However, I certainly don’t think I’m ignoring oil and the problems of the status quo. In fact, the baseline for all of the calculations of the climate benefits (or lack thereof) of ethanol is the conventional gasoline that it displaces. Of course oil is bad. Ethanol can displace our use of oil. But at what cost? That’s the whole point of this essay. It’s not simply enough to offset oil if we’re doing it in a way that utilizes significant fossil fuel inputs (albeit subbing natural gas-based fertilizers and coal at ethanol plants for some of the oil) while driving up fuel costs and, if grown in areas of recently cleared forests, actually contributing much more to climate change than the oil it displaces.

You say “I’m almost positive it’s a step forward,” yet you seem to ignore all of the concerns I lay out above that, in many cases, biofuels are actually a step backward. Are you just going with your gut instinct here, or do you have reason to believe that all biofuels are better than conventional gasoline or diesel when it comes to climate change? Do you agree that they can worsen the climate crisis, but that some other benefits outweigh this cost?

Additionally, despite all of the concerns with some biofuel production methods I mention above, you seem to have missed the conclusions of this whole essay, which are not that biofuels are a complete waste of time. I began the essay by saying, “Not all biofuels are created equal” and it’s important that we distinguish between the ones that are beneficial and the ones that are actually a step backward. As I wrote above: “Given all of these concerns about increased use of ethanol and biodiesel, should we just bag the whole idea and move on to something else? No, I would argue.

When it comes to confronting the climate crisis and ending our oil addiction - two massive problems - we’re going to need all the tools we can get. Biofuels, if done right, still have an important role to play in reducing our reliance on oil and our contribution to global climate change.

I present the above concerns about biofuels because understanding the potential pitfalls, problems and limitations of biofuels - both conventional and next-generation - will be crucial to developing the standards that are necessary to ensure that biofuels can help make a dent in our oil addiction and help solve the climate crisis without exacerbating other environmental problems.”

ExxonMobil spokesman I am not! Neither though am I an Archers Daniel Midland spokesman, and I have no particularly vested interest in the success of corn-based ethanol. What I am concerned with is finding the tools that will help us solve the two most pressing problems facing us today: the climate crisis and peak oil.

Depending on how they are produced, biofuels may hamper or help efforts to solve both of those problems, and why wouldn’t we want to steer away from those production methods that actually make the problem worse - worse than conventional old oil?!

My point is this: yes, e-fuel isn’t perfect. But I’m almost positive it’s a step forward and your one-sided argument that leaves out our current situation is not at all good for the industry to get rolling. The alternate methods you mention involve inhibiting the industry from getting on it’s feet. It is a disservice, and although the facts you put in the article are very important and have educated me greatly, the method of writing you use is ultimately a smear campaign and only benefits us by stopping our movement towards alternate energy.

In short: STOP IT! Balance your article, you sound like a spokesman for exxon.

It’s going to take unique,provocative promotions, even incendiary graphics and messages to gain consumer attention, acceptance and demand for ethical alternative energy.

(Reality check: cellulosic ethanol is not yet commercially viable. Make biofuel cost 4-5 times more than it currently does, and people who have chosen an alternative fuel will go back to oil-based fuels.)

Biofuels should preferably be produced from readily-available, existing waste streams of cellulosic biomass.

(Good idea. But that’s still years away, if it happens at all.)

If produced from an energy crop, sustainable harvesting practices should be employed, the crops should be grown on existing farmland and should be planted as part of a regular, sustainable crop rotation so as to not compete with foodstuffs.

(Okay. Sustainable is good. You DO know that we are not running out of food in the USA, don’t you?)

The full, lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of all biofuels should be considered, including (and especially) emissions from land use changes. Under no circumstances should a biofuel feedstock be utilized that results in the clearing of rainforest or other wilderness areas or results in a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

(We do that already at the American Lung Association of the Upper Midwest, which strongly supports the use of E85 and biodiesel. We Minnesotans are not cutting down rain forests, starving the world’s poor or plowing virgin prairie to plant more corn. We ARE establishing a real alternative fuel infrastructure, using more biofuels than any other state and keeping tons of greenhouse gases and other pollutants out of the air.)

Come see us under the big wind turbine blade (Eco Experience) at the 2007 State Fair and learn more — or visit http://www.CleanAirChoice.org.