Behind the scenes from Sci Tech Now feature Secret Garden, courtesy of DPTV
As you’ve been hearing on greatlakesnow.org, tonight is a big night for Detroit Public Television’s Great Lakes Bureau. First, DPTV’s “The Ethanol Effect,”a documentary about the controversy over corn ethanol policies and how they impact U.S. agriculture, energy and the environment, will air on Detroit Public Television at 10pm, followed by the PBS program hosted by PBS anchor Hari Sreenivasan called “Sci Tech Now, ” which will air a feature we produced with a “Peril and Promise” grant called “Secret Garden.” “Sci Tech Now” begins at 11pm on DPTV. Check your local listings for the correct date and time.
Watch the Clip
Watch the full episode >
We asked DPTV filmmaker Bill Kubota to give us an update on “The Ethanol Effect”.
What’s new since we first aired The Ethanol Effect?
by Bill Kubota
Not surprisingly, in the past eighteen months since Detroit Public Television’s The Ethanol Effect aired nationally on PBS World, there’s not that much to report – but something new could happen very, very soon.
Food versus Fuel, courtesy of the Ethanol Effect
Our program looked at how corn ethanol fits into U.S. agricultural, energy and environmental policies.
If you drive, ethanol makes up ten percent of what you put in your fuel tank.
In The Ethanol Effect, energy and environmental reporter David Biello followed candidates on the stump in Iowa this most recent election cycle.
Food is a Right, courtesy of the Ethanol Effect
Environmental groups and anti-subsidy libertarians had joined oil interests in opposing ethanol in our gasoline, but then presidential longshot Donald Trump told Biello and our DPTV crew he was all for ethanol and in support of Iowa corn farmers.
Now Trump has called for a cabinet meeting with some senators to be held Tuesday, February 27 to consider changes in the country’s biofuels policy.
The ethanol story begins in Midwestern cornfields, but its fate remains with the lobbyists and politicians in Washington.
