Biofuels Could Make Global Warming Worse

What could be more environmentally harmful than fossil fuels? Try biofuels. That’s right, a new study claims that we’ll make global warming even worse if we rely too much on the new generation of biofuels, because rules governing their production encourage deforestation. And, as another recent report illuminated, our forests are our most important line of defense against climate change.

From Reuters:

In a study to be published Friday in the US journal Science, a group of 13 scientists called for the rules, which contain a loophole exempting carbon dioxide emitted by bioenergy regardless of its source, to be overturned.

“The error is serious, but readily fixable,” said lead researcher Timothy Searchinger of Princeton University.

The study called for the issue to be addressed in the climate treaty that nations around the world are hoping to sign at the Copenhagen summit in December to supercede the Kyoto Treaty.

Researchers said numerous analyses — including one released by the US Department of Energy — have found that this loophole “could lead to the loss of most of the world’s natural forests as carbon caps tighten.”

The loophole needs to be closed before oil companies, power plants and other energy industry firms – who stand to benefit the most from it – can exploit it.

But that’s not the only problem with biofuels. Another study published in Science Express on Thursday noted that there’s not enough oversight on land use when it comes to producing biofuels, meaning some unscrupulous companies could cut down forest lands and use them to grow fuel.

Burning biomass releases almost as much carbon dioxide as burning fossil fuels, but that CO2 is partially offset by the plants themselves, grown for biofuel, absorbing CO2 from the air. That’s a big benefit – but we can’t cut down forests to grow these plants. Talk about counterproductive.

Link [Reuters]
Photo credit: Dave Reede

11 Bizarre Sources of Clean Energy, from Dead Turkeys to Urine

Why stick with boring old oil when you could be powering your home, car and gadgets with slaughterhouse waste, garbage and onions? As strange as transforming these substances into renewable fuels might seem, many of them are viable energy sources and some are already in use around the world.

And if you think these ideas are weird, check out MSNBC’s Crazy green energy ideas that just might work, which covers another 7 including solar panels in space and “snakes in a wave”.

Watermelons

Image via: Flickr user flattop341

The newest wild n’ crazy renewable energy on the scene is watermelon juice, which can be a valuable source of biofuel. Researchers say juice from ‘cull’ watermelons – imperfect ones that can’t be sold for consumption – can be efficiently fermented into ethanol. These ‘cull’ watermelons are currently just being plowed back into the field, so they’re technically a waste material.

Slaughterhouse Waste

Image via: Discover Magazine

As insanely disgusting as it sounds, turkey guts can be used to produce oil. No, really. It works in the same way that any fossil fuel is created, through pressure and heat, only at a faster pace.

A company called Changing World Technologies is transforming slaughterhouse waste – including a sickening blend of rotting heads, feet and intestines – into oil at a thermal conversion plant in Carthage, Missouri.  Other surprising items that go into the mix include old tires, mixed plastics and municipal sewage. But, the process still needs a lot of refinement to be commercially applicable.

The process of turning your Thanksgiving leftovers into oil is complicated, but not impossible. Mental Floss has an overview, which starts with chopping and churning those giblets into a fine, grainy mess. Mmm. Who’s hungry?

Poo (and Pee) Power

Image via: Statemaster

It may be distasteful, but waste – from both humans and animals – has proven to be a surprisingly efficient form of renewable energy. In Norway, city buses run on biomethane, which is a by-product of treated sewage. Not only is it a free source of energy, using biomethane in this way prevents it from being emitted into the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas.

Cows are also a major source of methane, emitting it in all sorts of unsavory ways, from both ends of their bodies. An Ohio company has developed a way to refine that methane gas in a way that could potentially power homes.

Then there are urine-powered batteries. That’s right, pee is a promising source of renewable energy as well thanks to its particular composition of its main component, urea, which is made up of hydrogen and nitrogen. Using a nickel-based electrode, scientists can create large amounts of cheap hydrogen from urine that can then be burned or used in fuel cells.

Garbage

Image via Idiocracy/20th Century Fox

There’s quite a bit of controversy as to whether trash is really a source of renewable energy – it’s certainly not ‘clean’. In fact, groups like Greenpeace warn that classifying garbage as a source of renewable energy risks ‘enshrining it’ rather than trying to produce less in the first place. Then, there’s the fact that trash incinerators are the leading source of extremely toxic chemicals called dioxins.

Modern incinerators use heat from the incineration to boil water, causing steam, which then generates electricity. These incinerators are cleaner than their predecessors, but they still pollute the air. Some argue that, with the looming threat of catastrophic climate change, using this energy is worth breathing in dirty air.

An Ottawa company called Plasco Energy Group is working on a method that transforms garbage into a synthetic gas without emitting greenhouse gases, but it’s got quite a few technological and financial hurdles to cross before it can be applied on a wide scale.

Onions

Image via: Flickr user Darwin Bell

One onion farmer is now crying all the way to the bank after finding a way to turn onion juice into fuel. This process has big up-front costs – about $9.5 million in this case – but they’ll make it back fairly quickly. Gills Onions saved a whopping $700,000 off their facility’s annual electric bill by using the juice to run his refrigerators and lighting, and another $400,000 on disposal costs. They also received $2.7 million from SoCal Gas, which offers financial incentives to customers that reduce natural gas consumption through on-site generation.

An anaerobic digester converts treated onion waste into biogas, which is then conditioned and turned into methane. The methane is pumped into a 600-kilowatt fuel cell to make electricity.
The same concept can be used for other waste products.

Viruses

Image via: MIT

Common viruses that are harmless to humans can be harnessed to create both the positively and negatively charged ends of a lithium-ion battery. Researchers at MIT genetically engineered viruses that build cathodes and anodes, producing batteries that have the same energy capacity and power performance as state-of-the-art rechargeable batteries. The process of creating the batteries is environmentally friendly in and of itself, using non-toxic materials and requiring no harmful solvents.

Currently, the MIT prototype is about the size of a coin and can only be used 100 times, but researchers intend to pursue even better batteries using materials with higher voltage. Once that next generation of virus batteries is ready, they’ll be ready for commercial production.

Burning Bodies

Image via: Hubpages

There’s nothing like staying warm in the dead of winter thanks to the heat given off by burning corpses. The Swedish town of Halmstead figures that heat generated by crematoriums shouldn’t be wasted, so they decided to divert it into local buildings instead of just letting it escape into the sky.

Of course, they can’t just pump hot crematorium air directly into people’s houses. That air is chock full of nasty stuff like mercury from dental fillings, so the off-gases must be filtered before the heat is usable. But, this ‘byproduct energy’ saves costs, uses less water, and uses an available resource in an incredibly efficient and creative way.

Booze

Image via: Flickr user scottfeldstein

Sweden customs officials confiscate a million bottles of booze every year from purveyors of smuggled alcohol trying to evade local taxes. That’s a lot of alcohol – and until recently, it was all being poured down the drain. What a waste. Luckily, someone came up with a brilliant idea: shipping it to a waste-to-fuels plant where it’s added to bioreactors along with other waste, creating methane that is used to fuel biogas-powered vehicles.

Then there’s the Scottish distilleries that run their own plants on byproducts of the distilling process, along with sustainably harvested wood chips. Combination of Rothes Distillers Limited (CoRD) teamed up with Helius Energy to build a combined heat and power (CHP) plant along with a fertilizer factory fueled by all that booze waste. Makers Mark Distillery in Kentucky has been using a similar technique for a number of years.

Bugs that Poop Oil

Image via: Times Online

Bug excrement may seem like a most unlikely source of fuel, but scientists have actually found a way to genetically engineer bacteria that produce ‘renewable petroleum’. Silicon Valley company LS9 claims that this “Oil 2.0” will be carbon negative, as well. LS9’s bugs are single-cell organisms about a fraction of a billionth the size of an ant, which have been modified to produce crude oil when fed agricultural waste.

It’s essentially the same process as using natural bacteria to produce ethanol, it just sounds way crazier. The main challenge being faced by LS9 right now is that, although it can produce its bug fuel in lab beakers, meeting America’s weekly oil needs would require a facility roughly the size of Chicago.

Chocolate

Image via: FacilityBlog

Before you freak out at the idea of perfectly good, delicious chocolate being used as fuel instead of going into your mouth, relax: this source of renewable energy is made with cocoa bean shells, not the chocolate itself. Cocoa bean shells are a waste product that can be mixed with coal at power stations to produce sort-of-greener-ish fuel.

Cocoa bean shells will be donated to Public Service of New Hampshire when chocolate maker Lindt USA begins producing its own chocolate from raw cocoa beans by the end of 2009.

Unfortunately, though this sounds cool, adding cocoa shells to the coal doesn’t make a huge difference because of the tiny ratio of shells to coal.

Man-Made Tornadoes

Image via: Technovelgy

The average tornado contains as much energy as a typical power plant – but how in the world can you safely harvest that energy? Well, as it turns out, that requires creating man-made tornadoes in a controlled environment.

Canadian engineer Louis Michaud calls his tornado the Atmospheric Vortex Engine, and he says he could extract as much as 200 megawatts of electricity from it – enough to power a small city. Michaud heats an elevated layer of air so that the temperature is much higher than that of the air below, which creates a vortex, and then places wind turbines at the base of the vortex, which are able to suck up the energy contained within.

Michaud has built many small prototypes with nary a bump in the road, and producing a 200-megawatt facility would cost roughly $60 million, lower than the cost of any existing power source. He’s currently looking for investors.

Biofuel Fail: Jatropha Requires Huge Amounts of Water

The Jatropha shrub, which grows wild all over New Zealand, seemed like a really promising biofuel. It is grown on arid and marginal land in India, parts of Africa and other countries, and has been hailed as ‘green gold’. It was even used to power a commercial airliner in December. Unfortunately, despite its ability to grow wild in arid climates, it needs large amounts of water in order to produce adequate amounts of oil.

From Technology Review, via Yale E360:

Researchers from the University of Twente, in the Netherlands, report in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that jatropha requires five times as much water per unit of energy as sugarcane and corn, and nearly ten times as much as sugar beet–the most water-efficient biofuel crop, according to the same study.

In 2007, the oil-industry heavyweight BP teamed up with British biofuels company D1 Oils on a five-year, £80 million project to cultivate the plant in India, Southeast Asia, and Southern Africa. Together, the companies have planted more than 200,000 hectares so far. And the plant made headlines again late last year, when it became the first non-food-based biofuel to power a jet engine. But mounting evidence suggests that jatropha is not as ideal as once thought.

“The claim that jatropha doesn’t compete for water and land with food crops is complete nonsense,” says study coauthor Arjen Hoekstra. The researcher says it’s true that the plant can grow with little water and can survive through periods of drought, but to flourish, it needs good growing conditions just like any other plant. “If there isn’t sufficient water, you get a low amount of oil production,” Hoekstra says.

How disappointing. Jatropha seemed like a great solution to the controversy over biofuels displacing food crops, but it’s certainly not a sustainable source of energy if it requires that much water. Luckily, there are hundreds of researchers working on a wide array of potentially viable biofuels, so this discovery doesn’t set the industry back too much.

Link [Technology Review] via [Yale E360]
Photo credit: Flickr user kaffekrus

Weed Transforms Animal Poop into Fuel

A tiny flowering plant that thrives on animal waste could be the next big biofuel, say researchers at North Carolina State University. Duckweed, which is often seen in shallow ponds, transforms animal waste into a leafy starch that can then be turned into ethanol. Ultimately, using duckweed as fuel could kill two birds with one stone so to speak, because it could put all of that harmful animal waste from factory farms to good use.

From NC State, via Matter Network:

Their research shows that growing duckweed on hog wastewater can produce five to six times more starch per acre than corn, according to researcher Dr. Jay Cheng. This means that ethanol production using duckweed could be “faster and cheaper than from corn,” says fellow researcher Dr. Anne-Marie Stomp.

Starch from duckweed can be readily converted into ethanol using the same facilities currently used for corn, Cheng adds.

Large-scale hog farms manage their animal waste by storing it in large “lagoons” for biological treatment. Duckweed utilizes the nutrients in the wastewater for growth, thus capturing these nutrients and preventing their release into the environment. In other words, Cheng says, “Duckweed could be an environmentally friendly, economically viable feedstock for ethanol.”

Animal waste is a huge problem – it’s playing a big role in the dead zones that are blooming in oceans around the world, including the Jersey-sized one in the Gulf of Mexico. If duckweed could give us clean, renewable fuel while also addressing this issue, that would be huge. It’ll be interesting to see where things go from here.

Link [NC State] via [Matter Network]

InterIntel Working to Bring Environmental Solutions to Haiti

Daniel Schnitzer is Co-Founder and Director of Project Management at InterIntel, a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity based in Cambridge, MA.  InterIntel works at the community level to improve energy services and environmental management with empowering, self-sustaining projects.  They are presently organizing three projects on the southwestern peninsula of Haiti. In this post, Dan explains how he started the organization with the goal of “democratizing sustainability”:

Back in August of 2008, during my first trip to Haiti, I was standing in front of the heaviest paperweight I had ever seen in my life. It was a perfectly new 170 kW diesel generator, connected to a non-functional streetlighting grid in a coastal town called Tiburon on the western tip of Haiti’s southern peninsula. My Haitian friends had told me that the local congressman spent tens of thousands of dollars and a great deal of effort into developing this project. But now that he had been re-elected, no one was sure whether this generator would ever give light to Tiburon. Electricite d’Haiti built the grid, but had since abandoned it.

During that trip I encountered many other symptoms of the governmental and market failure we read and hear about most often in the form of statistics like these: 800,000 children and 500,000 women die worldwide each year from respiratory disease caused by indoor air pollution from dirty biomass cooking fuel; in 2004, Tropical Storm Jeanne killed 3,000 people in Haiti; in 2008, Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike tore paths of destruction through Haiti, causing untold property damage and killing at least 800; each year 30,000,000 trees are cut down in Haiti, which now has just 1% of its land under forest cover.

These symptoms are inequitable for the obvious reason that they disproportionately affect the poor, the oppressed and the disenfranchised. InterIntel and many other organizations operate on the conviction that solutions for many of the root causes of symptoms like illness, disasters and poverty are readily available. Further, we believe that solutions can go one step further than economic development; they can foster social justice.

However, time and again, the “solutions” pandered to the governments and people of least developed countries by the IMF, World Bank and USAID not only failed, but in many cases made situations worse. This is hardly surprising, though. What little participation countries receiving aid from these organizations have is controlled by their finance ministers, who represent the interests of the business elite – not the people.

That is why InterIntel takes a community-based, participatory approach to its projects. We use surveys to discover the needs, constraints and desires of residents, and depend on facts, not ideologies, to guide our work. In order to truly solve the root problems so ubiquitous in the developing world, we must engage in empowering, self-sustaining activities that put people to work, prevent capital flight, and transfer knowledge.

For example, InterIntel discovered through its surveys of 265 residents in the community of Les Anglais that the payback period on a $20US solar-powered LED lamp could be as little as three months, and typically at most fifteen months, based on the amount presently spent on kerosene and candle-based lighting. If such lamps were available, residents would have the option to use a light source that is better for their health and their budget. Our solution is to build a clean energy retail store to stock appropriate energy technologies like solar lamps, solar home systems, and efficient charcoal stoves. We have introduced three key features of this project – cooperation, training and microfinance – to ensure that it has the greatest possible impact.

I encourage you to read more about this and our other projects on our website, www.interintel.org.  In order to make these projects a reality though, InterIntel needs to raise a minimum of $20,000.  We estimate our total costs for the year to be $80,000.  Since receiving our 501(c)(3) status in mid-January of 2009, we have raised over $2,500 from individual donors and greatly appreciate donations of any size – even $25 is enough to purchase and ship two solar LED lamps to Les Anglais. Donations can be securely made through PayPal on our website: www.interintel.org. If you are interested in volunteering, please visit our website to learn more about us and send an email. You can also support our cause by sending our website to friends, family and colleagues, or by becoming a “fan” of InterIntel on our facebook page.
-Daniel Schnitzer

This is our first post from guest blogger Daniel Schnitzer. If you’re interested in blogging for us, send an email to dorothee@see3.net.

Clean Renewable Energy, Courtesy of Rainforest Tree Fungus

As scientists, researchers and engineers work to push past the age of fossil fuels and into a new era of clean renewable energy, promising breakthroughs are being made practically every week. An especially promising discovery has been made at Montana State University that may revolutionize biofuels, making them more efficient and cost-effective – and it all starts with a fungus that grows on trees in the Patagonia rainforest of northern Chile.

From BionomicFuel.com:

A scientific research breakthrough concerning biodiesel from trees as a biofuel source may be the answer the world has been waiting for. Dr. Gary Strobel, a researcher at Montana State University, discovered a new fungus that grows on specific trees in the Patagonia rain forest. This fungus is unique, and the only one found to have such a big effect on biofuel. It is called Gliocladium roseum, and the fungus only grows on the the Ulmo tree, and it only develops under certain very low oxygen conditions. This fungus makes different molecules that consist of carbon and hydrogen, almost identical to the molecules found in traditional diesel fuel. When grown in the lab this fungus is even more identical to diesel. This breakthrough for fungus biodiesel has made some of the researchers at Montana State University, and at other colleges and research institutes, think twice about the possible origin of fossil fuels under the ground. If large amounts of this fungi have been present in the past, it is possible that this contributed to the fossil fuel reserves.

Fungus biodiesel could meet the world’s energy needs in a way that doesn’t harm the environment or cause fuel costs to go through the roof. Dr. Strobel and other Montana State University scientists are continuing to research this fungus to determine the best ways to produce fungus biofuel and to increase the diesel molecules created by the fungus. Experts say that if it can be produced in a cost-effective manner, it may become the number one biofuel source in the world.

Fascinating – who would have thought we could get fuel from tree fungus? It’s amazing how our eyes are being opened to the possibilities around us. Fossil fuels are the way of the past – we’re blazing a trail into a cleaner, greener future and it couldn’t be more exciting.

Link [Bionomic Fuel]

Turning Airport Travelers’ Breath into Fuel

Passengers flying out of and into the Liverpool John Lennon Airport in Liverpool, England will be a part of a new effort to harness an unusual energy source: their breath. An intriguing piece of green technology made by Origo Industries, the Eco-Box, will capture the CO2 exhaled by travelers and transform it to fuel for use in the airport’s diesel vehicles and heating systems.

From LiveScience:

The Eco-box was originally designed to reduce carbon emissions from vehicles. It works by capturing carbon emissions through a photo-bioreactor as a feedstock for algae, producing biomass that is then refined and converted to green fuel.

“The project at the airport is an early trial of a system which we believe could have a significant impact on the way companies today can obtain fuel and manage carbon emissions,” said Iain Houston, Origo’s CEO and founder.

Installation of the carbon recycling system began in January, with a goal of harnessing 24,000 gallons of fuel from the pilot program, as well as providing heating and hot water to the airport. The company hopes to expand to a 289,000 gallon system following the trial, providing approximately 800 gallons of biofuel each day.

Origo may also look into using this technology to produce aviation-grade biofuel in the future, which could revolutionize the airline industry. Airlines have been struggling with the wildly fluctuating price of gas in recent times.

Yet another wonderful example of how alternative fuel sources are all around us, some in the most unexpected of places. We CAN move beyond fossil fuels, and will.

Link [LiveScience]

Oil from a Poison Shrub Powers New Zealand Airline Flight

When fuel prices were higher, airlines were going to great lengths to save fuel. They stripped down their planes of all unnecessary weight and even flew slower. Planes do use a staggering amount of fuel, and regardless of the price, all that fossil fuel usage is extremely harmful to the environment.

Some airlines aren’t waiting for fuel prices to go back up to find more ways to save fuel. Air New Zealand has found a new biofuel it can mix with jet fuel to power their planes’ engines – and it comes from a poison shrub that grows wild all over the country.

From Reuters:

An Air New Zealand Boeing 747 flew for two hours on December 30 with one of its four engines powered by a 50-50 mixture of jet fuel and jatropha oil, the airline said in a statement.

Jatropha is a plant that grows up to three meters and produces inedible fruits, which contain the oil. It is grown on arid and marginal land in India, parts of Africa and other countries, and has been touted for mass production for biofuels because it does not compete for resources with food crops.

Air New Zealand, which hopes to use one million barrels of biofuel a year, or about 10 percent of its fuel consumption, by 2013, said the flight was the world’s first commercial aviation test flight powered by jatropha.

Air New Zealand is working toward becoming the world’s most environmentally sustainable airline, and with this innovation, they’re certainly well on their way. Though experts are warning that the use of jatropha oil poses problems because it’s toxic and yields are unreliable, the fuel mixture performed well and it’s certainly the right sort of thinking.

Link [Reuters]

Cooking Grease is Big Business as Gas Prices Soar

Don’t you wish you would have been one of those ‘weirdos’ who outfitted your diesel-engine car to use biofuels? Years ago, when people first started gathering used cooking oil from restaurants to fuel their vehicles, news of it was greeted by the public with amazement and more than a little scorn. After all, gas was still less than $2 a gallon and most people seemed to think we’d never run out. Well, who’s laughing now, bitches? Cooking grease is turning into a booming industry of its own, and the folks who are no longer dependent on petroleum are breathing a big ‘ol sigh of relief as the rest of the population worries about gas prices.

The Chicago Tribune has it:

Restaurants increasingly are being paid for their used cooking oil, icky stuff that historically they’ve had to pay to have hauled away. And sales of kits that allow diesel-powered cars to run on used cooking oil are soaring.

With all the attention, rendering firms are reporting a surge in grease thefts.

Grease’s rising star stems from rising energy prices. Demand for biodiesel is soaring, putting pressure on supplies of used vegetable oil, which can be used to make the alternative fuel.

Restaurants are getting into profit-sharing programs with companies that haul their raw used cooking oil away. Companies that make kits that convert diesel vehicles to burn straight vegetable oil are making money, too – one company, Greasecar Vegetable Fuel Systems in Massachusetts, expects to double their sales this year and are having trouble keeping up with demand.

Some drivers are still hitting up restaurants themselves to get oil for free and running it through filters to catch stray bits of food before putting it in their fuel tanks. Many, it seems, are also going the route of theft, making the business even more competitive. This cooking grease boom just goes to show that when they’re pinched, people get creative. Let’s see more of it!

Link [The Chicago Tribune]
Photo credit: Flickr user jsbarrie

Ooh, What’s That Smell? Gazans Using Falafel Oil to Power Taxis

Gaza is currently under fuel sanctions, making it difficult for taxis to continue business as usual. Luckily for them, people in the region love them some falafel (fried mashed, spiced chickpeas), and the oil can be used to power the vehicles. It makes for some rough running and isn’t great for the cars, but it works, and right now Gazans don’t have much choice.

Treehugger has it:

According to Reuters, Gaza’s taxi drivers say the used falafel oil works much better than the fresh stuff smuggled in from the Gaza-Egypt border. They either beg for it from falafel vendors, or buy it from the vendors who are hawking it for a profit.

“It makes the cars smell like a kitchen — you feel like falafel is following you,” said Ahmed al-Beltaji, crinkling his nose. “Next week they’ll be putting water in there.”

Beltaji runs a falafel stand near a taxi station and started selling his falafel oil leftovers in April. Others are turning to other creative measures –– using cooking canisters to power their cars, or are traveling by donkey or bicycle.

I can eat some falafel like nobody’s business, but I can’t imagine that it would be too pleasant to constantly smell it while you’re driving, considering that it’s mixed with turpentine. That could get you over an addiction to the delicious fried goodness pretty quickly. I also love that one of their alternatives to riding in taxis is to take a donkey. Imagine if this caught on in American cities: seeing Wall Street businessmen in their suits and ties gripping their briefcases while clinging to the back of an ass. How fantastic would that be?

Link [Treehugger]
Photo credit: Reuters

Britain’s Armed Forces Could Run on Algae, Weeds & Solar Power

In a story that brilliantly illustrates the untapped potential that lies all around us, the Times Online writes about alternative energy sources currently being considered by the British Army. In an effort to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, scientists are working hard at new innovations, and some of them are truly amazing.

The Times Online has it:

Possible innovations include unmanned attack aircraft powered by the sun. They would fire missiles fuelled with hydrogen produced by feeding algae to microbes.

Tanks could be electrically powered or run on fuel produced from oil squeezed out of weeds so hardy they can grow in the desert.

Ships could run completely on electricity produced from generators powered by synthetic fuels made from grass.

The environmental requirements of the army, navy and air force will be presented this week to specially vetted defence and research companies.

These ideas aren’t likely to become a reality for a decade or two, but the fact that they’re working so hard at ideas like this is so encouraging. The need to ‘go green’ is all the more important to the British Armed Forces, as their fuel bill is currently £400m annually – double what it was four years ago. The Ministry of Defence is currently working on a range of sophisticated green technology plans that won’t be revealed to the public for a while; the plans are currently being made available for viewing only to select companies and researchers.

Link [Times Online]

Photo credit: Flickr user elroySF

More Criticism for Ethanol: Now it’s Affecting Food Prices

Those who have looked to corn as the next great biofuel better be prepared for a new barrage of criticism. Missouri is currently seeing an uprising against its measures supporting ethanol production, because using corn for fuel means there’s less for food – both for people and for livestock. That means skyrocketing prices in an already damaged economy.

Reuters has it:

St. Onge said the committee is studying a measure that would roll back the mandate and is still determining whether to push any action before the end of Missouri’s legislative session next month.

The moves in Missouri come as Texas Gov. Rick Perry is asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for a 50 percent waiver of the mandate for grain-based ethanol production.

Pilgrim’s Pride Corp and Tyson Foods issued statements over the weekend supporting Perry’s request, saying “unprecedented increases for corn and soybean meal” would add billions of dollars of cost to the food industry this year.

The cons of ethanol are piling up with no signs of stopping. Stephen Pizzo of AlterNet said it well:

Is turning food into fuel as millions starve to death really the ethical answer to our oil addiction? If the ethanol folks have their way and Detroit starts cranking out E85 cars by the millions, how are you going to feel when you have to buy one. How will you feel filling up your car with food-juice during the day and then watching starving children on the evening news as some horse’s ass in Washington pontificates about how the world needs to do something about that? How will you feel?

Time to throw in the towel here, folks. It ain’t going to work. When it comes right down to it, it’s doubtful that ethanol will be any better for the earth than oil, and we’ll all be better off in the end if they stop funneling money into a useless cause. There are so many other options out there.

Link [Reuters] + [Alternet]
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Houses Covered in Gold: When Kudzu Attacks

Earlier this week, we told you about kudzu, the ‘scourge of the South’, a vine that spreads like crazy and has now been found to have quite a few promising uses. It’s being looked to as a possible source of renewable energy, plus it has the ability to leach chemicals out of contaminated soils and has additional food and medicinal uses.

Well, that would mean that these folks are sitting on (or, rather, under – if anyone can even get in the house) a veritable gold mine. This is the sort of thing I see often driving from North Carolina down to my home state of Florida: structures totally taken over by kudzu.

Photographer Jack Anthony has some amazing photos of what he calls ‘natural sculptures’, including an awesome series showing the progression of the kudzu growth over four seasons. No doubt, the owners of this land were unhappy when the kudzu invasion started, but maybe they feel better after the recent kudzu-loving news. Before they know it, they might be standing outside their fences protecting this stuff with shotguns against would-be poachers!

Link [JJAnthony] via [Neatorama]

Photo credit: Jack Anthony