Talkin' Biofuels with Jim
Minneapolis is also home to the renowned Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), where we met up with researcher/advocate Jim Kleinschmit. Jim has a family farming background raising grass-fed beef cattle, and now specializes in agricultural policies related to the booming biofuels industry. He and his colleagues at IATP are working to help grow the industry in a sustainable direction. On a sunny winter afternoon at the former home of the Crosby family (one of the founders of General Mills) we spoke with Jim about the role of biofuels in helping to build local economic opportunities in rural America, about some of the valid and less valid critiques of ethanol, and about the exciting prospects for advanced cellulosic biofuels in providing more environmentally-friendly options for growing the new bioeconomy.
You can find more information about sustainable biofules on IATP’s website.
Other useful sources of information on this topic include the New Rules Project at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a report on Growing Energy from the Natural Resource Defense Council, and a special Fill’er Up series on biofuels from the online journal Grist.
Plug-in hybrids are an advanced form of hybrid vehicle that allow for extended driving in an all-electric mode. They do this by incorporating a larger battery pack and the ability to plug-in to an electric outlet to recharge the batteries. Electric-drive offers the potential for more efficient use of energy to move the vehicle, though this partly depends on the energy source for the electric power used to charge the batteries (e.g. dirtly coal plants v. renewable energy like wind or hydropower). 
