Ethanol: not the solution

On my way home yesterday, I heard this report on NPR:

Ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline

The premise behind the study is since the U.S. is diverting it’s corn crop to ethanol production, the rest of the world is having to clear wild land to produce their own food crops. This is releasing even more carbon dioxide into the air (not to mention the additional fertilizers and pesticides going into the soil and water) than just continuing to burn gasoline while researching more climate-friendly alternatives. The author’s proposed solution is to use waste products to produce ethanol. Unfortunately the technology to do so is still in it’s infancy.

Once again, a knee-jerk reaction demanding immediate results is a worse solution than careful and steady progress.

Here’s the link to the PDF of the actual paper.

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