U.S. must 'hustle' to reach 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022, ag secretary says

Kansas City Star ^ | March12, 2012 | by Cory Nealon

[Oldeconomybuyer]

The United States can meet President Barack Obama's goal of producing 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022, but it better get moving.

That's according to Tom Vilsack, secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

According to a 2010 Agriculture Department report, the agency plans for the U.S. to produce 13.4 billion gallons of biofuels from grasses and sugars. The rest would come from oil seeds, crop residues and wood waste.

The EPA is exploring other sources, such as animal fats, municipal solid waste and algae.

The push for more biofuels comes as other industries, such as commercial power companies, seek alternative fuel sources to comply with tougher pollution standards set by the Obama administration. For example, Dominion Virginia Power announced last year it would convert three coal-fired power plants to biomass.

Citing a Penn State University study that states the U.S. produces more than 1 billion tons of biomass a year, Vilsack said there is plenty to satisfy numerous industries. Environmental groups aren't so sure.

The Southern Environmental Law Center is concerned that companies will start removing healthy trees from forests to meet demands that are expected to grow.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

The Dept. of Agriculture and the EPA are in charge of our energy future.

Pray for America.

[HiTech RedNeck]

More unicorn droppings.

[Bryanw92]

Soylent GAS is people?!?

[Cicero]

Total nonsense. Grass and corn are needed to feed animals and people.

And the most efficient use of wood waste is as pellets, which can be burned in pellet stoves and furnaces. I put in a pellet fireplace insert a few years ago, and it has saved us a bundle on fuel oil, which at last billing was going for $4.15 a gallon.

[Trteamer]

Let me translate his comments into English:

We need more money to keep the gravy train a rolling.....

[SkyDancer]

Takes more energy to produce bio-fuels than what you get out of it.

[unixfox]

These people just keep pushing and pushing.

It’ll come to a head. And not soon enough.

F U B O !

[SunkenCiv]

It's the Obamacare, stupid! One-half gallon of oil in the form of pesticides per bushel of corn would cost $2 to $3 per bushel. If this were true -- and it clearly isn't -- it should be enough to illustrate to literally anyone that the price of petroleum is quite literally the ONLY thing driving corn prices. And this idiotic piece of agitprop -- from a hydrogen "energy" advocacy site -- also shows the guy in the encounter suit spraying chemical fertilizer, a sight that I've never been privileged to see, what with me *growing up on a farm*. The Bum Rap on Biofuels [2008] Campaign to vilify ethanol revealed [2008] Oil Price Pressure Driving Global Switch to Biofuels [2006]

[SunkenCiv]

• Obama: "I want to make sure we end before the call to prayer"

[JRandomFreeper]

The rest would come from oil seeds, crop residues and wood waste.

The EPA is exploring other sources, such as animal fats, municipal solid waste and algae.

Isn't this what Hitler's Germany did when they were up against the wall?

/johnny

[SunkenCiv]

= 857,142,857 bbls

What makes anyone think that Zero *wants* biofuels to succeed?!?

Thanks Oldeconomybuyer.

[depressed in 06]

Let us hope this is another promise the One makes, that, the next American President doesn’t keep.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Maybe the cartoon was fostered by folks trying to grind an axe for other impractical fuels like hydrogen, but still this does not look like a claim that 1/2 gallon of oil goes solely into pesticides for a bushel of corn — but that it goes collectively into all the activity involved in producing the bushel, harvesting it, and processing that bushel into ethanol a la Arthur Daniels Midland. And the poison suit simply is a caricatured way of showing this ain’t watering the corn... gee whiz the whole operation isn’t located together either, are we going to quibble about this too.

[KoRn]

That’s a shit-ton of Algae. They’d best get started!

[ogen hal]

If all the nobama minions were processed into soylent green this goal might be reached.

[Ron C.]

We don't need no stinkin' biofuels. We're sitting on top of two billion barrels of oil right under Los Angeles. ALL of the old capped well's are full again - a well known fact.

The mayor of Long Beach found out about a couple of them being full-to-the-brim and tried to start pumping oil to aid the Long Beach city coffers. He was denied a permit, and told to 'shut up about wells being full again.'

I know too that wells drilled in Oklahoma when I was a child (on extensive family property) are also full to the brim. Those too have been 'locked up' - no pumping of oil allowed.

[HiTech RedNeck]

And if they went fracking at those sites — there wouldn’t be any waiting decades for them to refill either.

[Iron Munro]

These people are insane.

They are destroying America.
And idiots keep voting more of them into office.

By the time it all comes crashing down there will be no returning to the policies and conditions that led to America's success and wealth.

There are now too many moochers and takers, too many communists, too many greedy and stupid politicians, not enough producers.

The culture of self reliance, personal pride, and morality has been over run by government dependent freaks, perverts moochers and vote sellers.

Once the Republic is gone, it's gone forever.

[SunkenCiv]

It’s a completely false claim, so the source doesn’t matter, neither does your quibbling.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Your reference for “complete falsity”?

Can you better quantify how much petroleum goes to subsidize fuel ethanol?