Today in Biofuels Opinion: “All of a sudden, not just a few start-ups but the entire renewable-energy industry was staring into the Valley of Death.”
From The Atlantic: “Congress seems never to have imagined that Wall Street might someday have no profits and need no tax equity. Early last year, the multibillion-dollar tax-equity universe consisted of 18 providers. After September’s record carnage, the number dropped to four. Credit froze, and most projects ground to a halt. All of a sudden, not just a few start-ups but the entire renewable-energy industry was staring into the Valley of Death.”
Tom Buis, CEO of Growth Energy: “The highly controversial theory of indirect land use change would penalize American ethanol producers and farmers for greenhouse gas emissions on the other side of the globe that they have no responsibility for or control over. We believe that additional study of the issue of indirect land use change will further demonstrate that these provisions should never have been a part of the 2007 energy law to begin with.”
Free Subscription to the Daily Biofuels Digest e-newsletter
Subscribe FREE to the world's most-widely read biofuels daily. Enter your email in the box below,
Related Stories
Hot Topics
The Hottest 50 Companies in Bioenergy
Latest algae-to-energy news
Latest jatropha news
Latest Waste-to-energy news
Entry Information
Filed Under: Opinion
Comments: 1 | Post a Comment | Trackback URL
Post a Comment | Trackback URL
You must be logged in to post a comment.
rperrin | Jul 20, 2009 | Reply
What “penalty” is levied on American ethanol producers and farmers via the acknowledgement of “indirect land use change”? … It seems that the penalty at issue is that ethanol might not qualify as a low carbon fuel.
But if the truth were known and it turned out to be that increased ethanol production actually resulted in an increase in atmospheric carbon, the designation of “not low carbon” would surely be appropriate. What argument could be advanced to have it declared “low-carbon” if this turned out to be contrary to the truth?
The issue is that we do not know the truth, and it will be very difficult to determine it with much confidence. ILUC cannot be estimated with acceptable accurately right now, and that’s an issue for legitimate and much-needed research and debate. But to argue that the theory itself penalizes farmers appears to be ingenuous.