Ethanol, or not?

The Obama administration will push forward on ethanol, and into one of the most serious controversies in energy policy.

You can see that controversy at work on Planet Forward, where our contributors took all sides of the question (see, for example, the essay "Biofuels Is Biofuelishness" and the video "The Importance Of Ethanol"). Most of the media coverage focused on a part of the debate that consumes the energy and environmental worlds: does using ethanol actually reduce greenhouse gases, or not?

In Public Agenda's Energy Learning Curve™ study, we found a majority of the public favors increased use of ethanol – some 61 percent. However, it's also true that relatively few strongly favor it (22 percent) and that overall it ranks fairly low on the public's list of potential energy solutions. Nearly eight in 10, for example, favor increasing gas mileage standards, and 50 percent strongly favor it.

More importantly, perhaps, is that the public may not have a firm grasp of the arcane ethanol debate. Scientists, engineers and other experts are wrangling over whether ethanol produces more or less greenhouse emissions than gasoline, and what should be factored into that calculation. Half of the public says ethanol contributes "a little" to global warming, compared to 54 percent who say gasoline contributes "a lot." But overall the public doesn't have a firm grasp on some fundamentals in this debate, including what contributes to global warming and what doesn't. And that's not even factoring in that climate change isn't the public's biggest concern on energy – prices and dependence on foreign oil are more important to most Americans.

So it's fair to say that ethanol is still "inside baseball" for most Americans. Which, considering the fact that nearly everyone has an interest in what we put in our cars, is no way to play the game.