Ethanol, Just Recently a Savior, Is Struggling

12 Feb 09

Barely a year after U.S. Congress enacted an energy law meant to foster a huge national enterprise capable of converting plants and agricultural wastes into automotive fuel, the goals lawmakers set for the ethanol industry are in serious jeopardy. The government’s Energy Information Administration recently projected that the industry would fall short of the targets for expanded use of ethanol and other biofuels that Congress set in a 2007 energy law. “It’s possible we may have to look at the targets again,” said Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “There’s no doubt when we wrote that bill, we did not anticipate the recession we are currently sinking into,” he said. “Exactly what that requires us to do as far as changing the law, I am not clear on yet.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/business/12ethanol.html?ref=science

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