Issues: Global Warming

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All Documents in Global Warming Tagged biofuels

Global Warming Solutions
Overview

Solving global warming means investing in clean energy, green jobs and smart energy solutions. We can’t afford delay. This five-step plan will repower, refuel and rebuild America, starting today.

Cultivating Clean Energy
The Promise of Algae Biofuels
Issue Paper

Algae-derived gasoline, diesel and jet fuel sound like the imaginings of science fiction, but a growing number of entrepreneurs, investors, academics, and policy makers are working to develop the technologies needed to provide large quantities of biofuels with potentially minimal environmental impacts. This NRDC report takes the big picture view by creating a framework for understanding the environmental challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for this nascent industry.

Driving It Home: Choosing the Right Path for Fueling North America's Transportation Future
Choosing the Right Path for Fueling North America's Transportation Future
Report

North America faces an energy crossroads. With the world fast approaching the end of cheap, plentiful conventional oil, we must choose between developing ever-dirtier sources of fossil fuels -- at great cost to our health and environment -- or setting a course for a more sustainable energy future of clean, renewable fuels. This June 2007 report explores the full scale of the damage done by attempts to extract oil from liquid coal, oil shale, and tar sands; examines the risks for investors of gambling on these dirty fuel sources; and lays out solutions for guiding us toward a cleaner fuel future.

Costa Rica: Setting the Pace for Reducing Global Warming Pollution and Phasing Out Oil
Fact Sheet

Already a world leader in renewable energy use and tropical forest conservation, Costa Rica has declared the goal of becoming the world’s first carbon neutral country. To achieve this goal, Costa Rica must reduce its dependence on oil and increase investment in domestic renewable energy production and demand reduction strategies. Get document in pdf.

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Documents Tagged biofuels in All Sections

Homegrown Energy from Biofuels
Fuel and electricity produced from grass, wood and other biomass have the potential to help repower America if carefully developed
Overview

Fuel and electricity produced from grass, wood and other biomass have the potential to help repower America, but only if carefully developed to minimize global warming pollution and the potential harm to forests, grasslands and wildlife.

Building a sustainable biomass industry in California without sacrificing our unique natural heritage
Sustainable biofuels can be a boon to our economy and our environment
Fact Sheet

Renewable energy such as biofuels—specifically biomass that is sustainably harvested—can be a boon for our economy and our environment. But biofuels done wrong can actually destroy ecosystems and increase global warming pollution, so it is critically important that all biofuels production include necessary environmental safeguards. California is in a position to get biofuels right with the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), which would require oil companies to reduce the global warming pollution footprint of the vehicle fuels they sell. A groundbreaking new study commissioned by NRDC shows that California can ramp up biofuels production to meet the goals of the LCFS without sacrificing our most sensitive lands. Get document in pdf.

The Billion Gallon Challenge
How America Can Produce One Billion Gallons of the Best Biofuels By 2014
Fact Sheet

To avoid the worst impacts of global warming, we need to make low-carbon biofuels work. But the best biofuels have yet to make the jump from the lab to the pump. As a first step, policy makers should stop spending tax dollars on the dirty biofuels of yesterday and start paying for performance, while maintaining our existing safeguards and standards. But that’s not enough. We need to jumpstart the best biofuels and make them work for our economy and our environment. We need a Billion Gallon Challenge. Get document in pdf.

Herseth Sandlin Bill (H.R. 1190) Turns Biofuels into Dirty Fuels
Legislative Analysis

Herseth Sandlin Bill (H.R. 1190) Turns Biofuels into Dirty Fuels Current law ensures the Renewable Fuel Standard's five-fold increase in biofuels results in better fuels, not just different dirty fuels. The Herseth Sandlin bill would strike critical safeguards established by the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) and turn an important step forward into a counterproductive leap backward. Get document in pdf.

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For additional policy documents, see the NRDC Document Bank.