Ethanol in Gas & Flatscreen Envy

This is The Environment Report. I'm Lester Graham.

The ethanol industry wants to get more of its product into gasoline. Critics of corn-based ethanol say that does more harm to the environment than good. Chuck Quirmbach is here; Chuck, you found some scientists are trying to put the brakes on the idea.

Yeah, Lester. You might remember back in the 1970's the government limited the amount of ethanol that can be blended with gasoline at 10 percent.

Yep, I'm that old.

Well, now a trade group called Growth Energy has asked the US EPA to raise the limit to 15 percent. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has already said that 12 or 13 percent ethanol is possible soon.

But, environmental groups say "slow down." Jeremy Martin is with the Union of Concerned Scientists. He says, first the government should make sure that a higher-ethanol blend doesn't damage pollution controls on vehicle engines.

"We don't want to quickly make a change and then find out that we've caused a lot of damage to lots of vehicles on the road or caused a lot of air quality impacts."

Supporters of the increased ethanol blend say it would help US corn farmers and reduce the demand for foreign oil.

Alright, thanks Chuck.

This is The Environment Report.
College basketball's March Madness is here, and television sales are expected to spike as they do with most major sporting events.

Tamara Keith is here. Tamara, you found those new flat panel TV's use more energy than the old cathode ray tube televisions.

Part of the issue is that people don't replace their 25-inch TVs with 25-inch flat screens. They go bigger. And, get this--a 42-inch flat screen TV can use as much electricity as a refrigerator.

But, Mansoor isn't saying that environmentally minded consumers should steer clear of flat panel TVs. He's just saying they should shop smart. For instance LCD models use less energy than plasmas. There are new energy star TVs that are up to 30-percent more efficient than the last generation of energy stars. There are now nearly 500 models on the market that meet the standard.

Katherine Kaplan leads Energy Star product development for the US Environmental Protection Agency. She says in the past the program only looked at how much power a TV used when it was turned off.

"Really it was time to take our energy efficiency requirements to the next level and to focus for the first time on active power."

So, they're now including those 5 hours a day our TVs are blaring.

At a Washington DC Best Buy, flat screens line an entire wall and half of another one. Richard Glenn can't seem to take his eyes off of Kung Foo Panda playing on a big plasma TV.

"I have an old fashioned big and clunky TV."

"And what's making you shop?"

"Envy. I covet my neighbor's flat screen."

And, Glenn knows that if he buys a new TV it will use more energy than his old one.

"This very nice plasma I'm looking at here like uses as much energy as a hair drier or something like that. It's really really bad."

But he just can't resist. I ask store manager John Zittraur to show me which ones are energy star TVs.

"Ahh. I think it would be harder to show you the ones that aren't cause all of the ones that we've been getting in, I'd say for the past 6 months or so, have all had the energy star logo on it."

So, there's a bunch of them out there. And by the way Zittraur has plenty of energy saving advice. First, don't buy more TV than you need. Keep the TV's brightness settings toned down. Plug the TV, the DVD and all the other electronics into a surge protectorand switch it off when they're not in use.

For The Environment Report, I'm Tamara Keith.

That's The Environment Report, I'm Lester Graham.