greenenergy
Biofuel Debate Impedes Search
forAlternative Fuels
Are biofuels America’s answer to climate
ble, following the soaring gas prices that blew
change and our dependence on foreign energy
everyone away after Hurricane Katrina.
sources or are they merely a seductive yet shal-
low solution? The name and variety varies from
” It seems like that’s good for
region to region, (ethanol in America or biodie-
the whole world if we can start
sel in Europe), but the idea is always the same:
growing our own fuel instead
organic materials grown on farms are used to
fuel our cars and heat our homes. However, it
of starting wars over it.”
seems just as ethanol advocates have gotten
said Nelson to the press.
their grasp firmly around the policymakers in
Washington, naysayers have appeared out of
Promoted as a more efficient fuel that produ-
the woodwork to tear them away.
ces less carbon emissions than petroleum, en-
In recent years, Biofuels have become the
vironmentalists eagerly jumped on the biofuel
answer to America’s energy woes and the glo-
bandwagon. Even President Bush suggested
bal warming epidemic for many. Willie Nelson
that the US replace 20 percent of gasoline dis-
made headlines in December 2005 when he
tributed in America with ethanol in his 2007
first opened his biodiesel pump station in Texas,
State of the Union Address. Bush applauded the
calling his product “BioWillie.” The idea caught
construction of 85 ethanol projects, doubling
on and the bright-eyed, pigtailed country-folk
the volume of ethanol in America. Yet experts
singer became the spokesperson for the bio-
aren’t as sure as biofuel’s advocates. Numerous
fuel movement. The timing seemed impecca-
studies have been conducted testing the carbon
output of these fuels, but many are contradic-
54 OUR GREEN BOOK
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