Marquardt, Katy. (Staff writer), U.S.

news and world report, Aorukl 3, 2008, p 32

“Biofuel are a hot topic, but we’re not heavily invested in them. Clearly, there’s potential growth in
the amount of biofuel produced over the next 10 years, but it’s going to be challenging to get there
because high feedsstock prices mean that ethanol refiners are not able to produce profitably. The
number of new plants being built has almost ground to a halt. There’s an extended effect on the rest of
the supply chain, and also higher food prices are much bigger problems than higher energy
prices. That needs to be addressed for biofuels to make a meaningful dent in consumption of gasoline
and diesel.”

Blaming biofuels for food-price rises distorts full picture.” The Irish Times, April 17, 2008. Pg. 15 Because
of this, biofuels from rape and corn would be a non-starter economically without government protection
and subsidies. But between them, the US and EU spend billions on promoting the least
environmentally and economically efficient ways of making biofuels. And they are not just
promoting them, but sheltering them behind tariffs from competition with the more efficient cane-
based stuff.

Deutch, John and Schlesinger, James R. National Security Consequences of US Oil Dependency. 2006.
www.cfr.org/content/publication/attachments/energyTFR.pdf
“dependency also puts the united states into increasing competition with other importing countries,
notably with today’s rapidly growing emerging economies of china and India “

Zwebel, Ken, Mason, James, and Ftehnakis, Vasilis. (Scientific American editors) ”A Solar Grand Plan,”
Scientific American, December 2007, www.sciam.com/arcticle.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
“high prices for gasoline and home heating oil are here to stay. The U.S is at war in the middle east
at least in part to protect its foreign oil intrests. And as china, india and other nations rapidly
increase their demand for fossil fuels, future fighting over energy looms large.”

Friedman, Thomas L. “The Energy Harvest.” The New York Times. September 15, 2006. Section A

Pg. 25.

Think of each stalk of sugar cane as containing three sources of energy. First, the juice extracted from the
cane is already giving us ethanol and sugar. Second, the bagasse is already heating very low-technology,
low-pressure boilers, giving us electricity. But if Brazil's refiners converted to new high-pressure boilers,
you could get three times as much electricity. Finally, when the cane is harvested the tops and leaves are
often just left in the field. But this biomass is rich in cellulose, the carbohydrate that makes up the walls of
plant cells. If the sugar locked away in cellulose also could be unlocked -- cheaply and easily by a
chemical process -- this biomass could also produce tons of sugar ethanol. There is now a race on to find
that process. A breakthrough is expected within five years, and when that happens it will be possible to
extract ''more than double'' the amount of ethanol from each sugar stalk, said Jose Luiz Oliverio, a senior
V.P. at Dedini, the Brazilian industrial giant, which has a pilot cellulosic ethanol project. I asked Brazilian
experts what they'd do if they were the U.S. president. The consensus answer: Require U.S. oil
companies to provide ethanol fuel pumps at all their gas stations, require U.S. auto companies to make all
their new cars flex-fuel and improve mileage standards, and get rid of the crazy 54-cent tariff we've
imposed on imported sugar ethanol (to protect our farmers). And then let the market work. Demand
for ethanol would soar. This would push us faster down the innovation curve, so we'd solve the
cellulosic ethanol problem quicker, and that would strengthen the democrats in our hemisphere and
weaken the petrocrats in the Middle East. If only we were as smart as Brazil.
“Are biofuels really greener and cleaner?” Bristol Evening Post. April 16, 2008 Pg. 62
Some biofuels are more carbon-friendly than others. Biofuels from sugar cane in Brazil have 10
per cent of the carbon footprint of traditional fuel, while maize-based fuels in America would have
80 to 90 per cent. Biofuels, if produced in a way fair to the planet, fair to people and economically viable,
have the potential to offer energy and opportunities for poor farmers in developing countries.