Biofuels: Corn vs. Sugar vs. Hay… Ready… Fight

I recently came upon an article that was published in March of 2007 dealing with biofuels and more specifically a study that has been done on our newly appraised source of energy, ethanol. The article was written about a year ago, and it is interesting to note the extent of information that we have known during the year as well as our apparent unwillingness to use it. My impression had been that ethanol was, a year ago, still a very attractive solution to our energy crisis in the eyes of legislators, but this article and the subsequent studies it draws from show that this past year’s worth of ethanol production and promotion has been in direct conflict with the negative conclusions found in recent studies about the praised biofuel. Apparently, the lobby groups for corn growers have done very well.
In the Washington Post, David Tilman and Jason Hill’s “Corn Can’t Solve Our Problem” began by noting that our civilization has now returned to vegetation as a means of energy. Just as we once used oats to feed horses that drew our carriages, we now use corn and soybeans combined with our advanced chemical knowledge to produce a replacement for the gasoline we are so dependent upon. The positive publicity of ethanol however disregards what Tilman and Hill refer to as a conflict of our “fundamental needs – food, energy, and a livable and sustainable environment”. Using this theory and tests done on the cost benefits for different biofuels at the University of Minnesota, Tilman and Hill build quite a persuasive argument against the supposedly superior ethanol.
If utilized properly, there are biofuels that could provide an adequate amount of energy while having a minimum impact upon the environment. The question that’s raised however is where to grow the biofuels. Much of the fertile land in the US is already in use for food production. The Farm Bill going through its process could, if all sections are passed, make it easier for organic farmers to utilize more land and obtain subsidies for their work. This aids the price of organic foods, but when there is an overall increase in demand for all types of food and ethanol corn, our nation experiences a land shortage that raises food prices enough to theoretically “drive the poorer third of the globe into malnourishment”. One solution that had been proposed to create more fertile land came in the suggestion to clear and destroy rainforests. Although this would provide more land, doing so would also kill thousands of plant and animal species. Not to mention that it would also greatly increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It’s probably best to skip that idea and fire whoever developed it. It’s most likely a lobbyist who is at fault for giving a legislator incomplete information on the impacts of clearing forest acreage. We must be sure that our legislators have access to full and unbiased information in order to render the most effective solution to the problem.
In the body of their argument, Tilman and Hill used many statistical numbers from the Minnesota study that are subject to question, just as any number that is thrown into an argument can be. Even if the numbers are exaggerated slightly, Tilman and Hill have little to gain personally by doing so, and because of this I believe much of the information is an accurate estimation of the truth. This article also came from the Washington Post (not the usual Grist columnist) which further reduces any chance of bias against environmentally harmful policies.
Fossil fuels have reportedly increased the carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere to an amount greater than at any other time over the past half-million years. Coupled with this increase is the projected doubling of energy consumption by 2050, due in part to an estimated nine billion in world population by that same date. It seems that we are becoming too great in number for our restricted world. Based upon Ordway’s theory of a finite amount of possible population in a given ecosystem, it seems eminent that at some point, we will succumb to disease and lack of resource and our population will decrease. Our ingenuity as intelligent beings seems to disprove the theory, but I believe that there is more of a stalling on our part rather than a complete prevention. I do not mean to suggest a doomsday or a cataclysmic event that will reduce the human race, but I do believe that we will reach a point where our problem solving strategies will no longer deter harmful predicaments.
Biofuels have the potential to provide cleaner energy, but the currently implemented ethanol solution provides a gallon of energy that is only twenty percent “new” energy. Due to the need for using fossil fuels to produce the ethanol (diesel to fuel tractors, natural gas that is used to produce fertilizer, and energy used in operating refineries that convert the corn into useable energy) the final product of ethanol only gives a slightly larger amount of ethanol than the gasoline used to produce it. Tilman and Hill did not even account for the current need to run both ethanol and gasoline supply lines simultaneously as well as a need to place new ethanol pumps at all gas stations that wish to provide it. This extra step of getting the refined ethanol into the cars we use would drive the twenty percent of “new” energy down even further. Even if the US did wish to focus on the complete integration of ethanol, it would be impossible to stop using gasoline. “If every one of the 70 million acres on which corn was grown in 2006 was used for ethanol, the amount produced would displace only 12 percent of the U.S. gasoline market.” The demand for gasoline would not stop, it would only be partially reduced by a demand for ethanol which would in turn require an additional national ethanol system to be set up in order to produce, transport, sell, and regulate the process. I must admit however, the legislators could come up with some neat acronyms for their departments if ethanol became a major fuel in the U.S. The Department for Efficient Ethanol Regulation and Evaluation (DEERE) might receive a few free tractors from John that could help offset the cost of diesel needed to run them. Based upon the twelve percent displacement of U.S. gasoline market that ethanol could provide, the ethanol has proven less effective than simply tuning one’s car and using correct air pressure for the tires (two quick fixes that when compared to the production of ethanol are virtually free).
Another problem created by the intensified demand for corn is being experienced by our neighbors to the south. In Mexico, the rising price of corn has caused the price of tortillas to double, resulting in massive protests from the poor against the ethanol tax. This is an excellent example of the negative and often unforeseen ramifications that hasty legislation in the U.S. can produce. Now however, after the legislation has been implemented, we are finally deciding to take a look at what it will really mean. The diary, poultry and livestock industries that rely on corn to feed their livestock have also realized the impact that the ethanol demand is having. “It takes three pounds of corn to produce a pound of chicken, and seven or eight pounds to grow a pound of beef”. Currently, these groups are attempting to end the subsidies for corn producers in order to stabilize the constantly increasing cost of feeding their animals. Additionally to corn, the soybean used to produce biodiesel is also facing similar problems that could soon cause more conflict between food and energy demands.
Although corn has been proven ultimately ineffective in entirely solving our problem, there are other plants that produce ethanol, and these alternatives have proven more efficient that their corn counterparts. Because burning corn ethanol does not release new harmful gases into the atmosphere it seems that it would be a prime candidate, but once again, the fossil fuels used in producing it do release gases and the overall emission is only fifteen percent less than emissions given off by the same amount in gasoline. The soybean has been suggested as an alternative because it releases approximately 40 percent less greenhouse gases than petroleum diesel, but this amount of reduction is still unconvincing as a solution to our growing problem. Similar to corn, the soybean also poses the problem of finding usable land to grow the crop.
Brazil’s solution to the problem: sugar cane. This crop has been found to produce about two times as much ethanol per acre as corn, and the refineries use cane residue to power much of their process. This sugar cane has reached a high of 80 percent less greenhouse emissions than conventional gasoline; a percentage less easily overlooked by legislators. Again however, the issue of growing the crop is a problem. The U.S. has considered entering into a trade of biodiesel with Brazil, but so far has remained skeptical because of the potentially harmful clearing of forests that would be required to meet any large demands by the U.S. Because Brazil must clear its land of tropical forests, the carbon dioxide that would be released from the clearing would often outweigh the amount of emissions that would be saved if the land were not used to grow the sugar cane. An acre of rainforest contains 120 unusable tons of organic carbon whereas an acre of sugar cane contains about 60 useable tons. When the land is cleared, about a fourth of all carbon contained in the plants and soil is released, and over the next twenty to fifty years of cultivation, much more of the carbon decomposes into harmful carbon dioxide (“plants and soil contain three times more carbon than the atmosphere”). Ultimately, if forest is cleared to grow useable sugarcane, “greenhouse gases released are about 50 percent greater than what occurs from the production and use of the same amount of gasoline”.
Back in the U.S. we are experiencing a similar dilemma with our forest land. Farmers have proposed adding ten million acres of land to grow corn for the increasing demands. This land that is proposed as being used however has been set aside and is protected by a government subsidized program. Aside from the issue of who is allowed to use the land, the forests within the land are such that clearing them would have the same effect as clearing the rainforests in Brazil. The carbon emissions would not be quite as high as the 50 percent greater impact in Brazil, but clearing the land would still release more carbon into the atmosphere than would be conserved by using the land for corn.
The prevalent issue seems not to be what to grow, but rather where to grow it. Recent studies have shown that a biofuel does exist that can be grown on less fertile land, and the plants have proven to require little fertilizer or chemical assistance. Prairie “hay”, as it has been named, can be grown on the approximately sixty million acres of less fertile land that currently exists under the Conservation Reserve Program. A ten year study showed that using diversified species of this prairie hay resulted in high productivity. The land used to grow the hay is not needed to produce food; having already been abandoned due to the decreased fertile value of the soil. The “hay” created from these diversified crops can serve several purposes. It can be “mixed with coal and burned for electricity generation…gasified, then chemically combined to make ethanol or synthetic gasoline… burned in a turbine engine to make electricity”, or combined with gasoline to produce a fuel that releases less carbon than gasoline alone. A new technology that is being developed to utilize the hay is the “bioengineering of enzymes that digest parts of plants into sugars that are then fermented into ethanol”. Not only does this prairie hay produce more energy per acre than corn, but it can be grown each year in the same soil. Using the diversified species, the result was an overall reduction in carbon dioxide in the air, and a storage of carbon in the soil which restored the levels of carbon in the soil to amounts similar to before the land was cleared for farming in the first place. In effect, the prairie hay produces a usable source of energy and simultaneously reduces carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.
Tilman and Hill conclude with a generalized solution to our problem. “We need a national biofuels policy that favors our best options. We must determine the carbon impacts of each method of making these fuels, and then mandate fuel blending that achieves a prescribed greenhouse gas reduction”. Currently, it seems that the answer to our problem will not come in the form of a completely new fuel, but rather the solution lies in integrating new and old fuels until we can find an alternative. At least we will be slowing down the depletion of our oil supplies with this method.


Original Info From: WashingtonPost.comTilman, David and Hill, Jason. Corn Can’t Solve Our Problem. Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/23/AR2007032301625_pf.html