Editorial viewpoints from Climate Central's writers and editors.
Natural Gas Our New Savior? Not So Fast . . .  Repost This  By
Mike Lemonick  Remember how ethanol was going to save us? It was
the perfect solution to not one, but two different problems. The
first was energy security: since it’s a type of alcohol
distilled from home-grown corn, ethanol would replace the
gasoline made from oil imported from Bad People in places like
Iran. The second was climate change. Ethanol emits heat-trapping
CO2 like gasoline does, but the corn sucks in CO2 while it’s
growing, so it’s mostly a wash.  That was the sales pitch,
anyway, and for a while, lots of people bought it. The Federal
government subsidized ethanol production, and an EPA
regulation requiring the use of renewable fuels boosted
ethanol’s stock still further. Then scientists began calculating
the actual climate impact of corn ethanol, and discovered it
wasn’t much better than gas — and might actually be worse.
Engineers maneuver a motor and drill bit on a