Food or Fuel? The Ethanol Scam

[donsu]

http://counterpunch.com/bryce03022007.html


The ethanol scam just keeps getting more and more absurd. In January, three U.S. senators ­ two Democrats, Tom Harkin of Iowa and Barack Obama of Illinois, along with Indiana Republican Richard Lugar ­ introduced a bill that would promote the use of ethanol. It also mandates the use of more biodiesel and creates tax credits for the production of cellulosic ethanol. They called their bill the "American Fuels Act of 2007."

The most amazing part of the press release trumpeting the legislation is its fourth paragraph, in which Lugar declares that "U.S. policies should be targeted to replace hydrocarbons with carbohydrates."

Let's consider that for a moment. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the U.S. economy was primarily based on carbohydrates. For most people, horses were the main mode of transportation. They were also a primary work source for plowing and planting. Aside from coal, which was used by the railroads and in some factories, the U.S. economy depended largely on the ability of draft animals to turn grass and forage into usable toil. America's farmers were solely focused on producing food and fiber. And while the U.S. was moderately prosperous, it was not a world leader.

Oil changed all that. After the discovery of vast quantities of oil in Texas, Oklahoma, and other locales, America was able to create a modern transportation system, with cars, buses, and airplanes. That oil helped the U.S. become a dominant military power. Humans were freed from the limitations of the carbohydrate economy, which was constrained by the amount of arable land.

Thus while Lugar and his ilk promote ethanol, they are ignoring a pivotal question: should our farms produce food or fuel?

-snip-

Using food to make fuel bothers many analysts, and whether their affiliation is liberal or conservative doesn't seem to matter. Dennis Avery, director of global food issues at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think-tank in Washington, D.C., has concerns that are remarkably similar to Brown's. A few days after Brown's piece appeared in the Post, Avery published a paper showing that ethanol simply cannot provide enough motor fuel to make a significant difference in America's fuel consumption. And like Brown, he laid bare the essential question: food or fuel?
-snip-
--------------------------

what's another scam in a country of scams....

I opt for farmers growing food

but I do opt for farmers growing hemp as it has MANY kinds of extremely helpful uses

[lvx35]

1. damn, GREAT to hear that brought up!

because its totally true. Feeding our SUVs while humans starve is really truly ethically abhorrent.

[eleny]

2. If they stopped making high fructose corn syrup, I'd be delighted

That crap is in a lot of prepared foods and it's killing us.

[Skink]

3. Exactly.

Corn syrup is the scourge of society. It exists to maximize profits while creating an epidemic of diabetes which further enriches the Medical inustrial complex.

[Horse with no Name]

10. Would be interesting to know the medical lobby's

stance on ethanol.

[eleny]

29. So would I

I'd like to read information about all of this so we can make good decisions about what to eat and what to drive.

[Rosemary2205]

18. AMEN. - nt

[Tyler Durden]

4. Latest figures I saw: 100% of the corn would satisfy >20% of the fuel need.

I can't supply a site for that: I'll look for it: I'm pretty certain of the figures.

Ethanol is a very handy cause celebre; people aren't paying attention to the fact that instead of American Oil, we'll have Archer Daniels Midland, and they don't give two shits who eats and who doesn't.

[Tyler Durden]

7. Look here:

http://healthandenergy.com/ethanol.htm
http://www.ncga.com/ethanol/co_products/definition_production.htm
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003305110_biofuel15.html

Not as sweet a picture as is painted by politicians: Harken and Obama look like they're playing to the crowd.

[redqueen]

5. I opt for food as well... not to mention ethanol does nothing

to help in curbing our contribution to greenhouse gases.

[kestrel91316]

6. Yes it does. You take up CO2 when the crop grows and release it

when you burn the ethanol. NO NET INCREASE IN CO2.

It's a renewable, and not a fossil CO2 source.

[Mugu]

26. The CO2 problem with ethanol is during the manufacturing process.

Those little bacteria that convert sugar to ethanol also make large quantities of CO2.

Regards, Mugu

[gravity]

31. Its the same as if you never burned the ethanol

and used the equivalent amount oil instead. No net increase in co2.

We can just bury our crops.

[JackRiddler]

45. That's just great except for one thing...

The liter of petroleum you consumed in making the liter (plus or minus 10-30 percent) of ethanol.

Talk about s-c-a-m !!!

[johnaries]

47. Petroleum is not used in cellulosic ethanol.

"The WTW model for cellulosic ethanol showed greenhouse gas emission reductions of about 80% ," said Wang. "Corn ethanol showed 20 to 30% reductions." Cellulosic ethanol's favorable profile stems from using lignin, a biomass by-product of the conversion operation, to fuel the process. "Lignin is a renewable fuel with no net greenhouse gas emissions," explains Wang. "Greenhouse gases produced by the combustion of biomass are offset by the CO2 absorbed by the biomass as it grows."

http://www.harvestcleanenergy.org/enews/enews_0505/enews_0505_Cellulosic_Ethanol.htm

edit to add link

[JackRiddler]

51. If true, this is good...

Ethanol from biomass - a great source. It doesn't solve the main energy problem (since it's ultimately recycling an earlier primary energy source) but it's obviously a great thing to do. I do wonder why the national emphasis is on corn ethanol, with zero to relatively low net gain on the energy investment! Supposedly sugar ethanol produces a far higher EROI, too.

[johnaries]

58. Actually, from the OP

It also mandates the use of more biodiesel and creates tax credits for the production of cellulosic ethanol

It's mainly the Corn Growers and the RW Shills that only talk about corn ethanol. Don't be fooled!

[sybylla]

8. The sky is falling, the sky is falling...

I don't get all this BS about ethanol taking food away from people.

First, we have cropland that has sat feral for decades starting with Regan's set aside programs. Even without that land in production, we produce a huge surplus in this country that ethanol production hasn't even made a dent in.

Second, corn or any other grain used for ethanol makes an excellent feed - better than raw grain - for farm animals. Since, from time immemorial, we have been feeding them from our "food supply" anyway, this means ethanol production from grain, if handled correctly, has the potential for a zero sum effect on the food supply.

Third, corn and other grains are merely a "gateway" upon which the system of production will be improved to the point where we can use grain byproducts and other cellulose material.

Fourth, we are not the only country in the world working on ways to produce ethanol. Over a year ago, I watched a program on the CBC talking about an experimental ethanol plant in Canada which used a fungus to digest straw, the byproduct of wheat production. By investing in ethanol, we get to be a part of the emerging technology and, as the breadbasket of the world, guide it toward more sustainable materials.

Because we can't get it "perfect" from the beginning, that means we shouldn't bother experimenting? We shoudn't take those first steps?

Where would we be if everyone thought like that? :shrug:


on edit: this so reminds me of the cigarettes cause cancer/don't cause cancer debate. It was nearly impossible to sort out the BS from the tobacco industry from fact. And just like now, some big players bought into it. All of this gainsaying and miraculous appearance of statistics suggesting ethanol's a bad investment have the stink of big oil all over them. I prefer to do something, even if it isn't the best thing at the moment than do nothing at all.

[donsu]

9. sorry you don't get it - maybe someday you will

nt

[eleny]

11. Where is your rebuttal to the points made by sybylla?

"you don't get it" doesn't cut it donsu.

[donsu]

16. sybylla doesn't get it and I don't have to rebut the points

nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. That is a level of mature debate

that is just astounding

NOT

[johnaries]

13. Actually, I think he DOES get and you don't.

Why are we paying subsidies to farmers to NOT grow crops?

No, ethanol is not a silver bullet, but it is part of the "silver buckshot" as one expert called it.

We can grow plenty for both food and fuel, if we grow the right fuel crops. Corn ain't it. There are plenty of better fuel crops.

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. I'd like counterpoints not childish you don't get it

I will offer a couple so you can see a little how real debate is done.

1.- While we have land that lays fallow, modern agriculture requires oil to produce the high quantities of food it produces

They come from both the fuel to drive the machines as well as the fertilizers that industrial agriculture loves so much.

This is where the it takes 3 joules of energy to produce one from bio-diesel comes from

2.- The problem with the green revolution is the mis distribution of food stuffs around the world, and right now we have people starving while we burn bio-mattter to make fuel for the industrialized world.

Now the first counter point might be technical. We have yet NOT perfected the production systems, but until we reach parity in joules needed to produce joules, we basically are spinning our wheels. Though there is where research comes in

You are correct to smell an oily rat in this since some of these points do come from the oil industry, but... even BP sees the writing in the wall and they are now investing money in bio diesels.

[Milo_Bloom]

56. This is what I never get with this type of debate...

I hear the same type of thing when it comes to recycling and you touched on it, but I really want to elaborate.

"It takes more energy to recycle a paper product, than to just grow a tree especially for that purpose and manufacture it into paper." There was an episode of Penn & Teller's BS on this specific subject, basically stating that recycling was a bunch of... well.. BS.

You state, "They come from both the fuel to drive the machines as well as the fertilizers that industrial agriculture loves so much."

Can't we ultimately convert these "machines" to run on the same biofuel?

It may START OFF as a losing proposition, using more oil to create biofuels, but as the process catches on, it becomes a renewable process, where a portion of the crop is used in the harvesting of the crop, ultimately taking petrolium out of the equation.

Most things START OFF as a losing proposition, but until you put the machine in motion, there is no way to decide if you can create a win win situation.

The food stuff argument just doesn't cut it for me... You would have to show that food that would have otherwise been sent to place A or B is now being used for a different purpose. But again, that is where the value of starting up really goes... you have to run the machine to see what it will really do.

[Horse with no Name]

12. The other issues you have to consider

The feral farmland--do we have the capacity to irrigate it?
I think ethanol should be ONE of many solutions, however it can't be the ONLY solution.
You can't deplete the water or the food supply to sustain our dependence on fuel.

[donsu]

14. agree

nt

[lvx35]

15. what's not to get?

people are starving now. We are talking about putting corn in our cars.

second, corn or any other grain used for ethanol makes an excellent feed - better than raw grain - for farm animals. Since, from time immemorial, we have been feeding them from our "food supply" anyway, this means ethanol production from grain, if handled correctly, has the potential for a zero sum effect on the food supply.

How does that work? Do we feed our livestock car fumes?

Regarding the other things you say, its true, and their fine, but they produce a fraction of our energy desires. The fact is we need to fundamentally change our lifestyle. The model of people riding around alone in 3 ton steel cages is over, its ridiculously inefficient.

[DaveJ]

19. Thanks I thought I was the only one

I reread that paragraph 4 or 5 times and never got it.

Edit: I like hydrogen as fuel since it can be produced anywhere, centralizing any pollution, and can be made from a combination of sources such as biomass, solar, wind, etc. I think we can use biofuel just to the point we aren't taking from food production.

[MadAsHell]

22. The byproduct of the Ethanol production process is ...

brewers grain. Basically, in the process the sugars are consumed and the leftovers are a high protein, high fiber food stuff that cattle will positively fight over. There are some drawbacks but brewers grain does still provide a very viable food stuff for cattle.

A second point, many of the proposed sources of fuel alcohols are not viable food sources and are at best waste byproducts. Everything from wheat straw to tree bark to cow manure. It seems to me that a bit boarder prospective might help.

[lvx35]

37. Ah! there's some good news.

Thanks for sharing. I guess you're right; I can tolerate SOME uses for ethanol other than food! ;)

[OxQQme]

24. It seems like a better solution

would be smaller, lighter, more efficient, CHEAP, personal vehicles for the daily work commute.
A higher road tax determined by weight/mpg ratio.
Eventually (soon) phase into electric/hydrogen hybrids.
An internal combustion engine requires about 30 percent more alcohol to go a given distance than gas.
We must change our habits.
The advantages of a small lightweight vehicles in dense city environs are numerous:
less space needed for parking,
less road wear,
three narrower lanes where there are now two,
etc.
Not to mention the environmental advantages.
And a separate vehicle as 'the family car' needed for getting to grandma's house at the various holidays. Also mandated to get more than, say, 75 mpg of whatever fuel.

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. That is comming

been watching the series on the automobile on the Discovery Channel and some of the things in the horizon are definitely that

By the way, in Europe they already build smaller, lighter and far more fuel efficient vehicles...

And scarely enough CHINA has higher CAFE standards than we have

Part of the problem is our industry is playing catchup and has been since oh the early 1970s

[yellowcanine]

33. I think it is a mistake to make it one or the other. The truth is, we need to try everything.

Lighter cars, hybrids, all electric, hydrogen, solar, wind, small hydro, efficiencies all around, AND biofuels. And this isn't just about vehicles. And it isn't just about the U.S. In fact, what happens in China is going to swamp the effect of whatever we do in the U.S. So instead of arguing over this OR that we ought to be welcoming any solution that might get us closer to kicking the fossil fuel habit. I don't honestly know whether ethanol is part of the solution or not, but at the least, 10% ethanol as an octane booster and oxidizer is a lot better than MTBE getting into our water. And yes, corn based ethanol will help agriculture. But guess what, if the farmers disappear, the land won't be growing rice and beans for people to eat. It will be growing houses and shopping malls. So we better figure it out.

[lvx35]

38. I suppose ethanol could be a good transition fuel

if we know where we are are transitioning to. Its something we can put in our cars now without a lot of engineering/infrastructure change. But again, we do need to know where we are going, its not a replacement fuel.

[yellowcanine]

32. I have been trying to sort this out and I still don't know who to believe on this.

On the one hand, one would think that the energy value of corn would have to decrease when it is run through the fermentation process because starch is converted to sugar which is then converted to alcohol. However, if the distiller's grain increases the efficiency of digestion in the rumen, not only for the distiller's grain, but also for other feed which is fed with the distiller's grain, then it is possible that there is no loss in feed value or maybe even a net gain in feed value. So far I haven't seen a really rigorous energy accounting that would sort this all out. I think Pimental is clearly too pessismistic about both the energy costs of ethanol production and the feeding value of the distiller's grain. But the USDA reports I have seen may be too rosy, I don't know. My hunch is that Pimental is overlooking the tremendous efficiency of the corn plant in turning solar energy into chemical energy - so there is way more energy in that kernal of corn than can be realized when just looking at potential animal weight gains on paper (rather than actually doing rigorous feeding study research) There may be a synergistic effect that is driving the energy yield way up when an animal is fed distiller's grains. This is not an unlikely scenario. Animals are notoriously inefficient at turning corn or any grain into meat - around 20% I believe - that is, for every 100 pounds of meat the animal has to eat 500 pounds of grain or its equivalent. If that conversion efficiency can be increased even a couple of percent - which, based on the little reading I have done on the topic, does not seem out of the ball park, then it just may be that we can "have our cake and eat it too." We already know that feeding animals fermented forage (silage) increases the digestability of the forage and thus the conversion efficiency so it would be expected that distiller's grains could do the same. I wish I were a 25 year old doctoral student, this would be a great dissertation study to launch a career. I am sure there are a couple out there doing just that.

[Javaman]

21. This is where Obama falls short for me...

I went and saw him speak in Austin last week. Great speaker. Had some great ideas, but when it came to alt fuels all he talked about was ethanol and coal liquefaction. That concerned me.
So I thought well, maybe he's hitting on the more popular buzz words and his site will have more info. Nope. Same deal.
Unless he changes his stance on this issue, this will come back to bite him in the ass in a year.

[LuckyTheDog]

54. Write to him

If you think his alt-fuels agenda is too limited, then educate him.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

23. So...

you'd be OK with farmers growing hemp for oil, but you wouldn't be OK with farmers growing corn for oil?

[donsu]

44. yes and I don't like farmers growing modified corn either

nt

[EFerrari]

25. But, there's a difference between corn ethanol and sugar.

Iirc, corn ethanol requires a barrel of oil to produce a barrel of ethanol. Sugar doesn't. (I'm retrieving this from a BookTV presentation about a month ---> six weeks ago.)

So, yeah, corn ethanol is a scam.

/ack

[hunter]

28. Ethanol begins to look like a deliberate policy to starve people.

When I'm wearing my tinfoil hat, I think ethanol is being pursued as a way of making left leaning Latin American governments very uncomfortable by making food much more costly. The little Machiavellian weasels who run our government thrive on the instability of other nations. Land dedicated to fuel production is unavailabe for food production. The current demand for energy is insatiable in comparison to any amount of fuel that could be produced by agriculture.

If every last bit of currently unused agricultural land was devoted to ethanol production we still wouldn't save as much oil as we could by doing something very simple like raising fuel economy standards, and increasing the taxes on motor fuel.

[OxQQme]

30. Follow the money

Archer Daniels Midland

http://www.admworld.com/

I imagine them big-eyed, gleefully giggling and rubbing their palms, dreaming of their future.
Along with Conagra.

[hunter]

34. "Wha???" ADM & Conagra say. "We can't buy Hugo Chavez?"

That's intolerable. You must do something about that, little George, or we'll find somebody who can.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/17/world/americas/17venezuela.html?ex=1329368400&en=d229f6fdcb2143cd&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Ethanol sucks, and it's not just the thermodynamics.

[sakabatou]

35. Why is it always corn?

Compared to other forms, corn isn't all that great.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

40. In a post below, that I wrote shortly after your post, I brought up sugar. nt

[sakabatou]

42. What about switchgrass?

[Jcrowley]

36. Good post

Biofuels overall tends to distract us from the deeper issues we are facing and in fact has legions of adherents who get quite upset at even the mere suggestion that biofuels is in fact a proposition that only serves to disguise and perpetuate the deeper problems.

K&R

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

39. Isn't corn supposedly less efficient than sugar when making ethanol? Can sugar

be grown in the deep south? Curious, as it could then become a new industry in the gulf coast region, and possibly replace tobacco growing.

I have heard that Brazil relies a great deal of sugar ethanol and it's been very successful for them.

[meldroc]

41. Producing ethanol isn't carbon-neutral.

Sure, the ethanol itself is carbon neutral, but you have to burn some sort of fuel to drive the tractors that work the fields growing either corn or sugar beets. That puts CO2 in the atmosphere and burns fuel, typically fossil-based diesel fuel. Once you've harvested all that biomatter, then you have to ferment it, which can be done relatively cheaply energy-wise, then you end up with something like beer with 3-5% ethanol. To make fuel, you have to distill it, just like making whiskey, and to do that, you have to burn energy to run the stills. That burns up CO2 and consumes fuel. Also, for the corn or sugar to grow, you have to put fertilizers and pesticides on the fields. The production and supply chains for those chemicals consumes fuel and emits CO2.

IIRC, creating ethanol fuel actually burns a lot of fuel, some say the production process consumes more fuel than it creates. So ethanol isn't the silver bullet it's made out to be.

Edit: Got a source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/27/MNG1VDF6EM1.DTL

[yellowcanine]

43. Maybe not, but still way more carbon neutral than fossil fuels and you can fuel the tractors

with ethanol or soydiesel to make it even more carbon neutral. Furthermore it is possible to use more carbon neutral fertilizers as well.

[gravity]

48. Ethanol produces co2 just like oil

Carbon neutral just means that all the carbon it produces is removed by the plants in the air. If we would have just buried the crops instead of producing ethanol and used the equivelant amount oil instead, it would be carbon neutral too since the plants would be taking out the carbon in the air produced from the oil.

[johnaries]

46. CELLULOSIC ETHANOL DOES NOT COME FROM "FOOD"!

Cellulosic ethanol is a type of ethanol that is produced from a great diversity of biomass including waste from urban, agricultural, and forestry sources. Unlike normal ethanol, whose original raw material are sugars and starches, cellulosic ethanol's starting raw material is cellulose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulosic_ethanol

This whole argument is ridiculous and comes from the oil companies. And anyone who buys into it is part of the problem not the solution. No, we cannot completely substitute ethanol for oil, but it can and should be a large part of the solution - along with hybrid or fully electric cars, geothermal, solar, wind, methane, and other renewable resources.

Let me say this again: cellulosic ethanol does NOT come from food. Period.

[MazeRat7]

49. Both actually....

Why? as has been pointed out... corn is a poor choice for bio-fuel and the use of it as such over the past year has now spiked corn prices which will begin to show in the consumer market as higher cost for things like beef. Which is fine by me, but consumers are going to be pissed when an average steak is selling for $20, corn based animal feed doubles, and anything else based on corn in the food chain has a price increase.

On the other hand, if corn is not used for bio-fuel production, then we end up paying subsidies to farm corporations for the product they can't sell. Sure it keeps the price of corn down, but costs us $$$ that could be better applied somewhere else. The question is where do you want to pay the price difference, on the front-end or back-end of the consumption process ? Right now is a boom for big argo-business since they are able to sell to the highest bidder (bio-fuel producers) and collect government subsidies. So maybe only "excess" corn should be allowed into that pipe ??? I'm not sure how you would control that however.

Personally, I don't think the bio-fuel is a viable mass-scale energy choice simply because of the total net energy loss associated with production, refinement, and transportation. That being said, as a fractional part of a more comprehensive energy policy it may provide some short term relief. To that end, I would much rather see the use of the lowly sugar beet which is a much better choice for bio-fuel production.

MZr7

[Nikia]

50. There are better things to use than corn

But there is no reason that the non grain portions of corn should not be used in this way. It can be both fuel and food. Even when the food portion is used, the remaining product can be used as food (whether for humans or animals) too. The same is true for grains pressed for biodiesel oils.

[etherealtruth]

52. Thank you for posting this ...

I have been verbalizing my objections to greatly increased use of ethanol for a while.

The only idea I really can get behind is the use of brownfields (or any "contaminated" land) to grow crops that would be used for ethanol production.

[LuckyTheDog]

55. Contaminated land

I have heard about the idea of using "contaminated" land to grow crops for fuel. Seems like a good idea. I like the idea of biofuels and I think it has great potential to be part of the solution. Ultimately, though, we also need to perfect fuel cells and improve battery technology for electric and plug-in hybrid cars.

And we might want to (and I know this is blasphemy to some people) take another look at nuclear power to generate electricity.

[etherealtruth]

57. I agree with much of what you said ...

... (gasp) even the need to look into increased use of nuclear energy. The problem I have with some biofuels is the use of fertile croplands and water resources for the production of fuel crops, this occurring concurrently with dramatically increasing food needs as the human population explodes.

The only hope we have is for technological advances.

The use of brownfields for fuel crops certainly wouldn't come close to meeting the biomass requirements for biofuels ... but it will help both the contaminated lands and reduce the use of fertile lands that could (should) be used for food production.

[LuckyTheDog]

53. Farms produce more than food now

Or, do you find yourself eating a lot of cotton?

The answer to your question is: they should produce food, fuel, the fibers used to make our underwear, and whatever else they can, if it benefits society and helps farmers earn a living. As for hemp... Yes, of course they should grow it!