The demand for feedstock oils from food and non-food plants, bushes and trees to feed the biodiesel thirst has imposed huge costs in terms of deforestation, land abuse and decreased water quality on those countries supplying the feedstock for biodiesel.
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Sacramento in 2007 set a ceiling on the amount of carbon dioxide and other gases that vehicles statewide can emit. The goal was to lower the ceiling gradually, leaving refiners to decide how best to reduce the carbon content of their fuels.
Ethanol may help keep corn demand and prices high to support our farmers, but there are a number of downsides to corn ethanol. It supports a system that over-relies on corn, drives up food prices and it contains less energy per volume than gasoline.
Most domestic ethanol is made from corn, but imports of cheaper, sugar-based ethanol from Brazil have cut into demand for ethanol from domestic producers.
The Renewable Fuels Association has asked Washington to revisit biofuels targets set by the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). In a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the RFA recommends a “reduction in the overall RFS” citing “uncertainty” over how to meet the mandated goals.
Dan Dicker tells Jim Cramer how the ethanol program is destroying itself with by subsidizing foreign companies and spiking gas prices.
America’s prairies are shrinking. Spurred on by the rush for biofuels, farmers are digging up grasslands in the northern Plains to plant crops at the quickest pace since the 1930s. While that’s been a boon for farmers, the upheaval could create unexpected problems.
US consumer demand for flex-fuel vehicles, which can run on high levels of ethanol, is not strong enough for automakers to market them in the country, representatives of several major automakers said Thursday.
Fossil fuels are killing our climate and we need to find alternatives. It’s a simple message that most people get, but what happens when one of the supposed alternatives also becomes not just a climate killer, but a driver of hunger?
Because of the demand for grain to produce the gasoline additive ethanol - which was supposed to reduce air pollution - plus a nationwide drought, many of the state's cash-strapped farmers are selling their cows for slaughter because they can't afford to feed them.
Brazilian ethanol is rushing back into the United States after a three-year ebb, drawn less by the severe drought that has inflated corn costs than by biofuel regulations that could more than triple next year's shipments.