IEEE Energy Wise News Update

News and opinions on sustainable power, cars, and climate August 15, 2012

Corn Ethanol Fuel Standard by Bill Sweet It’s not often the Wall Street Journal sings the praises of the United Nations and global bureaucracies, but that’s just what it did last week, in an editorial citing calls by organizations like the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization to put an end to the suspension of corn ethanol subsidies. “Remove provisions of current national policies that subsidize (or mandate) biofuels production or consumption,” advised the FAO and 10 other international organizations, after the G20 advanced industrial countries asked them to take a position in 2010. What prompted the Journal’s article is, of course, the drought that has been ravaging the U.S. corn crop and threatening soybean and wheat harvests as well. U.S. livestock producers are lobbying the Environmental Protection Agency to temporarily suspend the Renewable Fuel Standard, as consumers fret over how much higher corn ethanol prices are contributing to the summer run-up in gasoline prices.

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