http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ethanol-domestic-fuel-supply-or-environmental-boondoggle&page=3
"The CBO estimated that ethanol contributes as much as 15 percent to the recent rises in food costs. And that's not just the case in the U.S. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization noted in a 2008 report during the last food crisis that the increase in demand for sugar and corn for biofuels was "one of the leading factors behind the increase in their prices in world markets which, in turn, has led to higher food prices." In fact, the International Food Policy Research Institute has called biofuel subsidies in rich countries the equivalent of a tax on food"
"And then there are the environmental impacts, both direct and indirect. For example, fertilizer runoff from Midwestern corn fields promote algal blooms in the Gulf of Mexico that, in turn, create vast oxygen-deprived "dead zones". "
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Ed Rendell's "future of Pennsylvania energy" Clearfield Ethanol Plant in bankruptcy and shut down.
Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell's Press Release "The Future of Energy is Here Clearfield Ethanol Plant to Be One of the Nation's Largest"
News report of Clearfield Ethanol Plant in bankruptcy and shut down. http://www.theprogressnews.com/default.asp?read=27593
Govenor Ed Rendell wrote his fax number on my "Stop Ethanol" sign at a Kerry rally in Lancaster Pennsylvania and said "Fax me something. " So for several years I faxed Ed Rendell reports and articles warning of the dangers of ethanol, as well as petitions against an ethanol plant in Lancaster County, PA. The only response I ever got was phone calls and emails from the Governor's office staff asking me to stop sending faxes. Here is one:
"Your fax to the Governor's Office on ethanol have been received several times. If you have additional information, please mail to
Governor's Office, 225 Main Capitol, Harrisburg, PA 17120 in order to avoid tying up the Governor's fax line.
Thank you. "
I would always respond that the Governot told me to fax him something about ethanol and that is what I do. I fax the Governor information on ethanol so he understands the problems.
I suspect the taxpayers of Pennsylvania wish someone would have read all those ethanol faxes and we would have saved at least that $17.4 million wasted on the Clearfield ethanol plant, and who knows how much to clean up the plant once it becomes another brown field.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Enchanting Ethanol
Enchanting Ethanol is all about a community finding out that green is not always green. Veronica and Nick buy a dilapidated cottage in an enchanting Chesapeake Bay community. They imagine spending their weekends hanging on the beach with their two little kids, watching wildlife and drinking beer. But their dream is interrupted when a phony green investor, in cahoots with the local trash mafia, sees the community as an easy target for an ethanol plant.
The phony environmentalists envision collecting green government subsidies when the local bumpkins greet the ethanol plant with open arms, but they are surprised. In a comedic series of town hall meetings, the proud local stewards of the environmentally fragile Chesapeake Bay area are tough and resourceful. This is not some preachy documentary. This is kid-centered adventure that features Veronica and Nick’s young family. Things become dangerous when their boy, enthralled with a bottle picturing a one-eyed man he believes to be a pirate, takes a beer bottle that contains stolen cellulose-eating beetles. The gun-totting trash mafia who own the stolen beetles, they hope to use to produce ethanol, hunt down the family while they are hiking. As the family runs the tension builds each time the bottle which is in the boys backpack is bumped, for if the beetles escape all the Bay woodlands and marshes could be eaten by the bugs. The quirky locals rescue the family and, to protect the Chesapeake Bay, expose the ethanol scam.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Rep Seth Grove attempting to make an ethanol free Pennsylvania
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