The numbers go like this: It takes 131,000 BTUs to grow and convert enough corn for one gallon of ethanol . A gallon of ethanol , however, has an energy value of just 77,000 BTUs. In other words, it takes about 70% more energy (which comes from fossil fuels, by the way) to produce ethanol than the energy ethanol creates. It'd be easier -- and less costly -- for consumers to pour most of every gallon of gas they buy down a sinkhole.

Professor Pimentel also looked at the cost of making ethanol . He found that ethanol costs $1.74 a gallon to produce, compared with 95 cents to produce a gallon of gas. That's why "fossil fuels -- not ethanol -- are used to produce ethanol ," he says. "The growers and processors can't afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol ." We might add that drivers can't afford ethanol either, which is why the government subsidizes it at the pump.

And then there's the question of clean air. Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it was investigating ethanol-producing companies for pollution. The EPA says factories are producing carbon monoxide, methanol and "additional emissions that weren't anticipated" at levels "many times greater" than the companies promised.

This might be acceptable, if ethanol made skies bluer. But it doesn't. Annual emissions of the worst auto exhaust pollutants have dropped by more than half since the 1960s, but most gains have come from better emissions equipment and cleaner engines. Two years ago the National Academy of Sciences concluded that ethanol had "little impact in improving ozone air quality." In short, the U.S. pumps out pollution to make a product that itself does little or nothing to help air quality. And under Mr. Daschle's plan, the amount of that pollution will triple by 2012.

UK: March 7, 2002 REUTERS NEWS SERVICE

LONDON - British consumers will have to pay up to 780 million pounds a year extra for electricity by 2010 to meet the costs of supporting high-cost renewable energy schemes, the government said.

The increase is equivalent to a five percent rise in electricity prices, John Doddrell, director of the sustainable energy policy unit at the Department of Trade and Industry, told a conference.

"The cost to consumers will be quiet substantial," Doddrell told delegates.

The government plans to introduce a so-called renewables obligation in April, forcing suppliers to buy a certain amount of their electricity from renewable sources.

The rules to bring the obligation into force are being debated in parliament yesterday, Doddrell said.

From April, suppliers will have to buy three percent of their power from green sources, a figure which rises to around 10 percent in 2010.

The government hopes the obligation will kick-start the green power sector. Companies have already announced plans to invest millions of pounds in offshore wind farms.

Britain produces just less than three percent of its electricity from green sources. The government has set a target of increasing this to 10 percent by 2010.

WASHINGTON, DC, January 28, 2002 (ENS) - New wind farms installed across the United States in 2001 will produce as much electricity annually as 475,000 average American households use, according to a year end analysis by the American Wind Energy Association.

It was a record year, but the ongoing Congressional battle over an economic stimulus package has stalled renewal of the wind production tax credit, stranding hundreds of millions of dollars in wind power investments in states like Montana, Oregon, South Dakota, and West Virginia.

Last year, nearly 1,700 megawatts (MW) of new generating equipment went up in 16 states, installations worth $1.7 billion, the wind industry association said.

"2001 was an astonishing year for our industry in the U.S.," said AWEA executive director Randall Swisher. "More new wind generation was installed in a single state, Texas, than had ever been installed in the entire country in a single year. We are finally beginning to tap into wind energy's enormous potential."

But prospects for a repeat in 2002 have been thrown into doubt by the expiration of a key incentive, the federal wind production tax credit, which ran out December 31 and has not been renewed by Congress, due to a partisan battle over economic stimulus legislation.

Bills to renew the production tax credit had strong support in both the House of Representatives and Senate, the AWEA said, but were left unpassed when negotiations between the two parties on economic legislation, which included the extension for the credit, broke down shortly before Christmas.

"There are hundreds of megawatts' worth of wind power projects, representing hundreds of millions of dollars in investments in states like Montana, Oregon, South Dakota, and West Virginia, which will not go forward this year unless Congress reinstates the wind energy Production Tax Credit early in this year's session," said Samuel Enfield, vice president of Development for wind developer Atlantic Renewable Energy Corp.

"This has to be done on a timely basis, if we are to be able to plan for and order the long lead time capital equipment that will go into these projects, said Enfield.

The new cash crop, power generated by a wind turbine on Minnesota farm (Photo by Mark Frederickson courtesy Clean Water Action Alliance of Minnesota)

The wind industry association estimates that power generated by the wind farms established in 2001 will displace emissions of three million tons of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas linked to global warming. The zero emission wind power is expected to displace more than 27,000 tons of noxious air pollutants each year.

The final tally of 1,694 MW installed in 2001 was more than double the previous record year of 1999, when 732 MW was installed, and boosted the industry's total generating capacity by more than 60 percent over the amount in place a year earlier.

Current installed capacity in the United States is now 4,258 MW, and there are wind turbine installations in 26 states. More than 900 MW was installed in 2001 in Texas alone.

The wind farms completed in 2001 will generate approximately $5 million in payments to landowners annually and create some 200 skilled, long term jobs in areas where such employment is scarce.

The trade group urged swift approval of the production tax credit extension, which Swisher called "vital to continuing the industry's momentum."

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Launches Bottled Water With A Cause

Elmont, NY – Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tariq Khan, Chairman of the National Coalition of Associations of 7-Eleven Franchisees, at a press conference here today announced that 7-Eleven store owners are helping save America’s waterways by selling Keeper Springs water, which raises money for Kennedy’s non-profit Water Keeper Alliance, a volunteer group working to reclaim rivers and other waterways from polluters.

Riverkeeper Wins 20 Year Battle With EPA:
EPA Holds General Electric Responsible for Clean-up of Toxic PCB Contamination in the Upper Hudson River
On Earth Day 2002, Waterkeeper Alliance celebrates Riverkeeper’s campaign to rid the Hudson River of General Electric’s PCBs. After 20 years of delay and political campaigns, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decided in August 2001 to proceed with the Hudson River dredging plan proposed under the Clinton Administration. This dredging will remove PCB-contaminated sediments from toxic hot spots in the upper Hudson River north of Albany, which have been a source of pollution since the mid 1940s.

Industrial Agriculture: Poisoning
Our Waters and Our Homes
American food production is undergoing the most dramatic consolidation in our history. Industrial meat factories and corporate controlled farms are replacing family, "hands-on" farms. These facilities are owned by or indentured to a handful of giant corporations with little or no interest in socially responsible agriculture. Their livestock factories contaminate water bodies across the nation with nutrients, pesticides, antibiotic residues and other pollutants.

Tell your Representatives in Congress that no one, including the U.S. military, should be above the laws of our nation.
For several years, the United States military has been quietly and effectively making itself immune from many of the most vital environmental laws in the United States. Congress enacted our environmental laws to protect you, your family and future generations of this nation from the types of environmental degradation and hazardous waste practices in which the military regularly engages on military training facilities around the world. On March 7, 2002, a draft of a new bill, the Sustainable Defense Readiness and Environmental Protection Act (SDREPA), was circulated through Congress. This bill allows the military to circumvent major provisions of the laws that safeguard communities against lethal hazardous wastes, poisoned air and contaminated groundwater and protect endangered and migratory species of animals and birds.