BiofuelsSnake Oil for the Twenty-First Century

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Links to Media http://www.law.uoregon.edu/org/olr/archives/87/Reitze.pdf
School or College S. J. Quinney College of Law
Creator Reitze, Arnold W.
Title BiofuelsSnake Oil for the Twenty-First Century
Date 2008-12-01
Description Congress should slash its subsidies for corn-based ethanol and focus its efforts on research and development efforts to advance the technologies needed to reduce our need for foreign petroleum. We should be working to lower the costs of cellulosic ethanol production as well as working on promising alternative transportation energy sources including plug-in electric vehicles powered by electricity from wind or solar technologies. Energy derived from microbial energy conversion is another promising technology for the longer term that deserves more research and development effort.460 Second, if we are to use ethanol, barriers to its importation of ethanol should be abolished in order to enhance the nations fuel diversity, although policies concerning ethanol from all sources need to give serious scrutiny to its impact on the environment and food prices. Third, the government should not be working to build an ethanol infrastructure whose economic viability depends on government subsidies. We do not need another economic meltdown because massive amounts of capital were used to develop an industry that is not sustainable. Fourth, the EPA, DOE, DOT, and other relevant executive agencies should be tasked with developing a national fuel policy using a process that is open and transparent. This would include measures to reduce the distortion of the economic system caused by subsidies to the energy industry that would help place the alternative energy industry on a level playing field. A renewable fuels program should be an important part of a national energy policy, but it must be sustainable, and it should not be based on long-term government subsidies.
Type Text
Publisher Oregon Law Review
Subject LCSH Biofuels USE Biomass energy; Alternative energy sources USE Renewable energy sources; Fossil fuels; Climate change USE Climatic changes
Language eng
Relation is Version of Faculty Publications; Institutional Repository
Rights Management College of Law, University of utah
Spatial Coverage U.S.
Format Medium application/pdf
ARK ark:/87278/s6gj2sq2
Setname ir_uspace
ID 709981
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6gj2sq2