ETHANOL ANSWERS
The biofuel boom in the U.S. is driving up the price of corn and diverting resources from food production to energy. Does it make environmental or economic sense?
By MATT CRENSON The Associated Press
NEW YORK — The U. S. is turning on to ethanol with an enthusiasm that surprises even aficionados of alternative fuels.
“ It’s coming on dramatically; more rapidly than anyone had expected," said Nathanael Greene, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
You’d think that would be good news, but it actually worries a lot of people.
The only economical way to make ethanol right now is with corn, which means the burgeoning industry is literally eating the country’s lunch, not to mention its breakfast and dinner.
And its environmental benefits are questionable at best.
There are many questions about ethanol’s place in the country’s energy future. Some are easily answered; others, not so much.
WHAT IS ETHANOL?
Ethanol is moonshine. Virtually all the ethanol produced in the United States comes from corn that is fermented and then distilled to produce pure grain alcohol.
WILL MY CAR RUN ON IT?
Any car will burn gasoline mixed with a small amount of ethanol. But cars must be equipped with special equipment to burn fuel that is more than about 10 per cent ethanol.
IS ETHANOL BETTER THAN GASOLINE?
Gasoline is a remarkably efficient automobile fuel. The energy required to pump crude out of the ground, refine it and transport it from oil well to gas tank is about six per cent of the energy in the gasoline itself. Ethanol made from corn is much less efficient. Plowing, planting, fertilizing and harvesting all require machinery that burns fossil fuel. Fertilizer and pesticides are produced using fossil fuels.
Transporting the corn, fermenting and distilling it consumes yet more energy, and then there’s the cost of transporting the fuel to filling stations.
In the end, even the most generous analysts estimate that it takes the energy equivalent of three litres of ethanol to make four litres of the stuff, and some argue it takes more
HOW FAST IS ETHANOL PRODUCTION GROWING?
According to the Renewable Fuels Association, ethanol production has doubled in the past three years. With 113 ethanol plants currently operating in theU. S. and 78 more under construction, the country’s ethanol output is expected to double again in less than two years.
BUT AREN’T THERE ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS?
If you make ethanol from corn, the environmental benefits are limited. When you consider the greenhouse gases that are released in the growing and refining process, cornbased ethanol is only slightly better with regard to global warming than into gasoline in small amounts, ethanol causes the fuel to burn more cleanly, reducing the production of nitrogen oxides and other pollutants. That has made it popular in smoggy cities like Los Angeles.
WHAT ABOUT ETHANOL’S ECONOMIC BENEFITS?
Making ethanol is profitable when oil is costly and corn is cheap— and the federal government is willing to pay generous subsidies. But oil prices are off from last year’s peaks and corn has doubled in price over the past year, thanks mostly to demand from ethanol producers.
High corn prices are causing social unrest in Mexico, where the government has tried to mollify angry consumers by slapping price controls on tortillas. Lester R. Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, predicts food riots in other major corn- importing countries if something isn’t done.
U. S. consumers will soon feel the effects of high corn prices as well, if they haven’t already, because virtually everything Americans put in their mouths starts as corn. There’s corn flakes, corn chips, corn nuts, and hundreds of other processed foods that don’t even have the word corn in them. There’s corn in the occasional pint of beer and shot of whisky. And don’t forget high fructose corn syrup, a sweetener that is added to soft drinks, baked goods, candy and a lot of things that aren’t even sweet.
Some people even eat it off the cob. And then there are the animals that currently eat more than half the corn grown in the country.
U. S. residents consume so much gasoline that all the corn in the world couldn’t make enough ethanol to get their cars running.
Last year ethanol production used 12 per cent of the U. S. corn harvest, but it replaced only 2.8 per cent of the country’s gasoline consumption.
“ If we were to adopt automobile fuel efficiency standards to increase efficiency by 20 per cent, that would contribute as much as converting the entire U. S. grain harvest into ethanol," Brown said
IS THERE A BETTER RENEWABLE FUEL SUBSTITUTE?
Most experts think it will take an array of renewable energy technologies to replace fossil fuels. Ethanol’s main drawbacks stem from the fact that it is made using a critical component of the world’s food supply.
Researchers are currently working on methods to make ethanol from a nonfood plant that could be grown without the need for fertilizers, pesticides and other inputs. They’re concentrating their efforts on cellulose, which is found in a wide variety of plants, including poplar trees, switchgrass and cornstalks.
But plant cellulose is more difficult to break down than the starch in corn kernels. There are also technical hurdles related to separating, digesting and fermenting the cellulose fibre. Though it can be done, making ethanol from cellulose- rich material costs at least twice as much as making it from corn.
WHEN WILL CELLULOSIC ETHANOL BE COMPETITIVE?
Some experts estimate that it will take 10 to 15 years before cellulosic ethanol becomes competitive. But Mitch Mandich, CEO of Range Fuels, thinks it will be a lot sooner than that. The Colorado- based company has started building a cellulosic ethanol plant in Georgia that converts wood chips and other waste left behind by the forest products industry. Another company, Iogen Corp., has been producing cellulosic ethanol from wheat, oat and barley straw for several years at a demonstration plant in Ottawa.
Studies suggest that cellulosic ethanol could yield at least four to six times the energy expended to produce it.
It would also produce less greenhouse gas emissions than cornbased ethanol because much of the energy needed to refine it could come from burning other chemical components of the very same plants that contained the cellulose.
HOW MUCH GAS COULD CELLULOSIC ETHANOL REPLACE?
The U. S. Department of Energy estimates that the United States could produce more than a billion tonnes of cellulosic material annually for ethanol production. In theory, that material could produce enough ethanol to substitute for about 30 per cent of the country’s oil consumption.
A University of Tennessee study released in November reached similar conclusions. More than 40 million hectares of land would have to be dedicated to energy crops in order to reach the goal of substituting renewable biofuels for 25 per cent of the country’s fuel consumption by 2025, the report estimated. That would be a significant fraction of the country’s 323 million hectares of cultivable land, the study’s authors said, but not enough to cause disruptions in agricultural markets.
“ There really aren’t any losers," said University of Tennessee agricultural economist Burton English
REALLY? NO LOSERS AT ALL?
There might be losers. Simple economics dictates that if farmers find it more profitable to grow switchgrass rather than corn, soy or cotton, the price of those commodities is bound to rise in response to falling supply.
“ You can produce a lot of ethanol from cellulose without competing with food," said Wallace Tyner, an agricultural economist at Purdue University. “ But if you want to get half your fuel supply fromit you will compete with food agriculture."
There may also be ecological impacts. TheU. S. government currently pays farmers not to farmabout 14 million hectares of conservation land, mostly in the midwest. Those fallow tracts provide valuable habitat for wildlife, especially birds. Though switchgrass is a good home for most birds, if it became profitable to grow it or another energy crop on conservation land some species could decline.
WILL ETHANOL SOLVE ALL OF OUR PROBLEMS?
Ethanol is certainly a valuable tool in our efforts to address the economic and environmental problems associated with fossil fuels. But even the most optimistic projections suggest it can only replace a fraction of the gasoline that consumed each year. It will take a mix of technologies to achieve energy independence and reduce the country’s production of greenhouse gases.
“ I think we’re in a very interesting era. We are recognizing a problem and we are finding lots of potential solutions," said David Tilman, an ecologist at the University of Minnesota.
But if we’re serious about achieving energy independence and mitigating global warming, Tilman and other experts said, one of those solutions must be energy conservation.
That means doubling the fuel economy of our automobiles, expanding mass transit and decreasing the amount of energy it takes to light, heat and cool our buildings. Without such measures, ethanol and other innovations will make little more than a dent in fossil fuel consumption.
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