Ethanol From Waste Straw

phcrack writes "The CBC is reporting that 'Iogen Corporation of Ottawa has developed enzymes to break down waste straw and wood chips into ethanol on a commercial scale.' Apparently traditional ethanol from food crops like corn used at least as much energy to create as they released when burned. It's nice to see that big oil companies are helping fund a project like this too. It's very rare today to hear of a major company throwing money at a research project since the '80s."

Comments

Re:Rare != Not There

[stomv]

One of the reasons we don't hear about Monsanto and Lockheed Martin is that they don't want us to hear about them.

Monsanto is the antithesis of the family farm. They genetically engineer seeds and plants. They sell chemicals that pollute the land. They browbeat farmers into using buying their products or paying in court.

Lockheed? They recieve oodles of taxpayer dollars to build bigger bombs. Approximately half the country thinks this is a bad idea, and furthermore, raising the public's awareness of Lockheed products can only lead to more investigations by journalists and more oversight by Congress. That's just not good for business.

These companies do spend tons of money on research, much of it directly taken from tax coffers. They don't want attention for the same reasons that anybody who is up to no good doesn't want attention.