In the “not quite what it seems” department …
“Indiana farming town tries for all-renewable energy” (AP 7/9/06)

Headline sounds great.  They’re going to go for 100% renewables, “generating [their] own electricity and gas, using everything from municipal trash to farm waste, hog manure and even town sewage.” 

Using what they have locally - that sounds great.  Breaking free from foreign oil - sounds great.  Model for America - hooray.

The complexities arise as you read further down in the article.  “Farmer Roger Wiese, 65, hasn’t decided yet whether to sell 2 million gallons of hog manure to Biotown instead of using it as fertilizer on his fields.”  Okay, so if he sells the pork poop to the town to use to make electrical power, he turns to what to fertilize his fields - petroleum-based chemical fertilizers?

“Town fire chief Rick Buschman says Biotown is ‘the greatest thing to hit Reynolds’ in years. His family has bought a half-dozen new flex-fuel vehicles …”  A half-dozen?  Apparently they haven’t heard of ridesharing?  Trip reduction?

It continues “…flex-fuel vehicles — able to run on various fuels including ethanol-gasoline blends — as part of a deal offered by General Motors.”  Ah yes, in our Greener Vehicles talk last month, we studied some of the triumphs of General Motors.  A hybrid package raises a 2006 GMC Sierra 15 to a wonderous 18 mpg and 10.3 tons of CO2.  Hoo yeah, that’s gaining independence from foreign oil! 

American flex-fuel wonders include the 2006 Chevy Tahoe 1500, for which greenhouse gas emissions running on pure gasoline weigh in at 11.0 tons of CO2.  E85 ethanol improves (ha!) that to a measly 9.4 tons (for comparison: a conventionally fueled Honda Civic does 5.5 tons and a Prius does 3.4 tons).  (mpg and CO2 figures from www.fueleconomy.gov)

“A $400,000 renovation project of the town’s single gas station should add a pump for E-85 fuel — 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline — by the end of the summer.”  Yes, we discussed that too.  E85 Ethanol from corn racks up 78% of the greenhouse gasses that pure gasoline does.  (source: Center for Clean Air Policy, slide 12)  And at 15% gasoline, please explain how E85 qualifies for the “all-renewable” claim made in the article’s first paragraph.

“‘Some people are questioning if we save money,’ said Christine McGill, a cook, waitress and hostess at USA Family Restaurant. ‘To me, what if we don’t? We’re still saving the environment.’”  Did she say “snowing the environmentalists?”  … I thought so.