 |
Vehicle Technologies Program: Fact #681: June 27, 2011 U.S. Ethanol Production, 2001-2010: Ethanol production has been rising rapidly over the last 10 years driven largely by government standards requiring the use of renewable fuels. The first Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) was established in 2005 and required the use of 4 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2006 . . . → Read More: A decade of US ethanol production I get one question a lot about food prices, as happened in a discussion recently with a friend who owns two restaurants: How much does speculation push up the price of food? My standard answer is that it’s definitely a contributor, but I can’t honestly say whether I think it accounts for 1% or 50% . . . → Read More: Food price outlook  3 comments - (Comments are closed)  Biofuels, Climate change, Economics and business, Food, Oil, Public policy Ah yes, peak oil, and the chore of communicating an urgent but horribly inconvenient truth to consumers and voters who most decidedly do not want to hear it or anything even remotely like it. Sound like any other topic that I have been known to write about until my fingers bleed? Anyway, check out the video . . . → Read More: Peak oil made easy (to understand, that is) Robert Rapier, a name familiar to most of you here (and if it’s not, it should be, but purely for positive reasons), was interviewed recently about peak oil, and the video has been made available: He touches on a lot of points I agree with strongly, like the inherent issues of crop-based biofuels and the impossibility of . . . → Read More: Robert Rapier on peak oil Algae to solve the Pentagon’s jet fuel problem: The brains trust of the Pentagon says it is just months away from producing a jet fuel from algae for the same cost as its fossil-fuel equivalent. The claim, which comes from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) that helped to develop the internet and satellite navigation systems, has . . . → Read More: Algae jet fuel Stephen E. Koonin gave a presentation last October, Addressing America’s Energy Challenges. Koonin is Under Secretary for Science of Energy at the US Dept. of Energy, and he pulled together a lot of information and presented it in an excellent, and sometimes quite enlightening way. The presentation is available here [36 page PDF]. The most interesting slides . . . → Read More: Doc alert: America’s energy challenges 2 comments - (Comments are closed) Biofuels, Climate change, Coal, Electricity, Natural gas, Nuclear, Oil, Renewable energy, Solar, Transportation Data Highlights: U.S. Feeds One Quarter of its Grain to Cars While Hunger is on the Rise: The 107 million tons of grain that went to U.S. ethanol distilleries in 2009 was enough to feed 330 million people for one year at average world consumption levels. More than a quarter of the total U.S. grain crop was . . . → Read More: Infonugget: 25% of US corn If there’s one meme floating about the energy and enviro infosphere that makes me want to scream, it’s this notion of converting US vehicles over to natural gas. A perfect example of this is currently on Huffington Post, CNG and LNG for Me: Currently, about 60 percent of natural gas consumption in the U.S. is used for generating . . . → Read More: Natural gas vehicles: Still a bad idea I’m more convinced than ever that liquid fuels from algae will be a major component of our energy and environmental future. A good reason why I say this is alluded to by the article, Engineers Strive To Make Algae Oil Production More Feasible: Compared to soybeans that produce 50 gallons of oil an acre a year, . . . → Read More: Algae to the rescue New Report Brings Greater Clarity to Burning Issue – United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP): A far more sophisticated approach needs to be taken when developing biofuels as an environmentally-friendly energy option a new report concludes. Governments should fit biofuels into an overall energy, climate, land-use, water and agricultural strategy if their deployment is to benefit society, the economy . . . → Read More: Doc alert: Assessing biofuels |
|
|
Copyright © 2003-2012 The Cost of Energy - All Rights Reserved |
||