How Green Is Your Artificial Christmas Tree? You Might Be Surprised

When it comes to Christmas trees, Americans increasingly prefer plastic pines over the real thing.

Enlarge This Image

Tina Fineberg for The New York Times
Ronald Herrera went for a natural Christmas tree, purchased from a vendor at Union Square, and took it home by subway.

A blog about energy and the environment.

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Sales of fake trees are expected to approach 13 million this year, a record, as quality improves and they get more convenient, with features like built-in lights and easy collapsibility. All told, well over 50 million artificial Christmas trees will grace living rooms and dens this season, according to the industry’s main trade group, compared to about 30 million real trees.

Kim Jones, who was shopping for a tree at a Target store in Brooklyn this week, was convinced that she was doing the planet a favor by buying a $200 fake balsam fir made in China instead of buying a carbon-sipping pine that had been cut down for one season’s revelry.

“I’m very environmentally conscious,” Ms. Jones said. “I’ll keep it for 10 years, and that’s 10 trees that won’t be cut down.”

But Ms. Jones and the millions of others buying fake trees might not be doing the environment any favors.

In the most definitive study of the perennial real vs. fake question, an environmental consulting firm in Montreal found that an artificial tree would have to be reused for more than 20 years to be greener than buying a fresh-cut tree annually. The calculations included greenhouse gas emissions, use of resources and human health impacts.

“The natural tree is a better option,” said Jean-Sebastien Trudel, founder of the firm, Ellipsos, that released the independent study last year.

The annual carbon emissions associated with using a real tree every year were just one-third of those created by an artificial tree over a typical six-year lifespan. Most fake trees also contain polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, which produces carcinogens during manufacturing and disposal.

Ellipsos specifically studied the market for Christmas trees bought in Montreal and either grown in Quebec or manufactured in China. Mr. Trudel said the results would most likely differ for other cities and regions. Excessive driving by consumers to purchase real trees could tip the scales back in favor of artificial trees, at least in terms of carbon emissions.

Over all, the study found that the environmental impact of real Christmas trees was quite small, and significantly less than that of artificial trees — a conclusion shared by environmental groups and some scientists.

“You’re not doing any harm by cutting down a Christmas tree,” said Clint Springer, a botanist and professor of biology at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. “A lot of people think artificial is better because you’re preserving the life of a tree. But in this case, you’ve got a crop that’s being raised for that purpose.”

Makers of fake trees argue that the environmental evidence isn’t quite so clear-cut.

“If you buy an artificial Christmas tree and reuse it for at least five years, it’s absolutely a green thing to do,” said Thomas Harman, founder and chief executive of Balsam Hill, a maker of premium artificial trees. Mr. Harman said that the average amount of car travel by consumers to buy a real Christmas tree outweighed the added energy and pollution costs of buying an artificial tree from China.

The American Christmas Tree Association, the main trade group for artificial tree makers and retailers, says its own study found that it took 10 years of use before a fake tree became better for the environment than a real one, at least in terms of carbon emissions.

Yet the trade-offs are not immediately apparent to consumers and even some tree growers.

On a bitterly cold afternoon at the Winter Market at New York City’s Union Square this week, Lizza Stanley browsed for Christmas trees with her husband, Brian. They wondered if an artificial tree would be better for the environment because it could be reused time and time again.

The tree seller, Rob Rodriguez from Van Houten Farms of Orangeville, Pa., was of little help. “I don’t even know for sure,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “I would guess natural?”

The balance tilts in favor of natural Christmas trees because of the way they are grown and harvested.


Close to 400 million trees now grow on Christmas tree farms in the United States, according to the National Christmas Tree Association, which represents growers and retailers of real trees. About 30 million trees are harvested annually.


A blog about energy and the environment.

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The living trees generate oxygen, help fix carbon in their branches and in the soil and provide habitat for birds and animals, Mr. Springer said.

Christmas tree farms also help preserve farmland and green space, particularly near densely populated urban areas where pressure for development is intense.

“It allows people with land that may not be the best farmland to have a crop that they can actually make a profit on, and not be under pressure to sell out to developers,” said Mike Garrett, owner and operator of a Christmas tree farm in Sussex, N.J.

After the holidays, real trees can continue to serve a purpose. New York City, for instance, offers free curbside recycling for trees, which are turned into compost. The city’s parks department also provides a free mulching service for trees at several locations after the holidays. In 2009, nearly 150,000 trees were composted or mulched in the city.

Artificial trees, by contrast, are manufactured almost exclusively in Asia from plastic and metal and cannot be recycled by most municipal recycling programs. After six to 10 years of use, most will end up in a landfill.

Melly Garcia, who bought a six-foot fir on the Upper East Side of Manhattan this week, said she was certain that the real tree was the correct environmental choice.

“The trees are coming from a sustainable place, and if you dispose of it properly, it goes back to the earth,” she said. “So I’m at peace with that.”

Jami Warner, executive director of the American Christmas Tree Association, the group promoting artificial trees, said that neither kind of tree had much of an impact on the environment — “especially when compared to something that most of us do every day, like drive a car,” she wrote in an e-mail.

On that point, Mr. Trudel of Ellipsos agrees.

“When you really consider it, if you exchange a couple of days of commuting by car with carpooling or riding a bicycle, you’ll completely overcompensate for whatever the impact of the tree is,” he said. “It’s not such a big deal. Enjoy your tree, whichever one you prefer.”

How Green Is Your Artificial Christmas Tree? You Might Be Surprised

When it comes to Christmas trees, Americans increasingly prefer plastic pines over the real thing.

Enlarge This Image

Tina Fineberg for The New York Times
Ronald Herrera went for a natural Christmas tree, purchased from a vendor at Union Square, and took it home by subway.

A blog about energy and the environment.

Go to Blog
.Add to Portfolio
Target Corp
Go to your Portfolio »
Sales of fake trees are expected to approach 13 million this year, a record, as quality improves and they get more convenient, with features like built-in lights and easy collapsibility. All told, well over 50 million artificial Christmas trees will grace living rooms and dens this season, according to the industry’s main trade group, compared to about 30 million real trees.

Kim Jones, who was shopping for a tree at a Target store in Brooklyn this week, was convinced that she was doing the planet a favor by buying a $200 fake balsam fir made in China instead of buying a carbon-sipping pine that had been cut down for one season’s revelry.

“I’m very environmentally conscious,” Ms. Jones said. “I’ll keep it for 10 years, and that’s 10 trees that won’t be cut down.”

But Ms. Jones and the millions of others buying fake trees might not be doing the environment any favors.

In the most definitive study of the perennial real vs. fake question, an environmental consulting firm in Montreal found that an artificial tree would have to be reused for more than 20 years to be greener than buying a fresh-cut tree annually. The calculations included greenhouse gas emissions, use of resources and human health impacts.

“The natural tree is a better option,” said Jean-Sebastien Trudel, founder of the firm, Ellipsos, that released the independent study last year.

The annual carbon emissions associated with using a real tree every year were just one-third of those created by an artificial tree over a typical six-year lifespan. Most fake trees also contain polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, which produces carcinogens during manufacturing and disposal.

Ellipsos specifically studied the market for Christmas trees bought in Montreal and either grown in Quebec or manufactured in China. Mr. Trudel said the results would most likely differ for other cities and regions. Excessive driving by consumers to purchase real trees could tip the scales back in favor of artificial trees, at least in terms of carbon emissions.

Over all, the study found that the environmental impact of real Christmas trees was quite small, and significantly less than that of artificial trees — a conclusion shared by environmental groups and some scientists.

“You’re not doing any harm by cutting down a Christmas tree,” said Clint Springer, a botanist and professor of biology at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. “A lot of people think artificial is better because you’re preserving the life of a tree. But in this case, you’ve got a crop that’s being raised for that purpose.”

Makers of fake trees argue that the environmental evidence isn’t quite so clear-cut.

“If you buy an artificial Christmas tree and reuse it for at least five years, it’s absolutely a green thing to do,” said Thomas Harman, founder and chief executive of Balsam Hill, a maker of premium artificial trees. Mr. Harman said that the average amount of car travel by consumers to buy a real Christmas tree outweighed the added energy and pollution costs of buying an artificial tree from China.

The American Christmas Tree Association, the main trade group for artificial tree makers and retailers, says its own study found that it took 10 years of use before a fake tree became better for the environment than a real one, at least in terms of carbon emissions.

Yet the trade-offs are not immediately apparent to consumers and even some tree growers.

On a bitterly cold afternoon at the Winter Market at New York City’s Union Square this week, Lizza Stanley browsed for Christmas trees with her husband, Brian. They wondered if an artificial tree would be better for the environment because it could be reused time and time again.

The tree seller, Rob Rodriguez from Van Houten Farms of Orangeville, Pa., was of little help. “I don’t even know for sure,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “I would guess natural?”

The balance tilts in favor of natural Christmas trees because of the way they are grown and harvested.


Close to 400 million trees now grow on Christmas tree farms in the United States, according to the National Christmas Tree Association, which represents growers and retailers of real trees. About 30 million trees are harvested annually.


A blog about energy and the environment.

Go to Blog
.Add to Portfolio
Target Corp
Go to your Portfolio »
The living trees generate oxygen, help fix carbon in their branches and in the soil and provide habitat for birds and animals, Mr. Springer said.

Christmas tree farms also help preserve farmland and green space, particularly near densely populated urban areas where pressure for development is intense.

“It allows people with land that may not be the best farmland to have a crop that they can actually make a profit on, and not be under pressure to sell out to developers,” said Mike Garrett, owner and operator of a Christmas tree farm in Sussex, N.J.

After the holidays, real trees can continue to serve a purpose. New York City, for instance, offers free curbside recycling for trees, which are turned into compost. The city’s parks department also provides a free mulching service for trees at several locations after the holidays. In 2009, nearly 150,000 trees were composted or mulched in the city.

Artificial trees, by contrast, are manufactured almost exclusively in Asia from plastic and metal and cannot be recycled by most municipal recycling programs. After six to 10 years of use, most will end up in a landfill.

Melly Garcia, who bought a six-foot fir on the Upper East Side of Manhattan this week, said she was certain that the real tree was the correct environmental choice.

“The trees are coming from a sustainable place, and if you dispose of it properly, it goes back to the earth,” she said. “So I’m at peace with that.”

Jami Warner, executive director of the American Christmas Tree Association, the group promoting artificial trees, said that neither kind of tree had much of an impact on the environment — “especially when compared to something that most of us do every day, like drive a car,” she wrote in an e-mail.

On that point, Mr. Trudel of Ellipsos agrees.

“When you really consider it, if you exchange a couple of days of commuting by car with carpooling or riding a bicycle, you’ll completely overcompensate for whatever the impact of the tree is,” he said. “It’s not such a big deal. Enjoy your tree, whichever one you prefer.”

The bubble car is back

MANY car designers are convinced that a radical change in automobile technology is going to be needed for the crowded megacities of the future. By 2030 more than 60% of the world’s population is expected to be living in cities, up from 50% now, and more of them will be able to afford cars. The need to reduce emissions, an acute scarcity of land for roads and parking, and the prospect of laws restricting conventional cars all point to the idea that different and smaller types of vehicle will be in demand. With that in mind, some of those designers are coming up with things that look a lot like a vehicle that was familiar more than 50 years ago. Welcome to the return of the bubble car.

Bubble cars were built to provide cheap personal transport. Most were two-seaters with just three wheels. They became particularly popular when fuel prices shot up in 1956, during the Suez crisis. One of the first was the Italian-made Iso Isetta. Germany was a prolific builder, too. Messerschmitt and Heinkel, forbidden to ply their former trade of building military aircraft, turned to bubble cars as a peacetime alternative. BMW, meanwhile, re-engineered the Isetta to use an engine from one of its motorcycles.

Rising incomes, falling fuel prices and changing fashions did for the original bubble cars, but the idea seems ripe for revival and three new versions, known as EN-Vs (for Electric Networked-Vehicles), are enthralling the crowds at the Expo 2010 in Shanghai. They can be driven normally or operated autonomously, with their occupants doing other things while the cars automatically avoid bumping into one another. They can also be summoned from their parking places using a mobile phone. And instead of being powered by smoky little petrol engines, they are driven electrically. What is most intriguing, however, is that they balance on just two wheels.

Related topics
General Motors
The three EN-Vs, each with a different body shape, were built by a partnership between General Motors (GM), an American company, and Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, one of China’s biggest carmakers. The two-wheeled balancing system the cars use was developed by Segway, a firm which makes personal-transport devices used by policemen, postmen and people who need to scoot around large corporate campuses (and whose owner, Jimi Heselden, was killed on September 27th when he rode one of the firm’s devices over a cliff).




A balancing act

Riding a Segway personal transporter means gripping a set of handlebars while standing on a platform positioned between two wheels. The platform is kept in what Segway describes as a “dynamically stabilised” state. This is achieved by fitting each wheel with an electric motor that can rotate either clockwise or anticlockwise, as appropriate. A computer controls the resultant balancing act, using a series of motion sensors and gyroscopes. The upshot is that if the rider leans forward he travels forward, whereas if he leans backward the machine will stop and then go into reverse.

An EN-V is somewhat like a giant Segway, but without the handlebars. The platform, which contains the batteries and is mounted on a sliding mechanism, forms the chassis of the vehicle. It moves forwards when the vehicle is parked, so that it tips on to a pair of “landing wheels” at the front. That makes it easier to get in and out, for access is from the front via a large, transparent door—a traditional means of ingress for bubble cars. When the EN-V powers up, the platform shifts its centre of mass back to the centre of the vehicle. The drive wheels then rotate as necessary, to achieve both balance and propulsion.

The advantage of having only two wheels is that the car can be shrunk into a small package. At around 1.5 metres (59 inches) long by 1.4 metres wide, an EN-V is less than half the size of a MINI. Two wheels also allow greater manoeuvrability—an EN-V really can turn on a dime. With a top speed of 40kph (25mph) and a range of just 40km, its performance is limited. But average traffic speeds in many cities are already below 40kph and the EN-V’s range is well within the typical daily mileage of most urban drivers, says Chris Borroni-Bird, GM’s director of advanced vehicle concepts.

According to Dr Borroni-Bird, modern cars are over-engineered because they are designed for use between cities, not just within cities. In low-speed urban environments, he argues, lighter engineering can be used without compromising safety. In the case of the EN-Vs, that philosophy translates into bodies that are made from carbon-fibre composites and doors that are composed of polycarbonate plastics.

Automated driving, moreover, takes the EN-Vs to a new level of sophistication. The satellite-based global-positioning system provides each vehicle with its location on the Earth’s surface, to within a few centimetres. Other sensors establish its position on the road and in relation to the rest of the traffic. These sensors include infra-red detectors, which can recognise people and animals from their body heat (and which are already available in some cars); short-range ultrasonic scanners to detect nearby objects when parking; long-range radars to check the road farther ahead; and optical systems that are trained to recognise certain objects, such as cars, motorcycles, traffic signs and road markings.

Some of the tricks used by EN-Vs come from systems developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, who used a modified GM Chevrolet Tahoe to win the 2007 Urban Challenge. This was an event staged by America’s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency to find vehicles that could operate autonomously alongside other traffic in a city and perform complex manoeuvres while doing so.

The other thing that EN-Vs can do is talk to each other. So if, for instance, one EN-V detects another by radar, it can check what that other is intending to do and agree on how to pass it safely. Such communication also allows for “platooning”, with one or more EN-Vs tagging along automatically behind a leader. That is a way of providing extra seating for a family outing, say, or of carrying luggage that will not fit in the leading vehicle.

Day-to-day automated driving of this sort is, Dr Borroni-Bird admits, far into the future and may well require new infrastructure on the roads. But in the near term he believes it is possible to take steps towards it. The automated valet-parking feature on the EN-Vs could, for instance, be used off public roads at places like shopping centres. Drivers would pull up at a designated entrance, get out, and leave their vehicles to trundle off and park snugly by themselves in a high-capacity car park. A phone call at the end of a shopping expedition would summon the car back.




I’m forever blowing bubbles

Nor is the EN-V the only bubble car on the drawing board. Gordon Murray, who designed racing cars for McLaren, and also its 370kph road car, is developing two tiny four-wheel cars, one with a 660cc engine and the other with an electric motor whose batteries give it a range of about 160km. These cars can carry three people, with the driver sitting in the middle and passengers behind. The single door hinges forwards and upwards, so such cars can be parked facing the pavement and close together—indeed, three of them can sit abreast in a standard parking place.

Mr Murray’s idea is not just to produce vehicles that have a low impact on the environment but also to use a green (and cheap) manufacturing system to build them. By doing away with big, heavy metal presses and assembling the vehicles from a simplified tubular chassis, he thinks the cost of production could be cut to about a fifth of that in a typical car factory. He is hoping to license both the design of the cars and their production process to other carmakers.

Renault, which is launching a range of electric cars, is also sticking to four wheels for its smallest design, the Twizy. This will be seen at the Paris Motor Show, which opens on October 2nd, and is due to go on sale in 2012. It will have a top speed of 75kph and a range, with a full battery, of just under 100km. Inside, the driver and a single passenger sit in tandem, as they would on a motorcycle. Outside, the body is made almost entirely of clear plastic—the ultimate bubble car, perhaps.

The bubble car is back

MANY car designers are convinced that a radical change in automobile technology is going to be needed for the crowded megacities of the future. By 2030 more than 60% of the world’s population is expected to be living in cities, up from 50% now, and more of them will be able to afford cars. The need to reduce emissions, an acute scarcity of land for roads and parking, and the prospect of laws restricting conventional cars all point to the idea that different and smaller types of vehicle will be in demand. With that in mind, some of those designers are coming up with things that look a lot like a vehicle that was familiar more than 50 years ago. Welcome to the return of the bubble car.

Bubble cars were built to provide cheap personal transport. Most were two-seaters with just three wheels. They became particularly popular when fuel prices shot up in 1956, during the Suez crisis. One of the first was the Italian-made Iso Isetta. Germany was a prolific builder, too. Messerschmitt and Heinkel, forbidden to ply their former trade of building military aircraft, turned to bubble cars as a peacetime alternative. BMW, meanwhile, re-engineered the Isetta to use an engine from one of its motorcycles.

Rising incomes, falling fuel prices and changing fashions did for the original bubble cars, but the idea seems ripe for revival and three new versions, known as EN-Vs (for Electric Networked-Vehicles), are enthralling the crowds at the Expo 2010 in Shanghai. They can be driven normally or operated autonomously, with their occupants doing other things while the cars automatically avoid bumping into one another. They can also be summoned from their parking places using a mobile phone. And instead of being powered by smoky little petrol engines, they are driven electrically. What is most intriguing, however, is that they balance on just two wheels.

Related topics
General Motors
The three EN-Vs, each with a different body shape, were built by a partnership between General Motors (GM), an American company, and Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, one of China’s biggest carmakers. The two-wheeled balancing system the cars use was developed by Segway, a firm which makes personal-transport devices used by policemen, postmen and people who need to scoot around large corporate campuses (and whose owner, Jimi Heselden, was killed on September 27th when he rode one of the firm’s devices over a cliff).




A balancing act

Riding a Segway personal transporter means gripping a set of handlebars while standing on a platform positioned between two wheels. The platform is kept in what Segway describes as a “dynamically stabilised” state. This is achieved by fitting each wheel with an electric motor that can rotate either clockwise or anticlockwise, as appropriate. A computer controls the resultant balancing act, using a series of motion sensors and gyroscopes. The upshot is that if the rider leans forward he travels forward, whereas if he leans backward the machine will stop and then go into reverse.

An EN-V is somewhat like a giant Segway, but without the handlebars. The platform, which contains the batteries and is mounted on a sliding mechanism, forms the chassis of the vehicle. It moves forwards when the vehicle is parked, so that it tips on to a pair of “landing wheels” at the front. That makes it easier to get in and out, for access is from the front via a large, transparent door—a traditional means of ingress for bubble cars. When the EN-V powers up, the platform shifts its centre of mass back to the centre of the vehicle. The drive wheels then rotate as necessary, to achieve both balance and propulsion.

The advantage of having only two wheels is that the car can be shrunk into a small package. At around 1.5 metres (59 inches) long by 1.4 metres wide, an EN-V is less than half the size of a MINI. Two wheels also allow greater manoeuvrability—an EN-V really can turn on a dime. With a top speed of 40kph (25mph) and a range of just 40km, its performance is limited. But average traffic speeds in many cities are already below 40kph and the EN-V’s range is well within the typical daily mileage of most urban drivers, says Chris Borroni-Bird, GM’s director of advanced vehicle concepts.

According to Dr Borroni-Bird, modern cars are over-engineered because they are designed for use between cities, not just within cities. In low-speed urban environments, he argues, lighter engineering can be used without compromising safety. In the case of the EN-Vs, that philosophy translates into bodies that are made from carbon-fibre composites and doors that are composed of polycarbonate plastics.

Automated driving, moreover, takes the EN-Vs to a new level of sophistication. The satellite-based global-positioning system provides each vehicle with its location on the Earth’s surface, to within a few centimetres. Other sensors establish its position on the road and in relation to the rest of the traffic. These sensors include infra-red detectors, which can recognise people and animals from their body heat (and which are already available in some cars); short-range ultrasonic scanners to detect nearby objects when parking; long-range radars to check the road farther ahead; and optical systems that are trained to recognise certain objects, such as cars, motorcycles, traffic signs and road markings.

Some of the tricks used by EN-Vs come from systems developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, who used a modified GM Chevrolet Tahoe to win the 2007 Urban Challenge. This was an event staged by America’s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency to find vehicles that could operate autonomously alongside other traffic in a city and perform complex manoeuvres while doing so.

The other thing that EN-Vs can do is talk to each other. So if, for instance, one EN-V detects another by radar, it can check what that other is intending to do and agree on how to pass it safely. Such communication also allows for “platooning”, with one or more EN-Vs tagging along automatically behind a leader. That is a way of providing extra seating for a family outing, say, or of carrying luggage that will not fit in the leading vehicle.

Day-to-day automated driving of this sort is, Dr Borroni-Bird admits, far into the future and may well require new infrastructure on the roads. But in the near term he believes it is possible to take steps towards it. The automated valet-parking feature on the EN-Vs could, for instance, be used off public roads at places like shopping centres. Drivers would pull up at a designated entrance, get out, and leave their vehicles to trundle off and park snugly by themselves in a high-capacity car park. A phone call at the end of a shopping expedition would summon the car back.




I’m forever blowing bubbles

Nor is the EN-V the only bubble car on the drawing board. Gordon Murray, who designed racing cars for McLaren, and also its 370kph road car, is developing two tiny four-wheel cars, one with a 660cc engine and the other with an electric motor whose batteries give it a range of about 160km. These cars can carry three people, with the driver sitting in the middle and passengers behind. The single door hinges forwards and upwards, so such cars can be parked facing the pavement and close together—indeed, three of them can sit abreast in a standard parking place.

Mr Murray’s idea is not just to produce vehicles that have a low impact on the environment but also to use a green (and cheap) manufacturing system to build them. By doing away with big, heavy metal presses and assembling the vehicles from a simplified tubular chassis, he thinks the cost of production could be cut to about a fifth of that in a typical car factory. He is hoping to license both the design of the cars and their production process to other carmakers.

Renault, which is launching a range of electric cars, is also sticking to four wheels for its smallest design, the Twizy. This will be seen at the Paris Motor Show, which opens on October 2nd, and is due to go on sale in 2012. It will have a top speed of 75kph and a range, with a full battery, of just under 100km. Inside, the driver and a single passenger sit in tandem, as they would on a motorcycle. Outside, the body is made almost entirely of clear plastic—the ultimate bubble car, perhaps.

The Case for Renewable Ethanol

To the Editor:

Re “Good Energy Subsidies, and Bad” (editorial, Dec. 9):

If you want to enact smart energy policy, let’s start by increasing the use of the only available, affordable alternative to oil today: homegrown, renewable ethanol.

In 2009, the ethanol industry contributed $53.3 billion to the nation’s gross domestic product, created and supported more than 400,000 American jobs, and reduced oil imports by 364 million barrels. And studies show that ethanol is 59 percent cleaner than gasoline.

The only reason the ethanol industry needs government support today is that we are denied access to all but 10 percent of the fuel market. Growth Energy’s Fueling Freedom plan would redirect tax credits to build out a national ethanol infrastructure to allow access to a fair and open market. As a result, our air would be cleaner, our prosperity would be enhanced and our security would be strengthened. That is smart policy.

Wesley K. Clark
Little Rock, Ark., Dec. 9, 2010

The writer, the retired general, is co-chairman of Growth Energy.

The Case for Renewable Ethanol

To the Editor:

Re “Good Energy Subsidies, and Bad” (editorial, Dec. 9):

If you want to enact smart energy policy, let’s start by increasing the use of the only available, affordable alternative to oil today: homegrown, renewable ethanol.

In 2009, the ethanol industry contributed $53.3 billion to the nation’s gross domestic product, created and supported more than 400,000 American jobs, and reduced oil imports by 364 million barrels. And studies show that ethanol is 59 percent cleaner than gasoline.

The only reason the ethanol industry needs government support today is that we are denied access to all but 10 percent of the fuel market. Growth Energy’s Fueling Freedom plan would redirect tax credits to build out a national ethanol infrastructure to allow access to a fair and open market. As a result, our air would be cleaner, our prosperity would be enhanced and our security would be strengthened. That is smart policy.

Wesley K. Clark
Little Rock, Ark., Dec. 9, 2010

The writer, the retired general, is co-chairman of Growth Energy.