An ex-Chevron exec's change of heart on ethanol

Energy companies like Chevron cannot throw enough money at ethanol research these days. It certainly wasn't always like this. In 1999, a Chevron exec, Patricia Woertz, who was then head of refining, said it was "time to stop mixing agricultural policy with fuels policy." Today, Woertz has seen the light, and it is a corn-powered green.
Woertz's shift in attitude might have something to do with her new job. She is now the chief executive of Archer Daniels Midland, the agribusiness giant that is pushing like mad to promote ethanol made from corn. Woertz now says that ethanol will make up 10 percent of the U.S. gasoline supply sometime in the next ten years and that ADM will take the lead in producing cellulosic ethanol when the technology is available to make it efficiently. Woertz explains her change of heart on ethanol on an evolving energy market. Fair enough. We'll see where she's at seven years hence.

[Source: International Herald Tribune]

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