Biofuel: Part 2

• Dot Earth: Although the New York Times has plenty to say about various biofuels, the jury seems to be out for Andrew Revkin, who did not comment on it personally. He linked a number of interesting articles to his blog, and while many of these articles do not pass a verdict on ethanol or other biofuels, they're worth reading. Here's one on the development of Hawaiian ethanol, another on cellulosic ethanol (which brief addresses some of the drawbacks of ethanol, but passes no opinions on the subject), and one last article on some of the lasting difficulties of introducing ethanol into the market.
• New Scientist: New Scientist's Environmental blog had little to say about biofuel, but their online magazine certainly hasn't been silent on the topic. It turns out that New Scientist has a lot of hope for switch grass. The perennial plant, which can live on marginal lands and needs very little fertilizer to survive, has been championed as the cleaner, less-intensive alternative to corn-based ethanol, is capable of producing 5.4 times as much energy when turned into cellulosic ethanol (which has been mentioned previously, but never fully explained in my blog). Anyway, take a look at this recent article. You have to subscribe to the magazine to get the full version, but I think those first couple of paragraphs get the point across quite nicely.
• Real Climate: Ok, so I was really hoping to find something in Real Climate that was ethanol related, because my last topic wasn't in their area of coverage. When I chose biofuel as my second analysis topic, I though Real Climate would have something on the blog about it, since deforestation for biofuel production is contributing to carbon emissions, which are definitely a climatic issue. Alas! Again, I wasn't able to find anything pertinent on their website, even though there's some great environmental coverage there!
• Eco-Street: Eco-Street, like The Lazy Environmentalist, is primarily consumerist in its orientation. As a result, most of their articles on biofuels, like this one on chocolate, tout the novelty of environmentally-related market innovations, rather than passing judgments on said innovations.
• De Smog Blog: The guys over at the De Smog Blog aren't big fans of ethanol, though they are willing to debate the efficacy of it. As for other biofuels? Well, they're pretty excited about switchgrass.