Ethanol — The Basics

• Biofuel/Sustainability Papers by UC-Berke­ley’s Dr. T. W. Patzek 
• The True Cost of Agro­fu­els: Impacts on Food, Forests, Peo­ple and Cli­mate 2007.
  
  This report is one of the most com­plete analy­sis of the mul­ti­ple aspects of Agro­fu­els cov­er­ing issues of soil, cor­po­rate con­trol and con­sol­i­da­tion, water, plan­ta­tions and pulp mills, fer­til­iz­er usage, Genet­ic Engi­neer­ing, trans­porta­tion, and cli­mate change. The con­clu­sion flesh­es out path­ways and solu­tions to meet­ing the chal­lenges for which agro­fu­els are a false solution.
  
• Agro­fu­els: Towards a Real­i­ty Check in 9 Key Areas June, 2007.
  
  Report brought to you by the Transna­tion­al Insti­tute, which includes sev­er­al Euro­pean groups. The Report asks 9 key ques­tions and explores them with 30 pages of qual­i­ty mate­r­i­al with many ref­er­ences and an inter­na­tion­al scope.

[Some of the fol­low­ing aren’t total­ly anti-bio­fu­el (some think that it can be “done right” — espe­cial­ly with some types of cel­lu­losic ethanol, a posi­tion we pas­sion­ate­ly dis­agree with). Nev­er­the­less, there is some great info on the fol­low­ing documents:]

• Fuel­ing Dis­as­ter report by the Com­mu­ni­ty Food Secu­ri­ty Coalition
• Rush to Ethanol report by Food and Water Watch 
• Bio­fu­els: Is the Cure Worse Than the Dis­ease Sep­tem­ber 12, 2007.
  Report brought to you by the OECD and the Round Table on Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment, co-authored by Richard Doorn­bosch and Ronald Steen­blik. The 50 Page Report is tech­ni­cal and does an excel­lent job look­ing into the eco­nom­ics and gov­ern­ment poli­cies on bio­fu­els. The report looks at the cur­rent state of bio­fu­els as well as its ulti­mate tech­ni­cal poten­tial, com­plete with charts, graphs and ref­er­ences to oth­er studies.
• Get­ting Real About Bio­fu­els by Rain­for­est Action Network
• Call for an Agro­fu­els Moratorium 
• Ethanol-Indus­tri­al Complex
• Full Tanks at the Cost of Emp­ty Stom­achs

  A state­ment by the Brazil­ian Land­less Work­ers Move­ment (MST), Feb­ru­ary 28, 2007.“The cur­rent mod­el of pro­duc­tion of bioen­er­gy issus­tained by the same ele­ments that have always caused the oppres­sion of our peo­ples: appro­pri­a­tion of ter­ri­to­ry, of nat­ur­al resources, and the labor force.”

• The Ethanol Illu­sion [PDF] by Michael B. McEl­roy, Pro­fes­sor of Envi­ron­men­tal Stud­ies at Har­vard, Novem­ber 2006Can we move beyond an ener­gy pol­i­cy run­ning on hype and hot air?
• Feed­ing the Beast by Tom Philpott, 13 Dec 2006 It’s time for a real “food vs. fuel” debate
• A Bridge to Some­where? By Tom Philpott, 15 Dec 2006

  “If bio­fu­els are used as a way to lever­age con­ser­va­tion efforts, then we sup­port them, with caveats; if they’re a way to dis­tract from con­ser­va­tion efforts, as cur­rent­ly seems the case, then we say the hell with ’em. Conserve!”

  “In each Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ty that hosts or is being tar­get­ed by an ethanol fac­to­ry, com­mon sense, hon­esty, and cit­i­zens’ phys­i­cal and eco­nom­ic health are being need­less­ly trashed for oth­ers’ profits…There’s plain ter­ror­ism, and there’s eco­nom­ic ter­ror­ism. And there’s plain stupidity.”
• Edi­to­r­i­al: Green Plants, Fos­sil Fuels, and Now Bio­fu­els­by Tad Patzek, UC Berke­ley, Novem­ber 2006
  
• Ethanol Pro­duc­tion Using Corn, Switch­grass, and Wood by Pimentel and Patzek Jan­u­ary 2005

  Excel­lent com­pre­hen­sive arti­cle, includ­ing the net ener­gy debate, envi­ron­men­tal impacts, and food vs. fuel.

• Drunk on Ethanol Audubon Mag­a­zine Aug 2004 Excel­lent com­pre­hen­sive arti­cle crit­i­cal of ethanol
• Oth­er ethanol stud­ies From Earth Track
• Get­ting Real About Bio­fu­els by Rain­for­est Action Network