The Cost of Energy Independence

I have noted before that every president since Nixon has talked about the need to get the United States off of foreign oil and moving toward energy independence. Jon Stewart recently captured this theme in […]

I’m Number 5!

I am still in Europe through the end of the week (today in Germany), but working on several articles and trying to get caught up on correspondence. Today I started getting a lot of e-mails […]

Five Positive Notes on Next-Generation Biofuels

In the previous essay, I discussed some of the challenges that next-generation biofuels face according to a recently released USDA report: Next-Generation Biofuels: Near-Term Challenges and Implications for Agriculture Here are five positive notes from […]

Five Challenges of Next-Generation Biofuels

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has just issued a report detailing the outlook and challenges of next generation biofuels. I provided some input during the drafting of the report, which hopefully was of some […]

Footprint Forum 2010

During the week starting June 6th I will be in Siena, Italy to participate in Footprint Forum 2010, put together by the Global Footprint Network. In fact, when this post goes up I will be […]

Final Thoughts on Methanol

The previous essay on methanol versus ethanol resulted in a number of interesting comments. It was one of the best discussions we have had around here in a long time. Many issues were raised in […]

Methanol versus Ethanol: Technical Merits and Political Favoritism

The previous essay sparked a lively discussion about the potential of methanol as a fuel, so I decided to write an essay particularly devoted to methanol. I was especially motivated to write this because of […]