose into

>ethanol. That is a promising step in the right direction

 

******

Kraig and Shirley Carroll ... in the woods of SE Kentucky

http://www.thehavens.com/

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