Today in Biofuels Opinion: “we don’t just need a bailout. We need a buildup…an energy technology revolution.”

Thomas L Friedman, Deccan Chronicle: “Yes, this bailout is necessary. This is a credit crisis, and credit crises involve a breakdown in confidence that leads to no one lending to anyone. You don’t fool around with a credit crisis. You have to overwhelm it with capital. But that is not the point of this column. The point is, we don’t just need a bailout. We need a buildup. We need to get back to making stuff, based on real engineering not financial engineering. Indeed, when this bailout is over, we need the next President to launch an ET, energy technology, revolution with the same urgency as this bailout. Otherwise, all we will have done is bought ourselves a respite, but not a future. The exciting thing about the energy technology revolution is that it spans the whole economy from green-collar construction jobs to high-tech solar panel designing jobs. It could lift so many boats.”

Tim Blair, Ohio-based hog farmer: “I’ve basically spent my life savings the past 14 months hoping it would get better. I’m losing money because of the government’s [ethanol] policy. Ethanol should have to do what I’m doing — run on its own.”

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