Free Republic

ATHENS, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore said support for corn-based ethanol in the United States was "not a good policy", weeks before tax credits are up for renewal. Total U.S. ethanol subsidies reached $7.7 billion last year according to the International Energy Industry, which said biofuels worldwide received more subsidies than any other form of renewable energy. "It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for (U.S.) first generation ethanol," said Gore, speaking at a green energy business conference in Athens sponsored by Marfin Popular Bank. "First generation ethanol I think was a...

So what's more important to you: energy independence and this state's "new energy economy," or the fight against hunger?

Politicians and Wall Street cheered when the ethanol industry went on a building binge. Now the distillers are waking up to the ugly possibility of a gasohol glut. ...Ethanol makers need the help. Corn prices, 75% of the cost of ethanol production, have doubled in the past six months, to more than $4 a bushel. At the same time, the price of ethanol has followed the price of gasoline downward. Absent a rescue from Capitol Hill, the glut is going to get worse. AgResource's Basse estimates the blending demand for ethanol at 10 billion gallons, 7% of the 150 billion...

A Canadian company has developed a new, more efficient process to make the alternative fuel ethanol from farm waste. With today's high oil prices, experts hope the new technology could reduce demand on fossil fuels and increase energy security. "In the past, ethanol fuel use has been limited, because the cost of production was too high," said Jim Easterly, a Washington, D.C.-based bioenergy consultant. "Ethanol produced from corn kernels and wheat grain has historically been more expensive than gasoline produced from oil." Producing corn-based ethanol, for example, uses energy from oil and electricity for everything from growing the corn to...

ENERGY CRISIS Florida well placed to lead drive for ethanol By JEB BUSH www.myflorida.com Increasing ethanol use can benefit our environment, strengthen national security and fuel the economic engine of free trade, creating a win-win-win for the United States. Given the importance of energy to our long-term economic strength, the United States should establish a plan to pump 15 billion gallons of ethanol into the marketplace by 2015 -- twice the amount required by the Energy Act of 2005. To achieve this, the United States should expand ethanol production, create new domestic production and import more international supplies. Florida is...

There is nothing new in the use of alcohol as a motor fuel. In 1872, when Nikolaus Otto invented the internal combustion engine, gasoline was not available. Ethyl alcohol at 180-190 proof was the specified fuel. * * * [A]lcohols have a relatively high anti-knock or octane rating [and] have the ability to raise considerably the octane ratings of gasolines with which they are mixed. . . . The ability to increase octane rating means that: (1) a lower (therefore cheaper) grade of gasoline can be used to obtain a fuel with a certain octane rating; and (2) the use...

ITHACA -- A Cornell University professor has published a study he says cements his assertion that ethanol is a less efficient, more environmentally harmful fuel than gasoline. David Pimentel, an emeritus professor of ecology, has been studying ethanol for about 25 years, leading a Department of Energy study on the subject in 1980. Ethanol is a corn byproduct that is combined with gasoline to make gasohol, a gasoline substitute that proponents claim lowers pollution and eases demand for foreign oil. Because corn production uses more pesticides than any other field crop, and because millions of dollars in government subsidies are...