Gold Medal: Food for fuel. Corn to ethanol. Crazy idea from the beginning. Now it really looks like a bad idea. UN asking US to suspend ethanol program immediately. Case in point: Guatamalans will starve so large industrial growers can convert corn to ethanol. -- NY Times, January 6, 2013.
Silver medal: Killing Keystone XL.
Bronze medal: Slicers and dicers.
Copper medal: Solyndra.
Honorable mention:
- $26 diesel for US Navy via biofuels -- what were they thinking? Coal would be cheaper
- Permitorium following the 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill -- what were they thinking?
New category: bad ideas that can only get worse with time
France bans office lights after 1:00 a.m. to cut down CO2 emissions; crime will run rampant
Tesla charging stations good for Tesla only; Leaf and Volt -- you're out of luck. Actually, it's worse than that: Tesla is a car company. Now it's becoming an infrastructure company. This is like GM building its own gas stations but only allowing GM cars to refuel there.
California mandates that 15% of all cars sold in the state must be "emission-free" by 2025.