NORTHEAST

STUDY SAYS ETHANOL NOT WORTH THE ENERGY

ALBANY, N.Y. – Farmers, businesses, and state officials are investing millions of dollars in ethanol and biofuel plants as renewable energy sources, but a new study says the alternative fuels burn more energy than they produce.

Supporters of ethanol and other biofuels contend they burn cleaner than fossil fuels, reduce American dependence on oil, and give farmers another market to sell their produce.

But researchers at Cornell University and the University of California-Berkeley say it takes 29% more fossil energy to turn corn into ethanol than the amount of fuel the process produces. For switch grass, a warm weather perennial grass found in the Great Plains and northeastern America, it takes 45% more energy, and for wood, 57%.

It takes 27% more energy to turn soybeans into biodiesel fuel and more than double the energy produced is needed to do the same to sunflower plants, the study found.

“Ethanol production in the United States does not benefit the nation’s energy security, its agriculture, the economy, or the environment,” according to the study by Cornell’s David Pimentel and Berkeley’s Tad Patzek. They conclude the country would be better off investing in solar, wind, and hydrogen energy.

The researchers included such factors as the energy used in producing the crop, costs that were not used in other studies that supported ethanol production, said Mr. Pimentel.

The study also omitted $3 billion in state and federal government subsidies that go toward ethanol production in America each year.

– Associated Press

SOUTH

TWO ALA. CHILDREN FOUND DEAD INSIDE CAR

HOOVER, Ala. – Authorities recovered the bodies of two siblings yesterday who were inside their mother’s car when the vehicle went off a highway and into a river.

Golfers at a nearby country club rescued the mother Saturday but could not find the children – 5-year-old Ashlyn Skinner and her 18-month-old brother, Bryson. Search teams located the submerged BMW about 300 feet from where it went into the rain-swollen Cahaba River. The children’s bodies were found later in the day. Police declined to say whether they were in safety restraints inside the car. The mother, Brandee Skinner, 30, was treated at a hospital for minor injuries and released. Authorities said the cause of the accident remained under investigation. Rescuers said the river was deeper and murkier than normal because of recent rains from Hurricane Dennis.

– Associated Press

BUSINESS

WILLY WONKA COMES IN FIRST AT BOX OFFICE

LOS ANGELES – Willy Wonka gave moviegoers their sugar fix for the weekend. “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” starring Johnny Depp as candyman Wonka, had a sweet debut of $55.4 million, helping Hollywood make a dent in a box-office downturn that has lingered most of the year.

Opening as a solid no. 2 was Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn’s comedy “Wedding Crashers,” which took in $32.2 million, according to studio estimates yesterday. The two new movies bumped the previous weekend’s no. 1 flick, “Fantastic Four,” which slipped to third place with $22.7 million, lifting its 10-day total to $100.1 million.

Overall business was up solidly, the second-straight weekend Hollywood revenues rose after a slump that had lasted since late February.

After a slight uptick at the box office the previous weekend, the top 12 movies took in $151.4 million, a rise of 7.5% from the same weekend last year, when “I, Robot” premiered as the no. 1 movie. “People are just waiting for the right kinds of movies to come along, and they will show up in big numbers,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.

– Associated Press