US Rep. Herseth-Sandlin (D-SD) Questioning Big Oil (ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips, Shell)

Don’t miss US Rep. Herseth-Sandlin (D-SD) questioning big oil companies:  ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips, and Shell

TIME Magazine’s Journalism Scam

Or How TIME Eliminated Fairness In Reporting
As a former reporter and scientist I read Michael Grunwald’s recent story in TIME, The Clean Energy Scam with a certain amount of dismay. The New York Times calls Michael Grunwald, “a talented Washington Post reporter.” However talented Mr. Grunwald may be, in this story he has [...]

Find out how advanced biofuels will slow climate change

Biofuels from new sources such as switchgrass and algae will soon be widely and efficiently produced, thanks to ongoing industrial biotechnology research. BIO’s World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing will present the latest research on advanced biofuels and biobased products that provide sustainable climate change solutions.
More than 25 top company executives will join 200 [...]

British Government to Study Indirect Impacts of Biofuels

Last week, Britain’s Renewable Fuels Agency (RFA) launched a series of studies of the indirect land-use impacts of biofuels, following a lecture by Princeton’s Tim Searchinger, lead author of “Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change” published in Science in February.
The RFA intends to publish a draft report [...]

Indirect Land Use Thoughts

Dear Colleagues:
I have spent a lot of time the last few weeks trying to think through the indirect land use change (ILUC) issue. I have divided my thoughts into two questions that I am asking myself: 1) are we in fact currently able to estimate these changes with any degree of confidence?, and 2) if [...]

Linking Biotechnology, Chemistry & Agriculture for a better future

Interested in alternative energy sources? BIO’s World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing, on April 27-30 in Chicago, IL, is the forum where experts from around the globe come together to discuss this topic, with major themes around sustainability and climate change.  But let’s not stop there. If industrial and environmental biotechnology is your business — [...]

Meet the Press (Or at least their editorial boards)

Recently two editorials were written by the NY Times and Washington Post concerning biofuels in which the recent Science papers were referred to.
According to the NY Times,

“The studies’ authors say that some ethanol sources wood wastes, or grasses planted on previously degraded land — could yield net benefits in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Still, [...]

Tilman clarifies study

Much of the media coverage of the recent Science Magazine studies made it clear that many hadn’t actually read the studies before they reported on them. Some interpreted the studies as condemning corn ethanol production now, not as the worst case scenario of what could happen in the future.
University of Minnesota professor David Tilman, an [...]

Is the Debate on Land Use Over?

The full implications of the German Marshall Fund and Nature Conservancy articles in Science and the agenda and arguments of environmental and conservation advocates are coming more into focus. Consider comments posted by Nathanael Greene of the Natural Resources Defense Council on his Switchboard:
While we still do not have international protocols that pay to protect [...]

No land cleared for biofuels

One of the many flaws of the Science Magazine studies on biofuels and land use changes is their assumption that an acre of crops dedicated to biofuels in America will lead to an acre of deforestation elsewhere in the world. In fact, in a recent interview with the Nature Conservancy (his employer) Joe Fargione, the [...]