House of Representatives passes biofuels bill - Reuters

[Eugene]

House of Representatives passes biofuels bill

Thu Feb 8, 5:56 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday
overwhelmingly approved legislation to promote the development of alternative
biofuels and create the infrastructure to handle the supplies.

The bill, which passed in a 400-to-3 vote, requires the government to carry out
research to make alternative biobased fuels, such as gasoline made of 85 percent
ethanol, compatible with existing infrastructure to store and deliver the fuels
to the point of final sale.

Specifically, the government would research ways to prevent or limit the damage
from biofuels in corroding pipelines and storage tanks, clogging filters and
producing more emissions from higher evaporation rates.

-snip-

Making the fuels more acceptable to existing infrastructure will help reduce
gasoline demand and make the United States less dependent on foreign oil imports,
the bill's sponsors said.

-snip-

Full article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070208/pl_nm/energy_congress_biofuels_dc

[Selatius]

1. This does not appear to be good if we're talking about corn ethanol.

Corn ethanol:

http://zfacts.com/p/60.html

[Hardrada]

2. It will help those of us who own farmland.

Price of corn is already lifting land values.

[Selatius]

3. It may help farmers but may hurt others potentially affected by global warming

According to the graph, most of the energy needed to produce corn ethanol comes from fossil fuels. It is the burning of fossil fuels that releases trapped CO2 in the earth's crust back into the atmosphere, which is leading to global warming. Global warming has implications with rising sea levels, which would negatively impact coastal communities.

[Hardrada]

4. I'm aware of that. I agree. I wish the people who rent our land

would grow something other than corn and beans. Some crops may be more helpful to the climate and be less energy intensive.