"A Better Route Than Biofuels"
Wednesday, June 18, 2008; Page A14
Vinod Khosla ["All Biofuels Are Not the Same," op-ed, June 16] missed a critical point in defending biofuels. Instead of trying to find "good" biofuels, we should be asking "why biofuels at all?"Investment in biofuels yields fewer returns than investment in transportation alternatives. The renewable fuels standard that Congress passed in December, in combination with generous tax credits, provides $188 billion for biofuels. This will reduce U.S. petroleum use by less than 10 percent and could potentially offer little to no reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, because 13 billion gallons of corn ethanol are exempt from the law's greenhouse gas standards.
Devoting these subsidies to public transportation and smarter growth would do much more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, fuel use and costs to consumers. But big oil companies have thwarted such solutions. It is time to take control of mobility out of the hands of wealthy corporations and entrepreneurs and put it into the hands of the people.
KATE McMAHON
Energy and Transportation Policy Campaigner
Washington
GaryEMasters wrote:The writer is right - corn is not a proper source for bio fuels. But ethanol from cellulose may work. let the market decide. The predicted cost for cellulose ethanol is under $1.50 a gallon. If this is true, it will be a natural. But themarket should decide. It is compatible with the modern IC motor and not as much of a hazard as hydrogen. True, it makes CO2. But that has yet to be proven a bad element in our air.6/18/2008 7:52:22 PMvanwahlgren wrote:Look at the construction of cities throughout the world. Only in America do we have far flung suburbs making walking or mass transportation impractical. we need to rethink the way we grow our cities and towns. These alternative fuels etc will do us little good unless we rethink the way we live.6/18/2008 6:11:35 PMTwoEvils wrote:Ethanol is a ridiculously poor fuel, requiring huge amounts of energy to create and returning much less energy (mpg) than an equivalent amount of petroleum-based gas.
Biodiesel, on the other hand, does not require nearly the energy input to create and has much more energy per gallon. It can be used in any diesel vehicle often with only minor modification, and will be especially valuable to the trucking industry which is suffering extremely high fuel costs.
There's a reason Europe stuck with diesel instead of gasoline. There's a lot more energy (mpg) in a gallon of diesel than in a gallon of gas.6/18/2008 11:16:44 AM
