Mark Jacobson: The Truth About Ethanol
20:16 | 
Mark Jacobson is a leading expert in wind energy and the atmosphere. He hears some of the claims being made on behalf of E85 — that it’s supposed to be cleaner, that it will reduce ozone-forming pollution and the release of harmful compounds like benzene, toluene and xylene. Mark’s research shows that these statements are misleading, and he strongly disagrees: Burning E85 will not lead to reductions in harmful emissions, he says.
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Tags: Mark Jacobson, wind energy, E85, MarkJacobson
4 Responses to “Mark Jacobson: The Truth About Ethanol”
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Copyright ©2008 PodTech.net. All rights reserved. Modified: Fri, 05 Sep 2008 02:09:39 -0700
April 18th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
This study and all the related press is very premature. Reeks of big oil suport. Echo chamber is streaming, way to help slow one part of the solution.
Mark used a lot of older other studies that are no longer valid. A lot of assumptions going on here.
Let me summarize. This guy is a nay-sayer and does not realize the realities of what it will take to end fossil fuel use.
April 23rd, 2007 at 10:30 am
Ethanol reeks of big agriculture support. Ethanol and fossil fuels still go hand-in-hand.
This study is support for investigating other alternatives to fossil fuel and ethanol, such as wind and geothermal power. Maybe there’s not as much money to be made there, but everyone (and the Earth) will profit.
May 8th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
The largest draw on oil in this country is transportation which accounts for two-thirds of oil consumption. Wind and geothermal energy is of little help in this sector. Mr. Jacobson sounds like a nay sayer only from the inside of a small box. Enter hydrogen, a totally clean fuel that is becoming increasingly viable. The U.S. Department of Energy has proposed that hydrogen powered vehicles could enter the market by 2020. This begs the question of the need, as proposed by President Bush, to increase ethanol production sevenfold by 2017. Why waste any effort on developing technology that has already been shown inferior when better options are already known to exist.
May 18th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
Transportation can benefit certainly from wind and solar as well as geothermal if we can move away from liquid fuel to electric transport. Hydrogen is another option that has received much support in the past. My feeling is though that with continued progress in battery development, electric transport will ultimately be the most advantageous.
What Mark points out is that ethanol is not the silver bullet as has been claimed by many. I agree with him that it is not. Before we invest as heavily as some are pushing for, I think it is only sensible to carefully look at implications of large scale biomass crops on the environment, but also on land use, water security, and global impacts.