Ethanol and Biodiesel in Canada: Can They Help Meet Canada's Kyoto Commitment?
The Canadian government ratified the Kyoto Protocol in December 2002. The protocol calls for greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced by 6 percent below the 1990 level (approximately 35 percent below what they are expected to be in a business-as-usual situation) by 2008â€“2012. To help meet this target, both federal and provincial governments in Canada have developed programs (in some cases mandates) for ethanol and biodiesel production and use in fuel blends. Various subsidy schemes have been designed to stimulate development of a biofuels industry in Canada. While the programs have been promoted on the basis of environmental concerns, a major driver has been the search for new markets for Canadian agricultural commodities that face chronically depressed prices. The purposes of this article are to review the current state of policies, programs and production of ethanol and biodiesel in Canada and to assess the prospect of these biofuels to significantly reduce production of greenhouse gases in Canada.
A Canadian Ethanol Feedstock Study to Benchmark the Relative Performance of Triticale: II. Grain Quality and Ethanol Production
Published in Agron. J. 105:1707–1720 (2013) doi:10.2134/agronj2013.0193 Available freely online through the author-supported open access option. Copyright © 2013 by the American Society of Agronomy, 5585 Guilford Road, Madison, WI 53711. All rights reserved. No part of this periodical may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. G fuel ethanol production has now reached 75 billion L yr–1, and Canada’s contribution is approximately 2 billion L yr–1 (Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, 2010; Klein et al., 2004). Some economists have argued that ethanol fuel production from grain feedstocks relies too heavily on government programs to offset what is considered to be an inefficient system incapable of adequately reducing greenhouse gas emission targets (Freeze and Peters, 1999; Klein et al., 2004). Others have argued that ethanol should only be produced using crop biomass and residues (Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, 2010), considered by many as agricultural waste (Freeze and Peters, 1999). However, the dramatic rise in plant construction and output, including seven ethanol plants operating in western Canada with a collective annual output of 0.5 billion L (Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, 2010), suggests that the economics may not be as important as provincial and federal policies targeting energy diversity, agricultural benefits, and rural renewal (Coad and Bristow, 2011; Klein et al., 2004). Studies also report that >60% of crop residues must be retained to adequately maintain proper C cycling in the soil in wheat production systems (Freeze and Peters, 1999). Therefore, if crop residue exports are limited to 40% to maintain soil quality, ethanol production from grain is probably needed at some level to meet the increasing long-term demand for ethanol. Furthermore, grain-based ethanol production provides grain growers the opportunity to sell their grain into dual markets, which enhances marketing options for cereal production. Today, a producer of CWSWS and CPS wheat, which are preferred for wheat ethanol feedstocks, can choose to sell into a milling market or contract the production to an ethanol plant. ABSTRACT
Beyond East–West: Marginality and National Dignity in Finnish Identity Construction
Since the end of the Cold War it has become common for Finnish academics and politicians alike to frame debates about Finnish national identity in terms of locating Finland somewhere along a continuum between East and West. Indeed, for politicians, properly locating oneself (and therefore Finland) along this continuum has often been seen as central to the winning and losing of elections. For example, the 1994 referendum on EU membership was largely interpreted precisely as an opportunity to relocate Finland further to the West. Indeed, the tendency to depict Finnish history in terms of a series of “Westernizing” moves has been notable, but has also betrayed some of the politicized elements of this view. However, this framing of Finnish national identity discourse is not only sometimes politicized but arguably is also too simplified and results in blindness towards other identity narratives that have also been important through Finnish history, and that are also evident (but rarely recognized) today as well. In this article we aim to highlight one of these that we argue has played a key role in locating Finland in the world and in formulating notions of what Finland is about, what historical role and mission it has been understood as destined to play, and what futures for the nation have been conceptualized as possible and as providing a source of subjectivity and national dignity.