Untitled Document
Dwindling supplies of foreign oil, rising prices at
the gas pump, and hype from politically connected U.S. agribusiness have
combined to create a frenzied rush to convert food grains into ethanol
fuel. The move is badly conceived and ill advised. Corporate spin and
pork-barrel legislation aside, here, by the numbers, are the scientific
reasons that corn won’t fulfill our energy needs:
First, using corn or any other biomass for ethanol
requires huge regions of fertile land, plus massive amounts of water and
sunlight to maximize crop production. All green plants in the U.S. —
crops, forests, and grasslands combined — collect about 32 quads
(that’s 32 quadrillion BTUs) of sunlight energy per year. Meanwhile,
the American population currently burns more than three times that amount
of energy annually as fossil fuels! There isn’t even close to enough
biomass in America to supply our biofuel needs. Second, biofuel enthusiasts — including
agribusiness lobbyists, and PR firms — suggest that ethanol produced
from corn and cellulosic biomass (such as grasses), could replace much of
the oil used in the U.S. Consider that 20 percent of the U.S. corn crop was
converted into 5 billion gallons of ethanol in 2006, but that amount
replaced only 1 percent of U.S. oil consumption. If the entire national
corn crop were used to make ethanol, it would replace a mere 7 percent of
U.S. oil consumption — far from making the U.S. independent of
foreign oil. Third, ethanol production is energy-intensive:
Cornell University’s up-to-date analysis of the 14 energy inputs that
go into corn production, plus the nine energy inputs invested in ethanol
fermentation and distillation, confirms that more than 40 percent of the
energy contained in 1 gallon of corn ethanol is expended to produce it.
That expended energy to make ethanol comes mostly from highly valuable oil
and natural gas. Some investigators conveniently omit several of these
energy inputs required in corn production and processing, such as energy
for farm labor, farm machinery, energy production of hybrid corn-seed,
irrigation, and processing equipment. Omitting energy inputs wrongly
suggests that a corn-ethanol production system offers a more positive
energy return. In reality, corn is an inefficient choice from an
energy-cost and transport standpoint. Cellulosic ethanol is also touted loudly as a
replacement for corn ethanol. Unfortunately, cellulose biomass production
requires major energy inputs to release minimal amounts of tightly bound
starches and sugars needed to make fuel. About 70 percent more energy
(coming again from precious oil and gas) is required to produce ethanol
from cellulosic biomass than the ethanol produced. That makes cellulosic
ethanol an even poorer performer than corn ethanol. Also, the production of corn ethanol is highly
subsidized: State and federal governments pay out more than $6 billion per
year in subsidies, according to a 2006 report from the International
Institute for Sustainable Development in Geneva, Switzerland. These
subsidies for a gallon of ethanol are more than 60 times those for a gallon
of gasoline.
Moreover, the environmental impacts of corn-ethanol
production are serious and diverse. These include severe soil erosion of
valuable food cropland and the heavy use of nitrogen fertilizers and
pesticides that pollute rivers. Fermenting corn to make 1 gallon of ethanol
produces 12 gallons of noxious sewage effluent. Making ethanol requires the
use of fossil fuels, releasing large quantities of carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere and adding to global warming. Finally, the use of food crops such as corn to
produce ethanol raises major nutritional and ethical concerns. Nearly 60
percent of the people on earth are currently malnourished, according to the
World Health Organization. Growing crops for fuel squanders land, water,
and energy that are vital for human food production. The use of corn for ethanol has led to major
increases in the price of U.S. beef, chicken, pork, eggs, breads, cereals,
and milk — a boon to agribusiness and bane to consumers. Jacques
Diouf, director general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization,
reports that the use of 22 pounds of corn to produce 1 gallon of ethanol is
already causing food shortages for the world’s poor. One last set of statistics: The global population
stands at 6.6 billion, and a quarter-million mouths to feed are added
daily. Energy experts report that peak oil production has already been
reached. As cheap oil supplies decline, fuel prices will rise, causing food
prices to climb, too (because maximum agricultural production requires
fossil-fuel inputs). As the global population soars to 8 or 9 billion
around the middle of this century and as we burn more grain as fuel,
shortages and production costs could cause grain prices to skyrocket,
taking food from the mouths of the world’s poorest people. The science is clear: The use of corn and other
biofuels to solve our energy problem is an ethically, economically, and
environmentally unworkable sham.
David Pimentel is a
professor of entomology at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at
Cornell University. © 2008 Blue Ridge
Press
This article appears in Feb 21-27, 2008.
