Ethanol Continued

Here are some more reasons why the shift to ethanol is a cluster fuck. Politicians have proposed this so that they can look like they have an energy policy and, especially here in the mid-west, look like they are doing something about creating jobs.

1. It cannot solve the problem with “foreign oil.” Bush's stated goal of having 15% of our fuel usage come from ethanol would require the entire US corn crop.¹ In addition ethanol yields less energy per gallon that gasoline: in other words, your 7mpg hummer now only gets 5mpg.

2. It produces less energy than is put into producing it. This is idiotic. So that we can become independent from foreign oil, we should plant and grow a bunch of corn that requires machinery powered by oil, fertilizers and pesticides produced from oil. While the USDA “scientists” claim there is a net energy gain, they do not take into account all inputs If all inputs are taken into account, 29% less energy is produced from burning ethanol than goes into the production of it.²

3. It causes environmental damage. It does produce fewer emissions than gasoline when burnt. But, Corn requires more pesticides, herbicides, and nitrogen fertilizers than any other food crop. Production of the corn requires fossil fuels and the production of the ethanol from the corn produces “Volatile organic compounds” including “formaldehyde and acetic acid, both carcinogens. Methanol, although not known to cause cancer, also is classified as a hazardous pollutant.”³

4. It drives up the price of food. Most of the corn grown in the US goes to animal feed and so, when you drive around that corn, you drive up the prices of milk, eggs, meat, cheese, staples for poor people like us.

5. It doesn't benefit farmers. "Initially we all were excited by the high prices," said Troy Roush, a sixth-generation farmer who grows 2,600 acres of corn in central Indiana. "But the truth is that the farmers won't keep any of it. There's an old saying that expenses will always rise to meet revenue. It all gets built in."

   And that's exactly what has happened: As the price of corn has gone up, so has the cost of growing it. In just two months, the price Roush paid for fertilizer doubled. And speculation has driven land prices through the roof. "It's insane," Roush said. "In the last four months our land values have increased 40 percent. We're all sitting around wondering if it's real."

   While most farmers own some land, the vast majority rent part or all of their acreage.⁴

6. It benefits large agribusiness. “Ethanol leader ADM’s market share has actually declined from a stunningly high 60 percent to a still-worrisome 25 to 30 percent in recent years. But a recent analysis by USDA agricultural economists concluded, “The fuel ethanol industry may very well be in transition toward an inevitable concentration of ownership into the hands of a few large processing firms.” The market is driven by large-scale gasoline refining firms, which “don’t want to deal with all these small plants,” and a “virtual consolidation of ethanol processing” is taking place. (ADM didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.)”⁵

1See: Colin Carter and Henry I. Miller, Christian Science Monitor:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0521/p09s02-coop.html

2See David Pimentel (Cornell) and Tad W. Patzek (Berkeley), Natural Resources Research, Vol. 14, No. 1, March 2005.

3This is from an AP story. I found it on CBS news. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/05/03/tech/main508006.shtml

4Lisa Hamilton, “Ethanol Booms, Farmers Bust,” http://alternet.org/environment/52073/

5Christopher Cook, “Biofuel: Who Benefits - Smaller Growers or Just Large-Scale Producers and Agribusiness?” from the Friday, April 14, 2006, American Prospect, accessed at http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0414-22.htm.