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Tamminen and hydrogen

I wrote Terry Tamminen a few days ago and offered him a venue to defend his support for hydrogen cars, which is taking quite a beating in comments. Here’s his […]

A lifelong conservative questions his hatred of hippies

Via Glenn Greenwald, conservative and National Review contributor Rod Dreher's commentary on NPR is a must-hear (oral essay) on his disillusionment under the Bush Administration. Regarding Dave's hippie-bashing bashing lately, this part is especially relevant:

Readers write in about coal’s villainy, eating locally, sexy eco-geeks, and more

  Re: One Nation, Under Terry Dear Editor: I read Terry Tamminen’s book, and overall I think it’s a very credible effort by a very good guy. He does a […]

The meme all the kids are talking about!

I got to thinking (again) about an elevator pitch for greens — the "What Greens Want" that can be explained in a short elevator ride. Ideally the message would be […]

You listen

Our food/ag writer and all-around smart guy Tom Philpott recently did a short interview with PBS’s Now. I think it shows an almost mustachian ability to distill large, complex messages […]

Everybody loves lists!

Way back at the beginning of the year (is that already two weeks ago?), I meant to do a bit of a round-up of year-end lists appearing on other sites. […]

Wonder Twin powers, activate!

Interesting. I interviewed famed biologist E.O. Wilson, who talked about the need for scientists to reach out to religious leaders, to ask them to lend their moral credibility to the […]

Bait and switchgrass, again

I've only just seen this study by Tiffany A. Groode, a graduate student in MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering, and not looked at it in detail, but several statements in the press release stand out:

Now a new MIT analysis shows that the energy balance is actually so close that several factors can easily change whether ethanol ends up a net energy winner or loser.

Regardless of the energy balance, replacing gasoline with corn-based ethanol does significantly reduce oil consumption because the biomass production and conversion process requires little petroleum.

Groode incorporated into her analysis the uncertainty associated with the values of many of the inputs. Using a methodology developed by a recent MIT graduate, she used not just one value for each key variable (such as the amount of fertilizer required), but rather a range of values along with the probability that each of those values would occur.

Based on her "most likely" outcomes, she concluded that traveling a kilometer using ethanol does indeed consume more energy than traveling the same distance using gasoline.

So why does the press release proclaim, "MIT ethanol analysis confirms benefits of biofuels"? Because cornstarch ethanol forms part of a continuum, you see:

Says smart stuff

A while back, in a post semi-defending Gore et. al’s backing of science showing a connection between hurricanes and climate change, I invoked a study by Tom Wigley and colleagues. […]

King for a Day

Daily Grist takes a break for equality’s sake, resumes on Tuesday So many Monday holidays, so little time: just when you got used to having us back, Daily Grist will […]