On July 4, 1826, fifty years after the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died within hours of one another. It was an ending so improbable that generations of Americans have treated it almost as mythology. The two men had spent decades disagreeing about nearly every important question facing the young republic. Jefferson […]
When Thomas Jefferson imagined the future of the American republic, he pictured millions of independent farmers making their own decisions on their own land. Freedom, in Jefferson’s view, depended on dispersing power as widely as possible. Citizens who controlled their own farms could not easily be controlled by anyone else. John Adams, by contrast, understood […]
On July 4, 1826, as Americans celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, two of the republic’s greatest architects lay dying. Thomas Jefferson passed away at Monticello in Virginia. A few hours later, John Adams died in Massachusetts, reportedly unaware that his old friend and longtime rival had preceded him. For more than […]
In the first two installments of this series, we established a compelling chemical and economic reality: the more ethanol blended into a fuel barrel, the less consumers ultimately pay at the pump. This occurs because ethanol is the most affordable large-scale source of high-density octane available to modern refining, as well as an affordable fuel. […]
In Part One of our series, we left readers with a simple observation about ethanol in a fuel blend: the more you use, the less you pay. To understand why this happens, we must begin at the pavement. Walk up to almost any gas pump in America and you are confronted with three standard choices: […]
Americans disagree about so much, it’s practically the national pastime. Politics. Who pays how much in taxes. Climate change. College football rivalry games. Daylight savings time. But there is one thing nearly everyone agrees on. Nobody likes paying too much for fuel. Every week, millions of Americans pull into a gas station hoping the number on […]
Last winter on Key Biscayne, the temperature dropped low enough that frozen iguanas began falling from the palm trees. For a few hours, it looked like the end of the world. Then the sun came out. The iguanas warmed up. Now, there are more than ever. The modern bioeconomy increasingly feels the same way. Every […]
Two cave-men stood beside a raft. “These oyster-shell paddles are unobtainable.” “Really? I thought you just picked them up off the beach.” “No, we get them from over there. But the fellow at the crossing has closed access unless we pay him some beads.” “You could use wood. Make your own paddles and never run […]
In Book 23 of The Odyssey, a stranger stands before Penelope claiming to be her husband. Others have made claims before. “I have been shuddering all the time through fear that someone might come here and deceive me with a lying story,” she says, “for there are many very wicked people going about.” Twenty years […]
For the better part of a year, two questions have surfaced again and again in conversations across the bioeconomy. The first is simple. Where is the money? Not where was it in 2021. Not where people hoped it would be in 2024. Where is it now? The second question is equally persistent. How do we […]
