I have always admired Obama’s attitude towards green technologies. During a speech in Georgetown, he continued encouraging the biofuel industry and telling people that “the only way for America’s energy supply to be truly secure is by permanently reducing our dependence on oil.”
The U.S. president stated that he will actively help biofuel entrepreneurs build “four next-generation biorefineries – each with a capacity of more than 20 million gallons per year. And going forward, we should look for ways to reform biofuels incentives to make sure they meet today’s challenges and save taxpayers money.”
He also said that the Federal car fleet will turn to alternative energy sources by 2015, meaning that it will adopt biofuel, hybrid or electric vehicles.
Of course, the reactions from the side of the ethanol industry were extremely positive: “America’s ethanol industry stands ready to work with the Obama Administration and Congress to transform current biofuel policies to reflect the evolving nature of the industry and the fiscal concerns voiced by many on Capitol Hill,” said Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) President and CEO Bob Dinneen.
It’s an economically feasible solution to turn biomass into biofuels, but seeing in the long run and seeing the carbon dioxide emissions that the growth of some of them brings, we should be careful what methods of producing biofuels is the most clean and that one should be adopted.
After all, we have to always remember that the green movement is not about money and economic security in the first place, but about keeping our planet’s atmosphere clean of pollutants and keeping its ecosystems as undisturbed as possible. Otherwise, the planet itself could create us economic downturns far bigger than if we would not have a drop of oil starting tomorrow.
