History of U.S. Ethanol Policy In 1978 the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a gasohol waiver that set the maximum legal limit of ethanol in motor gasoline at 10 percent denatured anhydrous ethanol. […]
Debut of the Wall Street Journal Energy Panel
Last week I made my debut as a contributor to the Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) new feature The Experts: Journal Reports. The idea is that the WSJ poses questions to the panel, and each panel […]
Protesting Keystone XL While Rome Burns
I started to go with “Fiddling While Rome Burns” in the title, but I know many people who would take great exception to the notion that the Keystone XL protesters are fiddling. Indeed, they do […]
First Commercial Cellulosic Ethanol Plant in US Goes Bankrupt
First Qualifying Cellulosic Ethanol Last year, to much fanfare, the first batch of qualifying cellulosic ethanol was produced (i.e., it qualified for credits under the EPA program for certifying ethanol for sales). I reported on […]
Why Environmentalists are Wrong on Keystone XL
If not for the US government’s latest demonstration of incompetence that played out at the end of last week (a.k.a. sequestration), the top news story might have been a report issued by the US State […]
How Oil Can Improve Our Long Term Energy Situation
Energy Security Trust Energy policy is a major topic of discussion during almost every State of the Union address. The most recent address was no exception, with President Obama devoting a substantial portion of his […]
Exclusive: U.S. Air Force Report to Congress Bashes Navy’s Biofuels Program
The Navy’s Biofuels Program In 2010 I conducted an interview with Tom Hicks, who is the Deputy Assistant Secretary to the Navy (Energy). During the interview, Tom described the Navy’s efforts in pushing for widespread […]
Book Review – Reinventing Fire
While I disagree with Amory Lovins on many topics, the man is definitely a visionary. In his latest book Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era, Lovins and his coauthors make the […]
Al Gore Profits From Fossil Fuels He Vilified
Oil Money is Bad Money, Except When… Al Gore has just released a new book — The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change — and is on a media tour to promote it. But he […]
EPA Doubles Down on Unicorns
In my previous column — Why I Don’t Ride a Unicorn to Work — I used an analogy to describe the US government’s approach to cellulosic ethanol mandates. In brief, they have mandated that something […]