A Kernal of Truth

The state of Iowa is putting a lot of effort into pushing ethanol/E85 with the exuberance of a tweaking meth dealer. According to the Des Moines Register, "a major step in a $100 million plan aimed at boosting Iowa's world standing in renewable fuel production was approved Tuesday by the Iowa House.The idea - one of Gov. Chet Culver's top priorities - would allocate $25 million during each of the next four years to launch more aggressive research and development related to renewable fuel production."

However, according to Motley Fool "even if all of the corn and soybean production in America were dedicated to their [ethanol and biodiesel] production, the country would replace only 12% of gasoline consumption and meet a mere 6% of diesel demand."

"According to a study published last summer in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the environmental benefits of biodiesel are substantially greater than those of ethanol. According to the report, biodiesel provides 93% more net energy per gallon than is required for its production, while ethanol generates only 25% more net energy. The study further suggested that biodiesel, when compared with gasoline, reduced greenhouse emissions by 41%, while ethanol yielded only a 12% reduction. From these viewpoints, it would appear that biodiesel is the clear winner.

If only it were that easy. From a land-use and agricultural-efficiency perspective, ethanol appears to be the better choice. That's because an estimated 420 gallons of ethanol can be produced per acre of corn versus only 60 gallons of biodiesel per acre of soybeans. In more practical terms, this means that if the production of biodiesel were ever to increase greatly, the cost of soybean oil would rise significantly."

What this says is we need other options:

- Other Fuel Options

Again according to Motley Fool we could promote and develop

Biobutanol
An alcohol that can be manufactured from sugar beets. But unlike other biofuels, butanol possesses some unique characteristics. For instance, it can be blended with gasoline at higher concentrations and it has the extra added benefit of being able to be distributed via the gasoline industry's existing infrastructure, whereas ethanol can be shipped only by truck or train.

Cellulosic ethanol
The U.S government has recently committed almost $400 million into the research and development of this type of ethanol, which is produced from a variety of biomass, including switchgrass, wood, and even waste. What's so exciting about cellulosic ethanol is that it has the potential to offer a very high net-energy impact. It can also be produced from feedstocks that use little to no fertilizer. These sources are abundant and aren't major sources of food -- and thus won't drive up food prices as we've seen as of late with corn prices. As an added benefit, it's believed that as the technology improves, the amount of ethanol produced per acre can increase significantly. Some experts have estimated that the figure could reach as high as 2,700 gallons per acre by 2030.

In short, cellulosic ethanol may very well have the environmental benefits of biodiesel and the agricultural efficiency of corn ethanol, but it can also potentially bring additional benefits to the table.

- Improved CAFE Standards

Currently the CAFE standard for cars is 27.5 m.p.g.s and . To reduce our demand on imported oil, Sen. Barack Obama recently said that all vehicles would need to approach 43 m.p.g.s.

- Improved Transportation Systems

An investment of highway dollars into retrofitting highway systems to accomodate high speed light rail, tax credits for shuttle vans would pay dividends in encouraging people to give up their cars. Clearly people in dense city centers already know the upside of public transportation, but rapidly growing suburban and exurban areas need to climb on board too.

- Improved Mind Sets

In the US, we subsidize transportation like no other country in the world in terms of tax dollars for building road systems. Transportation accounts for 19 percent of spending by the average household in America - as much as for food and health care combined - and is second only to spending on housing. We have an expectation that transportation should be personal and convenient.*

Our interests in fueling our cars put us in untenable positions to create stability around the oil supply by using military force and tax dollars to prop up governments that are favorable to our position. We reak havoc on the environment in terms of global climate change and create economic models that are unsustainable on a global stage to produce transportation.

By reconsidering how our habits have affected the world, we can use our enormous talents to meet the needs that we all have to get around and do it in a way that is practical. According to the Cato Institute Since 1990, buses and trains total ridership has increased by less than 10 percent. By comparison, urban driving has increased by 42 percent.

* A recent report of consumer spending trends shows "The share of transportation spending devoted to new trucks (a category that includes sport utility vehicles and minivans) climbed from 9 to 14 percent between 2000 and 2003 as the average household boosted its spending on this item by an enormous 51 percent, after adjusting for inflation. In 2003, the average household spent more on new trucks than on new cars, used cars, or used trucks–a reversal of the pattern in 2000. Reasons for the reversal include falling prices for used vehicles because of a market glut and growing consumer preferences for trucks over cars."