Ethanol: Irrational Exuberance?

23:15 | Margot Gerritsen | Apr 6th, 2007 2:43pm |

There’s a lot of enthusiasm right now around ethanol as a potential solution to our oil addiction. Not everyone shares that enthusiasm, though. Margot Gerritsen speaks with UC Berkeley Professor Tad Patzek for a different perspective. Patzek is certain that corn ethanol and/or cellulosic ethanol (produced by specialized biomass crops) is not the silver bullet that so many people - from NGOs to government agencies - believe it to be. He says that, contrary to popular belief, it won’t secure energy security, it won’t lead to significantly lower carbon emissions, and it will negatively affect our water and food security, all the while harming our environment.

Photo Credit: Seth Anderson via Creative Commons

Tags: ethanol, Margot Gerritsen, energy security, carbon emissions

This entry was posted on Friday, April 6th, 2007 at 2:43 pm and is filed under PodTech, Clean Tech, SmartEnergy, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Post to your WordPress.com blog »