By Timothy B. Hurst

An idea being considered in Colorado that would allow for the establishment of ‘community solar gardens‘ — solar arrays owned by a group of investors who cannot benefit from a rooftop solar installation — has now caught the eye of U.S. Senator from Colorado, Mark Udall. Udall yesterday announced a bill that would extend the tax credit available to homeowners who put solar panels on their roofs, to those homeowners who collectively own small solar arrays located somewhere other than their own property.

The Solar Uniting Neighborhoods (SUN) Act of 2010 updates the tax code regarding solar energy, giving investors of community solar projects a 30 percent tax credit just like individuals who install PV cells on their houses.

“By eliminating the requirement that the solar panel be on one individual’s property, it frees Americans to work together on community projects where each individual can claim a tax credit on part of a shared project,” said Udall on a conference call with reporters.

The concept behind the SUN Act is that it would open up solar ownership to people who would like to invest in solar, but because they live in an apartment, have a poor solar resource, or simply cannot afford the substantial up-front investment, have not.

“By grouping these solar panels, you can reduce the cost by 30 percent compared to installing a panel or a set of panels on every roof in the neighborhood,” Udall added.

The big difference between the Community Solar Gardens bill introduced in Colorado and the one Udall announced yesterday, however, has to do with who can take advantage of the tax benefit: the Colorado bill covers not only homeowners but also renters.

The way the Colorado bill is worded, anyone may take advantage of the law who is a customer of a qualifying retail utility and who has “identified one or more physical locations located in the same county or municipality as the Community Solar Garden.” The Colorado bill also allows subscribers to change the premises to which a subscription is attributed, and also to sell them to other qualifying subscribers, should the subscriber move out of the state or country.

The tax credits would be available for the next next five years at a cost of about $117 million. Udall says his measure will likely be included in an energy and climate package, or as part of a larger tax bill.

Reprinted with permission from Cleantechnica

The Department of Energy, under its Smart Grid Investment Matching Grant Program, provides reimbursement of 20 percent of qualifying smart grid investments.

Qualifying costs include, but are not limited to, certain manufacturing related costs, software that enables computers or other devices to engage in smart grid functions, and metering devices, sensors, and control devices that are capable of engaging in smart grid functions.

Recently, questions have been raised as to whether the DOE grant under this program is subject to federal income tax.

The IRS, in Revenue Procedure 2010-20, concluded that the DOE grant is not subject to federal income tax.

In Rev. Proc. 2010-20, the IRS noted that the DOE grant is considered a contribution to capital that is not subject to tax under section 118 of the Internal Revenue Code. Section 118 of the Internal Revenue Code provides that, in the case of a corporation, gross income does not include a contribution of capital to the corporation.

In particular, the Treasury regulations related to Section 118 highlight that contributions to capital include contributions made by a person other than a shareholder, for example, a governmental body for the purpose of enabling the corporation to expand its operating facility.

The corporation receiving the DOE grant must however reduce the basis of the property to which the DOE grant relates to. For example, if a corporation purchases a smart grid related device for $1,000 and receives a DOE grant under the Smart Grid Investment Matching Grant Program in the amount of $200, the basis of the device shall be reduced by the DOE grant amount.

The resulting basis of $800 is the basis of the property for purposes of depreciation.

Rev. Proc. 2010-20 becomes effective March 10, 2010 and does not apply to non-corporate taxpayers or to DOE grants related to smart grid research, development, and demonstration.

Reprinted with permission from Cleantechies

The posting of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) jobs increased 33% in 4Q09.

That follows a rather dismal year, when postings fell 68% from 3Q08 to 3Q09, according to the CSR Jobs report released by Sustainability Recruiting. The worst of the decline (61%) occurred between 3Q and 4Q of 2008, mirroring the drop in the stock market. CSR job listings declined even further through 1Q09 before leveling off through most of the year at a low point not seen since mid-2006.

The 4Q09 up-tick is promising, although it remains to be seen whether it will continue in 2010.

Among the most notable findings in the report is the increase in senior-level corporate positions--those with VP and Director titles. Before 2006, none of the job postings had a title of VP or above.

Dave Stangis, Vice President of CSR and Sustainability at Campbell’s Soup commented: “The emergence of the VP of CSR and VP of Sustainability titles seems proof of the growing strategic business position of CSR.”

Ellen Weinreb, CEO of Sustainability Recruiting, said: “A number of factors are involved. Most notable is the increased value being placed on CSR as a component of corporate strategy. This elevates the importance of positions performing this role.

Katie Kross, author of A Resource Guide for MBA Careers in Sustainability, notes: “More and more employers are broadening the definition of CSR to include not only corporate citizenship, but also a focus on energy and environmental management issues. I also see employers posting job openings in traditional roles like operations and marketing that include some CSR responsibilities.”

According to Weinreb, there is enormous demand for CSR jobs from jobseekers. The catch-22 is that employers require candidates for these positions to have previous experience.

Reprinted with permission from SustainableBusiness.com

By Susan Kraemer

A new type of utility-financed energy efficiency subsidy was introduced by Senator Merkley of Oregon to some surprisingly bipartisan support, gaining two Republican co-sponsors, in an indication of where a few Republican votes might be found in energy and climate legislation.

The Rural Energy Savings Program would provide Federal funding to rural electric co-ops so they could offer “on-bill” financing to their customers, allowing families and businesses to repay an energy efficiency retrofit loan off slowly over time through the savings on their monthly energy bill that the energy retrofit creates.

Like Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) funding it allows an entity to float bonds to provide the upfront cash, like Berkeley First and the subsequent municipal financing programs for putting in residential renewable energy.

The difference is, instead of a city or county, a rural electric coop would be fronting the money. Current PACE programs have used municipalities and cities, like Berkeley, or counties like Sonoma to float a bond and provide the funding and to be paid back over time through a corresponding increase in the homeowner’s property tax bill.

Since the homeowner was no longer paying for electricity the tax assessment amounted to a substitute “utility bill”, making the solar installation free in the sense that it is no more expensive than what homeowners were already paying. The lack of upfront expense is the draw.

Whether the money is fronted by a city or by a electric coop; the repayments should work just as effectively. Both cities and utilities are already in payment plans with the homeowner, a utility for electricity, a city for property taxes. Adding to that payment – while reducing the electricity payment correspondingly - is thus relatively straightforward.

And whether the money goes to produce energy – as in Berkeley and Sonoma County, funding solar panels - or to reduce energy use; as in this one for energy efficiency, should make little difference.

With enough efficiency measures like heat recovery, ground heat exchange, radiant cooling and heating, much better insulation, much higher R-value windows and walls – energy use can be reduced by efficiency up to 85% or so.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association supports the legislation. The USDA would administer it.

Republicans Lindsay Graham of new wind powerhouse South Carolina and Richard Lugar (of 90% coal powered Indiana) were the surprise cosponsors.

When the Senate finally takes up climate legislation, and with a few Republicans actually cosponsoring ideas like this one; it just might – I’m betting that this new electric utility version of municipal funding will be part of it.

Reprinted with permission from Cleantechnica

by Christopher DeMorro

Fisker Automotive is one of the electric car hopefuls that has won many of us over with their sleek, sexy visions of what an electric car should look like. The company has received hundreds of millions in government funding, and recently acquired an old GM plant in Delaware which they are retooling to produce their Karma plug-in sedan and an as-of-yet unnamed, “lower cost” sedan.

During a recent presentation at the New Castle Chamber of Commerce, Fisker spoke about the progress of the plant and their future plans. This includes hopefully producing around 100,000 plug-in electric vehicles per year by 2014.

Fisker’s Karma sedan makes some bold promises; 0-60 in six seconds, 125 mph, and 50 miles of all-electric power, after which it becomes a hybrid car capable of high mileage (around 67 mpg or so). The Karma is also going to cost $80,000, not exactly practical for most of America. That is why Fisker is also working on what they call “Project Nina”, a lower-cost sedan with mass market appeal. The Karma is certainly eye-catching; I’m hoping the Nina will be just as sexy.

During his speech, company CEO Henrik Fisker said that he wants to build cars that people want. And as a recent study pointed out, people don’t just want fuel efficiency; they want a car that is in every way a better automobile. Fisker hopes to get prototype models of the Nina pumping out of the plant next year, with production ramping up in 2014. The Karma will be assembled in Finland and shipped over to America later this year, although the Delaware plant could feasibly be retooled to build the Karma as well. Fisker hopes to also export both of these cars to emerging markets like China.

I’m looking forward to the Karma in a big way, and it would be nice to see a start-up company give the Detroit Big Three some competition en masse.

Reprinted with permission from Gas 2.0

by George Monbiot

There is one question that no one who denies manmade climate change wants to answer: what would it take to persuade you? In most cases the answer seems to be nothing. No level of evidence can shake the growing belief that climate science is a giant conspiracy codded up by boffins and governments to tax and control us. The new study by the Met Office, which paints an even grimmer picture than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(1), will do nothing to change this view.

The attack on climate scientists is now widening to an all-out war on science. Writing recently for the Telegraph, the columnist Gerald Warner dismissed scientists as “white-coated prima donnas and narcissists … pointy-heads in lab coats [who] have reassumed the role of mad cranks … The public is no longer in awe of scientists. Like squabbling evangelical churches in the 19th century, they can form as many schismatic sects as they like, nobody is listening to them any more.”

Views like this can be explained partly as the revenge of the humanities students. There is scarcely an editor or executive in any major media company – and precious few journalists - with a science degree, yet everyone knows that the anoraks are taking over the world. But the problem is compounded by complexity. Arthur C Clarke remarked that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

He might have added that any sufficiently advanced expertise is indistinguishable from gobbledegook. Scientific specialization is now so extreme that even people studying neighbouring subjects within the same discipline can no longer understand each other. The detail of modern science is incomprehensible to almost everyone, which means that we have to take what scientists say on trust. Yet science tells us to trust nothing; to believe only what can be demonstrated. This contradiction is fatal to public confidence.

Distrust has been multiplied by the publishers of scientific journals, whose monopolistic practices make the supermarkets look like angels, and which are long overdue for a referral to the Competition Commission. They pay nothing for most of the material they publish, yet, unless you are attached to an academic institute, they’ll charge you 20 pounds or more for access to a single article. In some cases they charge libraries tens of thousands for an annual subscription. If scientists want people at least to try to understand their work, they should raise a full-scale revolt against the journals which publish them. It is no longer acceptable for the guardians of knowledge to behave like 19th-Century gamekeepers, chasing the proles out of the grand estates.

But there’s a deeper suspicion here as well. Popular mythology - from Faust through Frankenstein to Dr No – casts scientists as sinister schemers, harnessing the dark arts to further their diabolical powers. Sometimes this isn’t far from the truth. Some use their genius to weaponize anthrax for the US and Russian governments. Some isolate terminator genes for biotech companies, to prevent farmers from saving their own seed. Some lend their names to articles ghostwritten by pharmaceutical companies, which mislead doctors about the drugs they sell. Until there is a global code of practice or a Hippocratic oath binding scientists to do no harm, the reputation of science will be dragged through the dirt by researchers who devise new means of hurting us.

Yesterday in the Guardian Peter Preston called for a prophet to lead us out of the wilderness. “We need one passionate, persuasive scientist who can connect and convince … We need to be taught to believe by a true believer”. Would it work? No. Look at the hatred and derision the passionate and persuasive Al Gore attracts. The problem is not only that most climate scientists can speak no recognizable human language, but also the expectation that people are amenable to persuasion.

In 2008 the Washington Post summarized recent psychological research on misinformation. This shows that in some cases debunking a false story can increase the number of people who believe it. In one study, 34% of conservatives who were told about the Bush government’s claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction were inclined to believe them. But among those who were shown that the government’s claims were later comprehensively refuted by the Duelfer report, 64% ended up believing that Iraq had WMD.

There’s a possible explanation in an article published by Nature in January. It shows that people tend to “take their cue about what they should feel, and hence believe, from the cheers and boos of the home crowd.” Those who see themselves as individualists and those who respect authority, for example, “tend to dismiss evidence of environmental risks, because the widespread acceptance of such evidence would lead to restrictions on commerce and industry, activities they admire.” Those with more egalitarian values are “more inclined to believe that such activities pose unacceptable risks and should be restricted.”

These divisions, researchers have found, are better at explaining different responses to information than any other factor: race, gender, class, income, education or personality type. Our ideological filters encourage us to interpret new evidence in ways that reinforce our beliefs. “As a result, groups with opposing values often become more polarized, not less, when exposed to scientifically sound information.” The conservatives in the Iraq experiment might have reacted against something they associated with the Duelfer report, rather than the information it contained.

While this analysis rings true, the description of where the dividing line lies isn’t quite right. It doesn’t describe the odd position in which I find myself. Despite my iconoclastic, anti-corporate instincts, I now spend much of my time defending the scientific establishment from attacks by the kind of rabble-rousers with whom I usually associate. My heart rebels against this project: I would rather be pelting scientists with eggs than trying to understand their datasets. But my beliefs oblige me to try to make sense of the science and to explain its implications. This turns out to be the most divisive project I’ve ever engaged in. The more I stick to the facts, the more virulent the abuse becomes.

This doesn’t bother me – I have a hide like a glyptodon – but it reinforces the disturbing possibility that nothing works. The research discussed in the Nature paper shows that when scientists dress soberly, shave off their beards and give their papers conservative titles, they can reach across to the other side. But in doing so they will surely alienate people who would otherwise be inclined to trust them. As the MMR saga shows, people who mistrust authority are just as likely to kick against science as those who respect it.

Perhaps we have to accept that there is no simple solution to public disbelief in science. The battle over climate change suggests that the more clearly you spell the problem out, the more you turn people away. If they don’t want to know, nothing and no one will reach them. There goes my life’s work.

This article was originally posted at www.monbiot.com and printed in the Guardian.

Reprinted with permission from Celsias

by Sofia Ribeiro

High-profile leaders gathered to discuss opportunities in the world of environmental capital at the Eco:nomics Conference, and the identify what the best practices where when applying green marketing. The include: looking for the “low-hanging fruit” for quicker ROI, giving customers reasons to adopt environmentally responsible behaviors, making the message personal by explaining how a consumer’s purchase has direct environmental results, and avoiding a hard sell on environmental benefits.

The Eco:nomics Conference, one of the most popular conferences in the green industry, took place a few weeks ago in Santa Barbara, California. High-profile leaders from Walt Disney, RecycleBank, Yale, GE and The Climate Group, as well as Wall Street Journal’s editors, got together to talk about the real risks and opportunities in the fast-changing world of environmental capital.

One of the topics discussed was green marketing and best practices. These were the main outcomes:

What works

- Companies should focus on improving their own energy efficiency, while emphasizing benefits to local communities. Look for the “low-hanging fruit” for quicker ROI.

- Companies should give customers reasons to adopt environmentally responsible behaviors.

- When it comes to green marketing, provide information about a product’s environmental benefits close to the point of purchase. Make the message personal by explaining how a consumer’s purchase has direct environmental results.

- When providing information to stakeholders, avoid a hard sell on environmental benefits. Instead, engage stakeholders in a dialogue.

- In green marketing, explain the benefits to the environment as part of a bigger value proposition.

- Consider how waste can be an opportunity, not a cost or liability.

- Get a double whammy by undertaking a project that will boost productivity at the same time as cutting emissions.

- When working with nongovernmental organizations, there must be a shared understanding of the goals and constraints of a partnership, with both sides understanding and respecting the rules of engagement.

- To get a project off the ground, consider new forms of financing, both public and private. For instance, it is possible to add solar panels at no upfront cost using a power purchase agreement (PPA).

What doesn’t work

- Participants suggested that the government should not be put in a position “to pick winners and losers” for any technology or business process. Instead, the government should help develop technology-neutral standards.

- Companies cannot use uncertainty over government action on climate change as an excuse to stop innovating.

- Firms cannot simply talk about being green. Sustainability must become part of a company’s DNA.

- Avoid politicizing sustainability. Instead, explain the economics behind adopting energy efficiency and reducing environmental impacts.

- When working with nongovernmental organizations, do not strike a deal that has no substance. Be sure to carefully consider the people and resource needs of a partnership.

- For best results when financing energy efficiency or other environmental projects, the market requires more certainty in government policy.

Reprinted with permission from Green Economy Post

by David Ferris

Bubble, Bubble, Methane is Trouble: A vast storehouse of methane under the Arctic Ocean has perforated and is starting to leak, researchers disclosed. While scientists have long been preoccupied with methane release from permafrost on mainland Siberia, the underwater stores in the adjoining East Siberian Arctic Shelf are much larger, and the release of even a small fraction could lead to a dramatic increase in global warming. Methane is a greenhouse gas at least 25 times more powerful than CO2.

Now a Word from Our Other Gases: It was a promising week in the world of fuels. A Colorado startup revealed a solar concentrator that can vaporize biomass and make high-yield synthetic fuels. British scientists explored enzymes in the gut of a boat-eating bug that could break down straw or waste wood. Meanwhile, a California newbie called Transonic Combustion claims to have invented a fuel-injection system that could boost mileage of plain old gas by 50 percent. The company registered 64 miles to the gallon in recent test drives.

As if that wasn't enough, Brazil's 10 millionth vehicle powered by sugarcane ethanol hit the road. Also, the world's largest shipping company, Maersk, said it would try to cut its CO2 output by 20 percent over the next seven years by blending its heavy engine oil with biofuels.

Winners in the Cheap, Common-Sense Category Are...: Rooftop solar water heaters are spreading like dandelion seeds in China and Europe; if worldwide growth projections hold true, in the next decade they could save the energy equivalent of 690 coal-fired power plants. Hurrah also for the efficient cookstove, a simple contraption that could stamp out soot, reduce the melting of glaciers, and help women and children live longer in the developing world.

Electric Batteries Cheaper; Charging Stations Out? Prices for electric-car batteries are dropping so fast that an electric car might not cost as much as the bean-counters thought. Also, a study finds that most electric-car drivers get around fine by charging at home; does this mean electric-car charging stations are a big waste of money?

Now Get Out of Here: With the Greek economy in meltdown, there's never been a better time to buy an island. If it sinks underwater because of global warming, then make like the Maldives and build your own.

Reprinted with permission from The Ferris Files

by C. Ford Runge

In light of the strong evidence that growing corn, soybeans, and other food crops to produce ethanol takes a heavy toll on the environment and is hurting the world’s poor through higher food prices, consider this astonishing fact: This year, more than a third of the U.S.’s record corn harvest of 335 million metric tons will be used to produce corn ethanol. What’s more, within five years fully 50 percent of the U.S. corn crop is expected to wind up as biofuels.

Here’s another sobering fact. Despite the record deficits facing the U.S., and notwithstanding President Obama’s embrace of some truly sustainable renewable energy policies, the president and his administration have wholeheartedly embraced corn ethanol and the tangle of government subsidies, price supports, and tariffs that underpin the entire dubious enterprise of using corn to power our cars. In early February, the president threw his weight behind new and existing initiatives to boost ethanol production from both food and nonfood sources, including supporting Congressional mandates that would triple biofuel production to 36 billion gallons by 2022.

Congress and the Obama administration are paying billions of dollars to producers of biofuels, with expenditures scheduled to increase steadily through 2022 and possibly 2030. The fuels are touted by these producers as a “green” solution to reliance on imported petroleum, and a boost for farmers seeking higher prices.

Yet a close look at their impact on food security and the environment — with profound effects on water, the eutrophication of our coastal zones from fertilizers, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions — suggests that the biofuel bandwagon is anything but green. Congress and the administration need to reconsider whether they are throwing good money after bad. If the biofuel saga illustrates anything, it is that thinking ecologically will require thinking more logically, as well.

Investments in biofuels have grown rapidly in the last decade, accelerating especially in developed countries and Brazil after 2003, when oil prices began to climb above $25 per barrel, reaching a peak of $120 per barrel in 2008. Between 2001 and 2008, world production of ethanol tripled from 4.9 billion gallons to 17 billion gallons, while biodiesel output rose from 264 million gallons to 2.9 billion gallons. Together, the U.S. and Brazil account for most of the world’s ethanol production. Biodiesel, the other major biofuel, is produced mainly in the European Union, which makes roughly five times more than the U.S. In the EU, ethanol and biodiesel are projected to increase oilseed, wheat, and corn usage from negligible levels in 2004 to roughly 21, 17, and 5 million tons, respectively, in 2016, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

In the U.S., once a reliable supplier of exported grain and oilseeds for food, biofuel production is soaring even as food crop export demand remains strong, driving prices further upward. Government support undergirding the biofuels industry has also grown rapidly and now forms a massive federal program that may be good for farm states, but is very bad for U.S. taxpayers.

These subsidy supports are a testament to the power of the farm lobby and its sway over the U.S. Congress. In addition to longstanding crop price supports that encourage production of corn and soybeans as feedstocks, biofuels are propped up by several other forms of government largesse. The first of these are mandates, known as “renewable fuels standards”: In the U.S. in 2007, energy legislation raised mandated production of biofuels to 36 billion gallons by 2022. These mandates shelter biofuels investments by guaranteeing that the demand will be there, thus encouraging oversupply.

Then there are direct biofuel production subsidies, which raise feedstock prices for farmers by increasing the price of corn. In the U.S., blenders are paid a 45 cent-per-gallon “blender’s tax credit” for ethanol — the equivalent of more than $200 per acre to divert scarce corn from the food supply into fuel tanks. The federal government also pays a $1 credit for plant-based biodiesel and “cellulosic” ethanol.

Finally, there is a 54 cent-per-gallon tariff on imported biofuel to protect domestic production from competition, especially to prevent Brazilian sugarcane-based ethanol (which can be produced at less than half the cost of U.S. ethanol from corn) from entering U.S. markets. These subsidies allow ethanol producers to pay higher and higher prices for feedstocks, illustrated by the record 2008 levels of corn, soybean, and wheat prices. Projections suggest they will remain higher, assuming normal weather and yields.

The rapid increase in grain and oilseed prices due to biofuels expansion has been a shock to consumers worldwide, especially during 2008 and early 2009. From 2005 to January 2008, the global price of wheat increased 143 percent, corn by 105 percent, rice by 154 percent, sugar by 118 percent, and oilseeds by 197 percent. In 2006-2007, this rate of increase accelerated, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, “due to continued demand for biofuels and drought in major producing countries.” The price increases have since moderated, but many believe only temporarily, given tight stocks-to-use ratios.

It is in poor countries that these price increases pose direct threats to disposable income and food security. There, the run-up in food prices has been ominous for the more than one billion of the world’s poor who are chronically food-insecure. Poor farmers in countries such as Bangladesh can barely support a household on a subsistence basis, and have little if any surplus production to sell, which means they do not benefit from higher prices for corn or wheat. And poor slum-dwellers in Lagos, Calcutta, Manila, or Mexico City produce no food at all, and spend as much as 90 percent of their meager household incomes just to eat.

But the most worrisome of recent criticisms of biofuels relate to their impacts on the natural environment. In the U.S., water shortages due to the huge volumes necessary to process grains or sugar into ethanol are not uncommon, and are amplified if these crops are irrigated. Growing corn to produce ethanol, according to a 2007 study by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, consumes 200 times more water than the water used to process corn into ethanol.

In the cornbelt of the Upper Midwest, even more serious problem arise. Corn acreage, which expanded by over 15 percent in 2007 in response to ethanol demands, requires extensive fertilization, adding to nitrogen and phosphorus that run off into lakes and streams and eventually enter the Mississippi River watershed. This is aggravated by systems of subterranean tiles and drains — 98 percent of Iowa’s arable fields are tiled — that accelerate field drainage into ditches and local watersheds. As a result, loadings of nitrogen and phosphorus into the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico encourage algae growth, starving water bodies of oxygen needed by aquatic life and enlarging the hypoxic “dead zone” in the gulf.

Next is simply the crop acreage needed to feed the biofuels beast. A 2007 study in Science noted that to replace just 10 percent of the gasoline in the U.S. with ethanol and biodiesel would require 43 percent of current U.S. cropland for biofuel feedstocks. The EU would need to commit 38 percent of its cropland base. Otherwise, new lands will need to be brought into cultivation, drawn disproportionately from those more vulnerable to environmental damage, such as forests.

A pair of 2008 studies, again in Science, focused on the question of greenhouse gas emissions due to land-use shifts resulting from biofuels. One study said that if land is converted from rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce biofuels, it causes a large net increase in greenhouse gas emissions for decades. A second study said that growing corn for ethanol in the U.S., for example, can lead to the clearing of forests and other wild lands in the developing world for food corn, which also causes a surge in greenhouse gas emissions.

A third study, by Nobel-Prize winning chemist Paul Crutzen in 2007, emphasized the impact from the heavy applications of nitrogen needed to grow expanded feedstocks of corn and rapeseed. The nitrogen necessary to grow these crops releases nitrous oxide into the atmosphere — a greenhouse gas 296 times more damaging than CO2 — and contributes more to global warming than biofuels save through fossil fuel reductions.

Thus have biofuels made the slow fade from green to brown. It is a sad irony of the biofuels experience that resource alternatives that seemed farmer-friendly and green have turned out so badly.

What’s needed are a freeze on further mandates to slow overinvestment, reductions in the blenders’ tax credit — especially when corn prices are high — and cuts in tariff protection to encourage cost-reduction strategies by U.S. producers. And the high environmental and human costs of using corn, soybeans, and other food crops to produce biofuels should spur government initiatives to develop more sustainable forms of renewable energy, such as wind power, solar power, and — one day, perhaps — algal biofuels grown at waste treatment plants.

Yet sadly, as in so many areas of policy, Congress and the administration prefer to reward inefficiency and political influence more than pursuing cost-effective — and sustainable — energy strategies.

Reprinted with permission from Yale Environment 360

by Nick Chambers

New research out of the University of York in Britain is unraveling some mysteries of the common wood-eating gribble that could provide the key to cheaply turning abundant wood and straw fiber into biofuel.

For centuries the gribble has been known to the seafaring world mainly for eating holes in their ships, docks and piers — causing untold amounts of damage. But the bug’s uncanny knack for digesting raw wood holds the promise of enzymes that can, by themselves, turn wood and straw fibers into sugars, which can then be easily turned into ethanol through simple fermentation.

The current process of making this kind of ethanol, known as cellulosic ethanol (or “celluline,” as I like to call it), is quite difficult; with many companies resorting to energy-intensive plasma gasification or multiple steps involving toxic hot baths of chemicals or extremely long processing times.

But the gut of the gribble plays host to some pretty amazing enzymes the creature produces all on its own that accomplish the same things that plasma gasification or toxic chemicals can — but without all the fuss. Investigating little wood-eating creatures like gribbles and termites for answers on how to turn wood and straw into fuel is not new. Over a year ago, I wrote about similar research on termites. But termites accomplish the breakdown of wood by working in coordination with some microbes that inhabit their guts, whereas gribbles make the enzymes all by themselves and have no microbial help.

It’s this subtle difference that makes gribbles potentially more valuable to the world of biofuels. If we could simply produce some enzymes that worked in an industrial setting to turn wood and straw waste into sugar, there would be virtually no barriers to producing cheap and plentiful, ecologically sound ethanol.

The researchers are currently trying to figure out exactly how the enzymes work. After that the next hurdle would be to figure out a way to scale them up to work on the commercial level. As the researchers point out, perhaps one day people will be piloting boats powered by biofuels produced with enzymes from a bug that used to cost the boating industry lots of money. How’s that for a twist of fate?

Reprinted with permission from Gas 2.0