Report, Biofuels Ethanol will not Replace Oil.

Why Biofuels Burned Up Your Dollars

Farm state politicians, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists have sold biofuels to rest of us as a way to revive rural America, attack the problem of global warming and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

In response, investors and taxpayers have poured many millions of dollars into corn ethanol. The returns have been skimpy.

That, at least, is the conclusion of a new report from the Worldwatch Institute called Red, White, and Green: Transforming U.S. Biofuels. The unhappy news is that we don’t seem to have learned much from our dismal experience with corn ethanol, and unless things change in Washington, we’re going to burn a lot more of it.

So far in 2009, ten ethanol production plants have filed for bankruptcy.

Government support “is the only reason the industry is up and running,” McKeown says. “Otherwise it wouldn’t be profitable.” Even so, much of the industry has failed to survive the combination of rising corn
prices, declining oil prices and the credit crunch.

The United States is increasingly dependent on imported energy to meet our personal, transportation, and industrial needs. As a domestic, renewable source of energy, ethanol can reduce our dependence on foreign oil and increase the United States' ability to control its own security and economic future by increasing the availability of domestic fuel supplies

One fact is correct, the United States is increasingly dependent on imported oil. What is not true, ethanol can reduce our dependence of foreign oil. By 2030, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects the U.S. will import 70% of its petroleum. So what is going to replace oil? Wind or solar, not yet. We must drill off our coast and on our land.


Oil rigs of the past. Today we have fewer oil rigs.

The production facility of today has been radically streamlined and occupies far less surface area when compared to operations 25 years ago. In 1970, a 20-acre offshore oil rig could drill a mere 0.8 square miles at 10,000 feet. Today , an oil rig of just 2 acres can drill over 80 square miles - again, while spilling almost none of it.

The key word regarding today’s footprint is small.  For instance, one development opened in 2000 in Alaska’s Alpine Field produces from a pad area of 97 acres—just 0.2 percent of the 40,000-acre field.  Directional drilling, zero-waste discharge, roadless development and other innovations were used to minimize the Alpine field’s footprint on the Arctic tundra.

The U.S. oil and gas industry has integrated an environmental ethic into every aspect of business.  The industry actively collaborates with private conservation groups to protect sensitive coastal and marine habitats and wildlife.

We need energy to keep our country going.  If we don't drill now to provide for our economy, our children might have no future. Not from global warming but of no USA.

More post from Wag This Dog.
US Massive Oil Deposits could be 10x Increase to Supply.
Five Nations urge Oil Producers to Boost Output.
US House Votes to Sue OPEC for Price Fixing.


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