10 Stories We Probably Should Have Read: a Biofuels Digest aniversary special report

#1. An article on Cuban plans for a massive ethanol expansion in February didn’t attract much attention, but it helped explain that Cuban support for Jean “Biofuels are a crime against humanity” Ziegler at the UN probably had more to do with US-Cuba relations than ethanol. Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez have subsequently focused on opposing corn ethanol instead of all ethanol, saying that sugarcane ethanol is not made from a food crop. But it makes little difference whether a food or fuel crop is grown on land that could be used for food production, say other anti-ethanol advocates. Land is land, fair is fair…Cuba is, well, different.

#2. Missing out badly, and surprisingly, on a top 10 slot was this cover story from TIME Magazine that was a strongly worded attack on corn ethanol. On the day of publication, the story became one of the most popular reads ever from Daily Biofuels News Digest readers, but it fell out of the top 10 gradually as the story did not gain much attention even from anti-ethanol advocates, who steered away from the selective statistics and journalism-as-jihad approach that TIME took on the piece.

#3. Long before the headlines exploded with a story that the Grocery Manufacturers Association was funding a campaign against ethanol in the US, most readers overlooked this early report from the FAO that food prices had risen 40 percent and that biofuels were to blame.

#4. Back in March, Ethanol Producer listed 118 ethanol projects underway with an additional 8 billion gallons of capacity, a sure sign that ethanol plants would begin to be cancelled shortly over concerns that the US wouldn’t be able to absorb the additional fuel with E85 gaining so little traction.

#5. When Science magazine published two articles about biofuels and climate change remediation, it became the intellectual underpinning for a wave of attacks on biofuels. It was a bad sign that very few people took advantage of a free download of the underlying data of one of the studies. It surely indicated that the debate over emissions would be based more in dogma than science, and that the world would be divided by both camps into believers and infidels.

#6. An article published last October on trends for 2008 was generally overlooked, and identified a looming slowdown in plant construction, a ramp up of interest in algae and biocrude, a gathering storm over food vs fuel, the lack of US ethanol infrastructure, and emissions as issues to watch. However, an overly optimistic view of algae yields, potential IPOs and the role of oil companies (rather than food companies) in leading an anti-biofuels charge were among predictions that were a big swing-and-miss for the Digest.

#7. A few discerning readers – just 60 of them – clicked to read this story from the Guardian warning in August 2007 that Science magazine was preparing a damaging article on biofuels.

#8. Not too many readers clicked on this story about slavery conditions existing in the Brazilian sugarcane industry. Reports continue to surface of forced labor, and the industry continues to say that they are isolated cases.

#9. The Digest has run a number of little-read stories about ethanol fires, with the observation that ethanol trains to the West Coast carry 250 times the fuel that plowed into the World Trade Center on September 11. This story, about the lack of equipment to fight ethanol fires in Iowa, also did not receive much attention.

#10. It came from Texas. Only 67 readers ever clicked on this story from last October that Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson was putting a preocedural hold on the Energy Independence and Securioty Act, saying the bill was “bad for Texas”. It was an early warning that Texas Republican supporters would circle the wagons against renewable energy legislation unless it benefited the Lone Star State, presaging the move by Governor Rick Perry to request the EPA to abandon the Renewable Fuel Standard over rising corn prices.

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10 Stories We Probably Should Have Read: a Biofuels Digest aniversary special report

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