Nathanael Greene's Blog
NRDC's rocking little feet biofuels ad
June 27, 2007
Posted by Nathanael Greene in Moving Beyond Oil
OK I'm dating myself with the Little Feat reference here, but I do think that our latest ad on biofuels is very cool, and right on message, which is good too. This comes as part of our effort to educate the House about the importance of how we produce biofuels and how critical the policies they are currently considering are to what practices and technologies the market will adopt.
As discussed here and here, the Senate bill takes critical steps on vehicle fuel economy, but doesn't do enough on including safeguards for biofuels. The fact of the matter is that how we produce biofuels can make them anything from very good for the environment to very bad. Even just 6 months ago, everyone in the industry and outside assumed that we about a decade before the industry would get to where it now looks like it will be in as little as 3 years. As a result, no one was calling for a new renewable fuel standard, and as far as I can tell, everyone was surprised when it became clear a few months ago that the Senate was going to move an RFS if it move anything on energy.
We got a few minor provisions in the Senate RFS. For instance "conventional" biofuels (as opposed to "advanced") must provide at least a 20% reduction in global warming pollution compared to gasoline. Not nearly enough, but still probably the largest global warming standard to have ever passed the Senate. The House has to do better. And after they see this add, how could they not?
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- Nathanael Greene
- Senior Policy Analyst
- New York City
- I work on clean energy technologies and policy that will advance them -- energy efficiency...
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- A conversation with a spokesperson for the National Corn Growers Association and his friend from the American Farmland Trust | By Tom Philpott | Grist | Victual Reality | 25 Oct 2007
- Very interesting.
- posted by Nathanael Greene
- New EcoFarm: Are We all Together in the Bioeconomy
- A good opinion piece about the need to move away from the "us vs them" mentality that has dominated ag-environmentalist relations through a marriage of global and local in the bioeconomy.
- posted by Nathanael Greene
- Can lignin hold roads together?
- On the one hand using lignin from cellulosic ethanol plants to stabalize roads has a nice geewiz factor. On the other hand, using lignin to make better roads so that we can drive more and use more ethanol seems a little circular.
- posted by Nathanael Greene
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