Free Republic

At the risk of inviting all the usual charges of being politically incorrect, I once again put before you the strange practice of burning food for fuel. The video at the bottom of the post details some of the human costs associated with the increasing use of corn, grains, and other crops for fuel.There is a tendency for environmentalists of our time to think very narrowly about their issues. It is a praiseworthy thing to seek to reduce pollutants and other things that have negative environmental impacts. The Catechism summons us to good stewardship of the earth, the environment, and...

One might imagine that the old adage about something too good to be true would have sunk in by now. But in the realm of biofuels, hope springs eternal. With more than $240 million in Department of Energy funding, six pilot projects using "cellulosic materials" to produce biofuels are under way. Despite the prospect of technical breakthroughs, none have produced biofuels on commercial terms. This is especially unsettling given the federal order to blend 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022, of which 21 billion are mandated to be cellulose-based. Advocates of making these fuels from anything and everything abound:...

(AP) COON RAPIDS, Iowa -- A tractor trailer rig rumbles into the Tall Corn Ethanol plant. Corn pours from openings in its belly to bins underground, where conveyor belts and buckets haul it to gleaming steel silos rising 13 stories above the Iowa plains. The 40-acre distillery turns corn into alcohol in quantities that would make a moonshiner drool. Instead of white lightnin', the brew is converted to ethanol, a fuel that makes money for farmers and is seen as a possible solution to today's high oil and gas prices. Like the other modern-day stills dotting the Midwestern landscape, the...