Biofuel Blog War

The European Parliament on Dec. 17 adopted amendments to the Renewable Energy Sources Directive, raising targets for production of biofuels but at the same time setting strict sustainability standards to monitor and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the use of road transport fuels. The Parliament’s adopted text makes clear that it intends to calculate climate [...]

One of the most strikingly circular arguments put forward to support inclusion of current estimates of indirect land use change emissions in both California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard and the EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standard Life Cycle Assessment is that these estimates are so large. The University of California Berkeley Letter to EPA from Michael O’Hare [...]

The EPA apparently missed the statutory deadline (Dec. 19) to publish the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for the Renewable Fuel Standard. The Bush administration last summer announced that it would not promulgate new rules during its final 30 days, in order to stay away from “midnight rulemaking.” That self-imposed deadline (Dec. 20) also passed.
The rule [...]

A segment on the Discovery Channel’s show “How Stuff Works” caught my eye this week and prompted that question. The segment points out that Xanthan gum, fermented from corn syrup, is used in oil drilling. Xanthan is combined with the drilling mud used to cool drilling equipment, and it helps to clear dirt and rock [...]

Dr. Bruce Dale of Michigan State University published a Commentary in the Washington Times on Nov. 26, calling for sound science in development of the EPA’s rule on the Renewable Fuel Standard.
Dr. Dale points out, “No actual data exist that connect U.S. domestic ethanol production with, to cite a widely quoted example, the clearing of [...]

Dr. Bruce Dale of Michigan State University published a Commentary in the Washington Times on Nov. 26, calling for sound science in development of the EPA’s rule on the Renewable Fuel Standard.
Dr. Dale points out, “No actual data exist that connect U.S. domestic ethanol production with, to cite a widely quoted example, the clearing of [...]

Brent Erickson, Executive Vice President, Industrial and Environmental Section, Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO); Bruce Dale, Professor of Chemical Engineering, Michigan State University and the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center; Brian Davison, Chief Scientist for Systems Biology and Biotechnology, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the BioEnergy Science Center; Keith Cole, Director of Legislative & Regulatory Affairs, [...]

On Monday Oct. 27, the EPA’s Science Advisory Board held a workshop in Washington on “Looking to the Future.” The stated purpose of the workshop was “to stimulate SAB thinking about priorities for meeting critical environmental problems with an integrated approach to interdisciplinary science and research” and gather data on the net environmental implications of [...]

In a letter submitted yesterday to Stephen Johnson, the Administrator of the EPA seven leading scientists called for a delay in the planned October 31st rulemaking citing several concerns, among them,
“Of particular concern is that the EPA appears to be relying heavily on the February 2008 paper concerning potential land use change impacts authored by [...]

In 1953 Linus Pauling and Robert Corey published their structure of DNA, 3 strands twisted around each other. Shortly after that James Watson and Francis Crick published the correct structure of DNA, the one on which the biotechnology industry is built.That is the way science goes. Scientists make discoveries, publish their work, and others [...]