Gazette Online, IA
10-12-07
UI to host energy forum
By Gregg Hennigan
The Gazette
gregg.hennigan@gazettecommunications.com
IOWA CITY - The Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Al Gore today should invigorate
the search for solutions to global warming, which includes the biofuel industry
Iowa is playing a leading role in, energy experts said.
“I think the potential is extraordinary,” said David Sandalow, an energy and
environment scholar at the Brookings Institution, a think tank based in
Washington, D.C.
Sandalow, Brookings managing director William Antholis and Steven Fales, an
Iowa State University agronomy professor, participated in a conference call
with Iowa reporters today in advance of an energy and national security forum at
the University of Iowa Oct. 17.
The forum will feature two panel discussions with leading policy experts from
Washington, D.C., and Iowa on biofuels and energy policy, the environment and
national security. Questions for the panelists can be submitted here.
Gore, the former vice president, and the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to raise
awareness of global warming.
Gore's work is captured in the Academy Award-winning documentary “An
Inconvenient Truth.” Sandalow said he traveled with Gore for the lectures that
became part of the film.
The peace prize should put more pressure on presidential candidates to address
the environment, Antholis said.
“It will again push itself on the political radar screen,'' he said.
The film was condemned by some as alarmist, and Sandalow and Fales said the
criticism of biofuels has been increasing in recent years, too. Among the
assertions is that biofuels, including corn-based ethanol, are not as efficient as is
claimed.
Fales, who is also associate director of ISU's Office of Biorenewables
Programs, said the claim that it takes more energy to produce a gallon of
ethanol than is gained from it has been debunked.
“Right now, the energy balance is positive for ethanol and negative for gasoline,''
he said.
Fales acknowledged, however, that there are issues to be resolved. There is not
enough corn to support the biofuel need, so the country must to look for the
``next-generation ethanol,'' he said.
Sandalow said the America's oil dependency strengthens terrorist organizations
like al-Qaida and oil-rich nations that wish the U.S. harm, including Iran.
He called for improving fuel efficiencies in vehicles and using more biofuels and
plug-in hybrid vehicles.