In a very well-written opinion piece for the Omaha World-Herald, a Nebraska ethanol producer defends his product, the industry and American agriculture. Chuck Woodside, chief executive officer of KAAPA Ethanol in Minden, NE and secretary of the Renewable Fuels Association, says attacks upon corn ethanol are becoming more frequent and fanciful – but “there’s scarcely a kernel of truth in …
UNI Professor Calls for Diversity in Alternative Energy
We should not put all of our energy eggs in one basket… that’s the view of a professor from the University of Northern Iowa, who also dismisses some of the food-versus-fuel myths in this fascinating guest column in the Des Moines (IA) Register. Lou Honary, a professor and director of the National Ag-Based Lubricants Center at UNI, says while biodiesel …
Editorial Defends Minnesota Biodiesel
It’s been nearly a month since some school buses in Minnesota wouldn’t run after temperatures dropped to -20 to -30 degrees F. Commentators such Fox TV’s Glenn Beck derided the state’s 2 percent biodiesel mandate as the cause of the stalled Bloomington school buses… although he offered no explanation why this didn’t happen at EVERY other school district that had …
McCain Blames Subsidies for High Food Prices
In a speech on Wednesday not far from the corn fields of proud Missouri farmers, Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain blamed subsidies for higher food prices. “My administration will reduce the price of food by eliminating the subsidies for ethanol and agricultural goods,” McCain told an invitation-only group at the Harry Truman Library in Independence, Missouri. “These subsidies inflate …
More Biodiesel Facts to Dispute Food-vs.-Fuel
An interesting piece was posted on the AgWeb.com web site that I thought made a pretty good argument in the food-versus-fuel debate. Greg Anderson, a family farmer who grows soybeans near Newman Grove, Nebraska (and serves as an ex-officio member of the United Soybean Board Executive Committee) makes some pretty strong arguments that there is not a great food shortage …
Green Host Urges Passage of Green Jobs Bill
A host of the Discovery Channel’s new “Planet Green” channel, which dedicates itself to earth-friendly causes, has written a pretty good opinion piece, urging the passage of a measure before Congress that will help create jobs in the renewable energy sector. In the piece on ItsGettingHotinHere.org titled, “Green-Collar Jobs or Rust-Belt Future,” model and environmental scientist (I know, I almost …
A Little Green to Change Rush’s Mind
Now don’t get me wrong. I like Rush Limbaugh. I really do. He’s given a voice to the conservative cause for many years… even when things looked pretty bleak for his side. And he does GOOD radio. He knows how to communicate to his audience, and my hat is off to him for his radio skills. But when it comes …
Missing 500,000 Barrels a Day
An opinion piece in GreenEnergyWar.com asks an interesting question: Wouldn’t we miss the 500,000 barrels of oil that biofuels replace every day? Check out what former California Energy Commissioner John Geesman (who, by the way, has also been following California politics for more than 40 years) has to say: As debate continues to rage over the role which biofuels policies …
Oregon Setting Standards for Ethanol Production
Do you know what is one of the best things about blog-style news sites? It gives the editors the freedom to not only spark feedback from readers, but to share that feedback with the rest of the site’s subscribers. One subscriber, Tim, pointed out the how ethanol is moving forward in Oregon. I thought that both what he found and …