Ethanol is our government’s solution of choice to our reliance on foreign oil. Because of that, US ethanol production is increasing 15 percent or more annually, and is expected to continue that rise. Billions of dollars will be spent on new ethanol production facilities currently on the drawing board, while tax breaks, and the environmental damage this escalation in production will bring, will only add to that cost. As a country we continue on our binge of high energy consumption, ignoring the real savings in foreign oil imports simple conservation measures would bring. We need more fuel efficient automobiles, increased public transportation, and a general commitment to energy conservation - not more ethanol.
Currently more than 90% of the ethanol produced in the US comes from corn. Corn growing became an intensive petrochemical undertaking during the twentieth century. We no longer rotate crops and use animal waste to provide the high nitrogen corn needs to grow. We are not good stewards of the land. Today’s industrial or “factory” farms coral the animals in feed lots, and use chemical fertilizers and pesticides made from a petroleum base to grow crops. In total, it takes 50 gallons of fuel to grow and deliver an acre of corn. In the process, the soil is depleted. In the largest corn-producing state, Iowa, corn yields are expected to average 163 bushels per acre this year. That’s one gallon of fuel for every 3.26 bushels. There are many other costs in corn production. According to Laura Bush, editor of International BioPharm (2/8/07) when factoring them all in, “the market price of a bushel of corn is lower than the cost to grow it. . .” and “. . . the energy consumed in producing a bushel of corn is higher than the energy value it yields as food.”
As ethanol production increases, rising corn prices will raise the cost of beef and other meats in the supermarket. The costs to the consumer are not always so easily discerned, however. While corn growers will benefit from rising prices, those higher prices mean cattlemen are struggling to feed their livestock. As their profit margins decrease, some will fail. Tortilla makers are struggling because a price increase in their primary ingredient could make this dietary staple unaffordable. These factors will add social expenses to the spiraling costs we all have to bear.
Then there’s the future. Corn accounts for roughly half the expense of making ethanol. As the price of corn increases, the production of corn-based ethanol will become unprofitable, so a cheaper plant-fiber ethanol will be developed. A production facility for plant-fiber ethanol is expected to cost three times as much as a corn ethanol operation - when it’s perfected. Then we’ll have to build new factories, or retrofit the old ones.
Until then, corn ethanol contains approx. 34% less energy per gallon than gasoline. Meaning that 1 1/2 gallons of 100% Ethanol fuel creates the same amount of energy as 1 gallon of gasoline. In the typical 10% ethanol to 90% gasoline mix used in cars in the United States, that translates to a 1-3 % reduction in miles per gallon. The emission of CO2, which is a greenhouse gas implicated in global warming, will remain unchanged by using an corn ethanol/gasoline mix as fuel.
Using corn for fuel doesn’t cut down on pollution, doesn’t increase our mileage, and doesn’t use less oil. All it does - all we do - is burn food for fuel while millions of people in the world are starving. Conservation, not corn, is the answer to our reliance on foreign oil.
FYI - I have a GREAT corn bread recipe that will prove corn is best when used as food. I post it to the comments if anyone wants it.
Richard Frisbie, FOOD Correspondent:
RICHARD FRISBIE is published twice a month to Gather Essentials: Food
It is a food junkie's take on growing, raising, preparing and - above all else - eating food. Together we’ll explore the trends, addictions, equipment and regional specialties that make up the sometimes mundane and sometimes sublime cooking and dining experience. You can keep up with my other postings and Gather activity by joining my Gather network -- just click here [Inset link to namespace] and select the orange “Connect” button on the left-hand side of the page --- I look forward to hearing from you.
BIO - Richard has been writing culinary travel articles for more than five years as a columnist for his local newspapers, and as a regular contributor to the many Hudson Valley, Catskill Mountain and other regional New York publications. His most recent addition to that list is a wine column called “Fruit of the Vine” for Life in the Finger Lakes magazine. Online, he writes frequent articles for EDGE publications and Travel Lady, as well as Gather.
You can read all of Richard's articles and you’ll find him and other Food Correspondents, plus celebrity chef content and plenty of other Foodies at http://foodtalk.gather.com
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Comments: 21
You speak of "pollution" but fail to acknowledge that the primary use of ethanol is a 10% blend with gasoline used to comply with state and federal pollution control laws. Ethanol use has dramatically reduced air pollution in most major American cities.
Next, there is a mistaken belief that a bushel of corn sent to an ethanol plant means that there is one less bushel available for food consumption. One of the by-products of corn-based ethanol production is food. Distillers Grains with Soluble (DGS) and Distillers Dry Grain with Soluble (DDGS) are both co-products of ethanol production. Both of these are used as high quality dairy, beef, swine and poultry feeds.
I highly question your assertion that it takes 50 gallons of fuel to produce an acre of corn. I believe that this may be based on a "world average" not a Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana or Iowa average. Examining the records of the family farm of my in-laws, I am seeing 6 gallons of fuel used per acre and a growing share of that fuel is bio-diesel.
Your article mentioned "Tortilla makers are struggling because a price increase in their primary ingredient could make this dietary staple unaffordable." I would ask you to look deeper into this. Our exports of corn have hurt the farming economies of other countries, like Mexico by artificially depressing world corn prices. An Iowa farmer can ship yellow corn to Mexico and sell it as animal feed in Oaxaca cheaper than a local farmer. Ethanol production in the U.S has raised world corn prices which make it economical for local farmers in Mexico to compete. Mexico is now in an adjustment period where white corn (used for tortilla making) is filling the gap created by the withdrawal of U.S. yellow corn.
I agree with you regarding the future of ethanol production, most experts do agree that there will be a transition to cellulous ethanol production over the next ten years, but they also agree that this is only feasible because corn based ethanol has paid for the infra-structure and induced vehicle manufactures to step up production of flex-fueled vehicles.
Lastly, on the matter of greenhouse gas emissions, in the long run it is ridiculous and inefficient to burn fuel. The best use of fuels for transportation will be in fuel cells. The most promising technology to date employs ethanol as a fuel and doubles the efficiency of energy use.
About "pollution" I did say that "In the typical 10% ethanol to 90% gasoline mix used in cars in the United States," but didn't say it was regulated. (I know Brazil uses a higher ratio, and supposedly have the best system of ethanol production.) More mass transportation and restrictions on automobile use would also reduce pollution in urban areas - AND improve the quality of life there.
Ethanol has a corrosive effect on certain engine fittings, so parts with different compositions had to be used in all engines burning any ethanol. All post 1997 cars (is that correct?) have the newer parts. just another cost to factor in. I wonder if that corrosive quality will increase with higher ratios of corn ethanol. (Sorry I didn't find an answer to that either)
The Iowa average for per acre corn production is lower than the estimated 200 bushels per acre, but - because it is our largest corn producing state - I used their figures. I've been searching for a 'gallons of fuel per acre of corn' figure for months. This is the only one I came up with (odd) and it was in a business column yesterday in our region (by a mass transit advocate, Maureen Morgan, in a column titled Surviving the Future - about a Canadian planner's, Tim Moerman, speech at last year's Atlantic Planners Institute Annual Conference)
"One of the by-products of corn-based ethanol production is food." Glad to see this. I wish I knew if the value of that byproduct was included in the cost estimates. It should be. Is this a product that would be used in those factory farms I referenced?
It looks as if your in-laws are on the right track - even to biodeisel - good. Do you suppose they are the norm? I thought that 50 gallons reference was about the big corn producing mega farms that are even replacing soybean crops with corn.
The tortilla makers are specifically worried about the escalating price of US corn. I wonder if we've undersold the local farmer for so long that they are no longer trying to compete. Certainly, they could gear up production if US corn got too high. I also thought I saw a backstory here of the tortilla makers worried about lessened profits, and how they could pass increased costs to a low income market.
About "future of ethanol production" The international experts I heard talking about this on NPR claimed that increased production would not reduce our dependence on oil, only our dependence on foreign oil. My point was we could do that with conservation.
About greenhouse gasses, you are right that it is "ridiculous and inefficient to burn fuel" but to get back to the crux of my article, how can we justify our energy consuming ways by burning food while so many starve?
There is no practical way to dramatically reduce pollution by means of mass transportation or automobile restriction over the next decade. Even the most radical proposals yield less than a 10% to 25% reduction in consumption. We will have to rely on gasoline powered vehicles for more than a decade and the only way to do this practically is use ethanol as an oxegenator in fuels.
I think it is great to expand mass transit, but it took the Twin Cities eight years to build a light rail system that services only 6,000 people a day, most of them former bus riders.
The greatest hurdle in mass transit is "the final mile".
A 10% ethanol blend has been shown to have no adverse affects on automobile components. More than a 10% blend requires flex-fuel engines but again that is a good thing because it prepares the fleet for a cellulous ethanol economy.
I am not sure what defines a "factory farm" but I can tell you that it takes a minimum of 2,000 acres these days to be viable. That is the reality of farming.
The larger the operation the more efficient; i.e. the less fuel per acre is used. The equipment is getting larger and more efficient every year and only the large operations can afford to upgrade.
Bio-diesel blending is a local norm because we have a plant within 15 miles that produces it. It is all about the economics of distribution.
That just about sums it up. There will be painful adjustments as they regain their markets but the trend is toward a more sustainable local market.
A gallon of ethanol produced means (slightly) less than one gallon of petroleum has to be refined which reduces our dependence on oil and foreign oil.
Why not put it as an "And" rather than an "either/or". We should conserve AND prepare for a cellulous ethanol future.
One could carry that argument to meat. Why should we feed corn to hogs rather than ship it to Somalia? That is a slippery slope that never levels out.
I am not much of a fan of exporting food, look at what it has done to many third world markets.
One of the problems with food aid in general, even in case of drought, flood or the catastrophe of war – is that it destroys the local market. Often times, people starve for years because these markets have been ruined.
No problem... that is why we Gather. Thanks for posting a thoughtful and thought provoking article.
At least in my humble opinion, corn-based ethanol is a bridging mechanism. It produces cleaner air in the cities, moves the fleet toward a flex-fuel and ethanol fuel cell future but it can never displace more than 10% of our current transportation fuel requirements.
Cellulous ethanol is the key. I look forward to a day, not more than a decade from now, when the prairie is returned to its native soil building grasses and our nation is free from importing oil from unstable and dangerous countries.
Your feeding corn to pigs comment reminded me of the corn being fed to beef. I read this curious bit of information: that corn isn't a natural food for cows (don't know about pigs but suspect they can eat anything - as we can) and feeding them corn creates problems with their health and digestion, so that more antibiotics and medications have to be used so they can eat it. Certainly they go from birth to table much faster, but in the process the acidity in there digestive systems (caused by feeding them corn) bred an acid resistant e-coli that can tolerate our digestive systems.
THAT's so off topic - sorry - but you seemed so knowledgeable about farms I thought you might know if that was so. It's this curiosity I have.
And - to get back on track - the 50 gal reference was not just referring to vehicle use per acre on the farm, but rather the whole system: chemicals, fertilizer, and transport off farm - and I really haven't seen any other figure.
About ethanol having - "no adverse affects on automobile components" - it shouldn't have it now, I agree - I thought that because of the regulations that required 10% ethanol use, the effected components were all changed. At least that's the way I read it.
Speaking of reading - I read the MPR newsletter everyday - Minnesota certainly is progressive. The biodiesel plant nearby the farm is truly an asset. How does it compare to gasoline in cost, energy, etc.? All around cheaper?
About the food thing - I think it is really more of a perception - rather how we are perceived elsewhere in the world. I agree that we have ruined local markets with our farm exports - but I hate being thought of as a nation living high on the hog (if you'll forgive that food analogy) while other nations suffer. We are preparing to grow and burn a huge amount of corn while people go hungry.
And - I guess, finally - Your comment:
"A gallon of ethanol produced means (slightly) less than one gallon of petroleum has to be refined which reduces our dependence on oil and foreign oil. "
What I read and heard contradict that. I think because of the fuel used to produce the ethanol. And producing more ethanol will just let us continue to consume more energy rather than build and learn to conserve. But maybe it is just my mind set now. Thanks for this dialog.
Cellulous ethanol is the key. I look forward to a day, not more than a decade from now, when the prairie is returned to its native soil building grasses and our nation is free from importing oil from unstable and dangerous countries.
I join you in that thought.
Okay let's have a little fun.
The largest user of bicarbonate of soda is feedlots, in other words, they give Alka Seltzer to cows.
They use it to prevent "grain sickness". By the way, cattle belches are a primary source of the greenhouse gas methane. (sheep farts too).
Even then the numbers just don't add up. I have a suspicion that this comes out of a couple papers written by David Pimentel an ecology professor at Cornell. You have to be careful with Pimentel and read his fine print thoroughly. What he is talking about is fossil-fuel equivalents. Again the problems with Pimentel's numbers are his exaggerations and use of "world production" rather than actual numbers.
Farming and ethanol production use a great deal of natural gas, primarily for fertilizer and corn-drying. This is what Pimentel refers to as "fossil fuel" which technically, it is.
There are other oxegenators than ethanol, MTBE comes to mind. MTBE was to be the primary oxegenator used to reduce air pollution until it was found to a source of ground water pollution. Keep in mind that until two years ago, the infra-structure to move ethanol around the country did not exist.
Ethanol really came out of the blue as a national energy strategy. It was mostly developed by local co-ops and a few state governments. The feds just kind of tripped into it.
I am not sure what the current rack price is. Diesel has gone up dramatically and bio-diesel prices have fallen. Usually we get it in a blend. In Minnesota, all diesel must contain a 2% biodiesel blend. On the farm they are using a higher blend, but I am not sure how that affects price.
Eh, well just tell them it is full of GMO.
I don't want to make light of people going hungry but ruining their markets with our exports is not prudent.
I don't see that at all. I guess I get an up close and personal look at the ethanol industry, it is huge around here.
I fail to see how producing 10% of transportation fuel contradicts the goal of conservation. In the long view, corn ethanol will prepare us for a more sustainable future.
I appreciate your time and energy throughout this dialog - OK - Uncle! - We know where we agree, and where we stand. I think we will have to disagree on many items and hope time will prove you right.
And now I have to get back to work. (The problem with a day off is the work waits until I return!)
Thanks again - AND -
Katrina - I'll have to ask my distributor to send me a copy of Omnivore's Dilemma. Thanks for the heads up!
I'll look for the Onnivore's Dilemma also.
Thanks all!
I am not a believer in the ability of ethanol to make much difference in either our energy needs or our War on Climate Change. If you read this weeks "U.S. News and World Report" they pretty much back me up. It is politically popular and makes some farmers rich but accomplishes very little for those two great challenges. Do not get sidetracked by the pretty flowers my friends; we have a mountain to climb and you do not climb a mountain without breaking a sweat.
I lifted this quote from the Logen Corporation website. Logen is a Canadian company that is on the cutting edge of Cellulous Ethanol technology. This spring, Logen will bring on-line the world's first commercial Cellulous Ethanol plant. At 10 million gallons per year, the plant crosses the line from pilot to commercial production.
To me, this strikes of fear tactics. I know of no current"forest" area with suitable soils for planting corn.
Nobody, but nobody in the know is proposing that corn based ethanol will be used for much more than the 10% blend that is now used as an oxegenator in fuels. Despite the appeal of E85, it is just not economically viable to produce it in large scale from corn.
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Change of pace -
On NPR right now (5:09ET 2/15/07) a whole farm / farm impact / price / pollution audio feature by Christopher Joyce. Basically, he says:
~ that even corn growers are worried about how the record high corn prices are affecting livestock farmers. We can expect higher pork, chicken and beef prices. ~And the pollution involved will have to be dealt with.
~There are 80 heavily subsidized corn Ethanol production facilities currently being built or planned, but the high cost of corn have some looking at barley (more food to burn) for ethanol production.
~As the cost of corn raises farmers may switch to a different feed for livestock.
~The ability of corn ethanol to reduce foreign oil imports is limited by how much corn we can grow.
~Where farmers used to look for the new womens prison to be built in their county, they are now hoping for the new ethanol plant
Fascinating report - I'm sure it is archived online at NPR.com all things considered. The story right after it included historic alcohol/fuel coverage with modern alcohol fuel info - well worth searching. Apparently Henry Ford predicted alcohol would be the fuel of the future after oil ran out.
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LOOKS as if we are going to be hearing quite a lot about ethanol in the upcoming months. Even a Real Estate email I got today featured an article on corn ethanol and the presidential election. 2 paragraphs are below:
"It's interesting that every four years, a free-for-all breaks out in a state that currently holds a mere one percent of the U.S. population. The candidates fall over one another to prove that their government-sponsored ethanol tax scheme is the best thing that could happen in Iowa. What isn't well known is that the majority of Iowa's farms are corporate-owned by agri-businesses, and their very existence may not really be in the Hawkeye State's best overall interests."
"Ethanol is only one of many alternative bio-fuels whose development is essential to weaning this country off foreign sources of oil. And the sooner we can move these new fuels to the market, the better."
Jonathan A. Schein, President & Publisher
HouseMediaNetwork.com & New York House Magazine
There seems to be fuel (if you'll forgive that) for all sides of the ethanol story.