http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL3027453120080630?sp=true
France says EU may need to reconsider biofuel goal
Mon Jun 30, 2008
Reporting by Paul Taylor, writing by Pete Harrison
PARIS (Reuters) - The European Union may have to reconsider its target of getting 10 percent of transport fuel from renewable sources such as biofuels by 2020, or extend the deadline, incoming EU president France said on Monday.
Biofuel use is soaring as developed countries try to curb dependence on imported oil and cut emissions of carbon dioxide, but critics say the industry has encouraged deforestation and pushed up food prices by competing for grain.
The EU's target, which is intended to spur investment, has been a particular focus of criticism.
"On biofuels, we do not rule out in the long-run reconsidering the target, but that's not the issue now," French secretary of state for ecology Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet told visiting EU reporters.
She said the EU approach of setting a quota target was "probably a mistake", and it would be better to set strict environmental and social criteria for biofuels and then see what level of use was viable.
Those criteria would have to include measures to ensure biofuels do not displace food-producing crops, she said.
"Probably we will be obliged to call into question or postpone the 10 percent objective," said Kosciusko-Morizet.
Earlier this month, Italy became the first EU member to publicly call for a review of the target.
Britain has also raised concerns, and this week its government will receive a long-awaited report on the impact of its targets for biofuels.
Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas has said the EU target must be conditional on rigorously applied sustainability criteria.
[THE EU SHOULD BE FOCUSING ON ECONOMIC COST-BENEFIT, not SUSTAINABILITY].
Efforts towards a sustainable market for biofuels are being closely watched by producers such as Brazil, which hope the EU's huge market will create the critical mass to bring biofuels into the global mainstream.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://euobserver.com/9/26419
EU biofuels target 'probably a mistake,' France says
By LEIGH PHILLIPS
EU Observer
June 30, 2008
The noose is steadily tightening around the neck of EU biofuels targets, with France on Monday (30 June) saying that the EU's 10 percent biofuels target may have to be reconsidered, in the latest attack on the renewable energy drive.
"Probably we will be obliged to call into question or postpone the 10 percent objective," said French ecology minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet speaking to reporters in Paris, according to the Reuters news agency.
The renewable energy source has come under attack from all quarters.
She added that developing a target for the controversial fuel source was "probably a mistake" and that the EU had proposed things the wrong way round: setting environmental and social criteria for the production of biofuels should have been developed first and then any target should have been drafted to match that. [???]
[PERHAPS, NO TARGET SHOULD HAVE BEEN SET AT ALL UNTIL STUDIES & SIMULATIONS WERE PERFORMED EVALUATED THE PROBABLE SOCIO-ECONOMIC-ENVIRONMENTAL OUTCOMES OF VARIOUS TARGET SCENARIOS]
The EU in 2007 agreed that 10 percent of all transport fuel should come form renewable sources such as biofuels by 2020 as part of a wider overhaul of its energy sector. "On biofuels, we do not rule out in the long-run reconsidering the target," Ms Kosciusko-Morizet said.
With France taking over the six-month rotating presidency of the EU on Tuesday (1 July), the statement carries added weight, and follows on from a call from Italy earlier in the month for the bloc to review the target.
"We took with too much haste the decision on an objective that is not reachable," said Italian economic development minister Claudio Scajola in early June.
The UK as well is expected to shortly adapt its position on biofuels with the expected release this week of the Gallagher Report, a review of Britain's biofuels policies.
Meanwhile, Reuters reports that the working group set up by the European Commission and EU member states to consider how to develop environmental and social criteria on biofuel production and imports is close to agreement on a set of standards.
Quoting the Slovenian diplomat appointed to chair the group's discussions, Miran Kresal, the news agency says the group is likely to include language preventing the use of biofuels grown in habitats of endangered species, or biodiverse savannahs and grasslands, as well as land whose use has resulted in significant net emissions of carbon dioxide.
Legally binding labour standards were ruled out by the group due to concerns that such a move would not pass muster with the World Trade Organisation. Instead, the group will be looking to task the European Commission with the job of strict monitoring of social standards.
[THIS IS ANOTHER WAY IN WHICH THE EU COMMISSION MAY PARTAKE IN 'SOCIAL BLACKLISTING' OF THOSE COMPANIES THAT DO NOT COMPLY WITH EU CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY MANDATES IMPOSED, VERIFIED AND AUDITED BY EU-FUNDED NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS.]
The key concern of environmentalists - the amount of CO2 emitted – who in the last year have moved from being supporters of biofuels to campaigning against their use, remains a source of contention within the working group, however.
Biofuels and food prices
The group has not developed any criteria relating to the possible effect of biofuels on food prices.
While the European Commission has repeatedly argued biofuels policies have had a negligible impact on food costs, the UN Food and Agriculture organisation says that biofuels explain 10 percent of recent price rises.
The International Monetary Fund puts this figure at 30, a figure backed by the International Food Policy Research Institute. The World Bank, however, says that biofuels have contributed to 65 percent of the price rises.
Dragan Barbutovski, a spokesperson for the Slovenian presidency of the EU, told EUobserver "The working group was set up long before the food crisis was high on the EU's agenda."
"As such it only ever had a mandate to assess potential sustainability criteria for the fuel quality directive and the renewable energy directive," he added.
Showing posts with label food shortages. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food shortages. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Irrational Green Biofuel Exuberance Is 1 of 4 Major Causes of Food Price Increases
http://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/newsroom/wfp173342.pdf
Testimony to the European Parliament Development Committee
Testimony to the European Parliament Development Committee
by Josette Sheeran, Executive Director
UN World Food Programme
Thursday 6 March 2008
...Food prices have been aggressively increasing to historic highs.
There are four major drivers for this:
- the rise in oil and energy prices which affect the entire value chain of food production from fertilizer to harvesting to storage and delivering and access to water;
- the economic boom in nations such as India and China, creating increased demand for all commodities including food and forcing China, which was a major food exporter just a little more than one year ago, to now being an importer of food;
- increasingly harsh and frequent climatic shocks like hurricanes, floods and drought, have made for some bad harvests in particular regions like Australia and regions of Africa;
- and fourth is the shift to increased biofuels production that has diverted hundreds of millions of metric tonnes of agricultural output out of the food chain, and has caused food prices to be set at fuel price levels in many places, including, for example, palm oil in Africa which is now being priced out of household reach because it is being set at fuel prices as a biofuel addition.
Experts like Joachim von Braun, the Director General of the International Food Policy Research Institute, point out that food supply and fuel supply are now inexorably linked; triggering a competition between crops for food and crops for fuel that will affect food prices and supply for years to come. He raises the question that even if food production were to increase 20 percent this year would it go into fuel or would it go into food? For the first time in history we don’t know because it would go to the highest bidders on markets.
These high food prices are placing food out of reach for many of the world’s most vulnerable and especially for those living on less than US$1 a day. Of particular concern is the emergence of what I call the new face of hunger – hunger characterized by markets full of food with scores of people simply unable to afford it. These conditions have triggered food riots from Cameroon to Burkina Faso to Indonesia to Mexico and beyond. (pp 3-4)
UN World Food Programme
Thursday 6 March 2008
...Food prices have been aggressively increasing to historic highs.
There are four major drivers for this:
- the rise in oil and energy prices which affect the entire value chain of food production from fertilizer to harvesting to storage and delivering and access to water;
- the economic boom in nations such as India and China, creating increased demand for all commodities including food and forcing China, which was a major food exporter just a little more than one year ago, to now being an importer of food;
- increasingly harsh and frequent climatic shocks like hurricanes, floods and drought, have made for some bad harvests in particular regions like Australia and regions of Africa;
- and fourth is the shift to increased biofuels production that has diverted hundreds of millions of metric tonnes of agricultural output out of the food chain, and has caused food prices to be set at fuel price levels in many places, including, for example, palm oil in Africa which is now being priced out of household reach because it is being set at fuel prices as a biofuel addition.
Experts like Joachim von Braun, the Director General of the International Food Policy Research Institute, point out that food supply and fuel supply are now inexorably linked; triggering a competition between crops for food and crops for fuel that will affect food prices and supply for years to come. He raises the question that even if food production were to increase 20 percent this year would it go into fuel or would it go into food? For the first time in history we don’t know because it would go to the highest bidders on markets.
These high food prices are placing food out of reach for many of the world’s most vulnerable and especially for those living on less than US$1 a day. Of particular concern is the emergence of what I call the new face of hunger – hunger characterized by markets full of food with scores of people simply unable to afford it. These conditions have triggered food riots from Cameroon to Burkina Faso to Indonesia to Mexico and beyond. (pp 3-4)
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Biofuels could boost global warming, finds study
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2007/September/21090701.asp
Biofuels could boost global warming, finds study
By Zoe Corbyn
RSC Chemistry World
21 September 2007
Growing and burning many biofuels may actually raise rather than lower greenhouse gas emissions, a new study led by Nobel prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen has shown.1 The findings come in the wake of a recent OECD report, which warned nations not to rush headlong into growing energy crops because they cause food shortages and damage biodiversity.
Crutzen and colleagues have calculated that growing some of the most commonly used biofuel crops releases around twice the amount of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O) than previously thought - wiping out any benefits from not using fossil fuels and, worse, probably contributing to global warming. The work appears in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics and is currently subject to open review.
'The significance of it is that the supposed benefits of biofuel are even more disputable than had been thought hitherto,' Keith Smith, a co-author on the paper from the University of Edinburgh, told Chemistry World. 'What we are saying is that [growing many biofuels] is probably of no benefit and in fact is actually making the climate issue worse.'
"What we are saying is that growing biofuels is probably of no benefit and in fact is actually making the climate issue worse"
- Keith Smith
Crutzen, famous for his work on nitrogen oxides and the ozone layer, declined to comment before the paper is officially published. But the paper suggests that microbes convert much more of the nitrogen in fertiliser to N2O than previously thought - 3 to 5 per cent or twice the widely accepted figure of 2 per cent used by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
For rapeseed biodiesel, which accounts for about 80 per cent of the biofuel production in Europe, the relative warming due to N2O emissions is estimated at 1 to 1.7 times larger than the quasi-cooling effect due to saved fossil CO2 emissions. For corn bioethanol, dominant in the US, the figure is 0.9 to 1.5. Only cane sugar bioethanol - with a relative warming of 0.5 to 0.9 - looks like a viable alternative to conventional fuels.
Some previous estimates had suggested that biofuels could cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 40 per cent.2
Global picture
The IPCC's N2O conversion factor is derived using data from plant experiments. But Crutzen takes a different approach, using atmospheric measurements and ice core data to calculate the total amount of N2O in the atmosphere. He then subtracts the level of N2O in pre-industrial times - before fertilizers were available - to take account of N2O from natural processes such as leguminous plants growing in forests, lightning, and burn offs.
Assuming the rest of the N2O is attributable to newly-fixed nitrogen from fertilizer use, and knowing the amount of fertilizer applied globally, he can calculate the contribution of fertilizers to N2O levels.
The results may well trigger a rethink by the IPCC, says Smith. 'Should we go along the road of adding up the experimental evidence for each of the processes or are we better off using the global numbers?'
Critical reception
But other experts are critical of Crutzen's approach. Simon Donner, a nitrogen researcher based at Princeton University, US, says the method is elegant but there is little evidence to show the N2O yield from fertilized plants is really as high as 3-5 per cent. Crutzen's basic assumption, that pre-industrial N2O emissions are the same as natural N2O emissions, is 'probably wrong', says Donner.
One reason he gives is that farmers plant crops in places that have nitrogen rich soils anyway. 'It is possible we are indirectly increasing the "natural" source of N2O by drawing down the soil nitrogen in the world's agricultural regions,' he explains.
Others dispute the values chosen by Crutzen to calculate his budget. Stefan Rauh, an agricultural scientist at the Instituteof Agricultural Economics and Farm Management in Munich, Germany, says some of the rates for converting crops into biofuel should be higher. 'If you use the other factors you get a little net climate cooling,' he said.
Meanwhile, a report prepared by the OECD for a recent Round Table on Sustainable Development questions the benefits of first generation biofuels and concludes that governments should scrap mandatory targets.
Richard Doornbosch, the report's author, says both the report and Crutzen's work highlights the importance of establishing correct full life-cycle assessments for biofuels. 'Without them, government policies can't distinguish between one biofuel and another - risking making problems worse,' said Doornbosch.
Biofuels could boost global warming, finds study
By Zoe Corbyn
RSC Chemistry World
21 September 2007
Growing and burning many biofuels may actually raise rather than lower greenhouse gas emissions, a new study led by Nobel prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen has shown.1 The findings come in the wake of a recent OECD report, which warned nations not to rush headlong into growing energy crops because they cause food shortages and damage biodiversity.
Crutzen and colleagues have calculated that growing some of the most commonly used biofuel crops releases around twice the amount of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O) than previously thought - wiping out any benefits from not using fossil fuels and, worse, probably contributing to global warming. The work appears in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics and is currently subject to open review.
'The significance of it is that the supposed benefits of biofuel are even more disputable than had been thought hitherto,' Keith Smith, a co-author on the paper from the University of Edinburgh, told Chemistry World. 'What we are saying is that [growing many biofuels] is probably of no benefit and in fact is actually making the climate issue worse.'
"What we are saying is that growing biofuels is probably of no benefit and in fact is actually making the climate issue worse"
- Keith Smith
Crutzen, famous for his work on nitrogen oxides and the ozone layer, declined to comment before the paper is officially published. But the paper suggests that microbes convert much more of the nitrogen in fertiliser to N2O than previously thought - 3 to 5 per cent or twice the widely accepted figure of 2 per cent used by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
For rapeseed biodiesel, which accounts for about 80 per cent of the biofuel production in Europe, the relative warming due to N2O emissions is estimated at 1 to 1.7 times larger than the quasi-cooling effect due to saved fossil CO2 emissions. For corn bioethanol, dominant in the US, the figure is 0.9 to 1.5. Only cane sugar bioethanol - with a relative warming of 0.5 to 0.9 - looks like a viable alternative to conventional fuels.
Some previous estimates had suggested that biofuels could cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 40 per cent.2
Global picture
The IPCC's N2O conversion factor is derived using data from plant experiments. But Crutzen takes a different approach, using atmospheric measurements and ice core data to calculate the total amount of N2O in the atmosphere. He then subtracts the level of N2O in pre-industrial times - before fertilizers were available - to take account of N2O from natural processes such as leguminous plants growing in forests, lightning, and burn offs.
Assuming the rest of the N2O is attributable to newly-fixed nitrogen from fertilizer use, and knowing the amount of fertilizer applied globally, he can calculate the contribution of fertilizers to N2O levels.
The results may well trigger a rethink by the IPCC, says Smith. 'Should we go along the road of adding up the experimental evidence for each of the processes or are we better off using the global numbers?'
Critical reception
But other experts are critical of Crutzen's approach. Simon Donner, a nitrogen researcher based at Princeton University, US, says the method is elegant but there is little evidence to show the N2O yield from fertilized plants is really as high as 3-5 per cent. Crutzen's basic assumption, that pre-industrial N2O emissions are the same as natural N2O emissions, is 'probably wrong', says Donner.
One reason he gives is that farmers plant crops in places that have nitrogen rich soils anyway. 'It is possible we are indirectly increasing the "natural" source of N2O by drawing down the soil nitrogen in the world's agricultural regions,' he explains.
Others dispute the values chosen by Crutzen to calculate his budget. Stefan Rauh, an agricultural scientist at the Instituteof Agricultural Economics and Farm Management in Munich, Germany, says some of the rates for converting crops into biofuel should be higher. 'If you use the other factors you get a little net climate cooling,' he said.
Meanwhile, a report prepared by the OECD for a recent Round Table on Sustainable Development questions the benefits of first generation biofuels and concludes that governments should scrap mandatory targets.
Richard Doornbosch, the report's author, says both the report and Crutzen's work highlights the importance of establishing correct full life-cycle assessments for biofuels. 'Without them, government policies can't distinguish between one biofuel and another - risking making problems worse,' said Doornbosch.
Flawed policies encourage damaging biofuels, says Royal Society
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2008/January/14010802.asp
Flawed policies encourage damaging biofuels, says Royal Society
14 January 2008
Richard Van Noorden
RSC Chemistry World
Simplistic policies are encouraging biofuels that don't cut greenhouse gases, the UK's Royal Society has warned in a new report.
Not all biofuels are equally good at cutting greenhouse gas emissions, so rewarding the best should be a priority, explained John Pickett, who chaired the study. Yet current transport policies - such as the EU biofuels directive and the UK's renewable transport fuel obligation (RTFO) - only demand more transport fuel from renewable resources. 'Indiscriminately increasing the amount of biofuels we are using may not automatically lead to the best reductions in emissions,' said Pickett.
Instead, the report - Sustainable biofuels: prospects and challenges - favours policies that promote fuels with the lowest emissions by, for example, including greenhouse gas reduction incentives and certifying fuels for their emissions savings.
The recommendations came on the same day that EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas admitted that the EU had not forseen the social and environmental problems caused by its own biofuels targets - such as rising food prices and deforestation. 'We have to have criteria for sustainability,' he said.
But that could be easier said than done, the Royal Society says. 'How we develop these "sustainability criteria" in itself requires research,' commented report co-author Dianna Bowles, who works on novel agricultural products at the University of York.
Hard choices
Jeremy Woods, at the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, said that ethanol from UK-sourced wheat, for example, could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by anything from 10 to 80 per cent. The vast uncertainty simply reflected different agricultural practices and crop yields.
And it is not just agricultural processing that needs to be considered: effects on deforestation; food shortages; local climate; soil quality; distribution costs; the trade impacts of biofuel imports; and other unexpected variables could all affect the merits of any one biofuel process.
In other words, said Pickett, biofuel policy-makers are walking a thin line between making overly complex regulations, too costly and slow to research and implement - or being too simple, and so encouraging the wrong biofuels. Focusing on greenhouse gas reductions would be a good target to start with, but 'we must not create new environmental or social problems in our efforts to deal with climate change,' he said.
International concern
The UK's RTFO, whose first incarnation comes into force in April 2008, requires that 5 per cent of UK fuel comes from a renewable source by 2010. It is developing a carbon reporting and sustainability certification scheme. 'The RTFO is a reasonable start,' said Pickett. 'But unless certification is applied to the production of all biofuels, and is a system used by all countries, we will merely displace rather than remedy the potentially negative effects of these fuels.'
[OSTENSIBLY PRIVATE CERTIFICATION SCHEMES CAN PROVIDE OPPORTUNITIES FOR DISGUISED TRADE PROTECTIONISM]**
See: "Discerning The Forests From the Trees: How Governments Use Ostensibly Private and Voluntary Standards to Avoid WTO Culpability"
http://www.itssd.org/GTCJ_03-offprints%20KOGAN%20-%20Discerning%20the%20Forest%20from%20the%20Trees.pdf
Meanwhile, an OECD official has warned that even governments aware of the weaknesses of their biofuel policies - for example, the trade barriers that have been set up by Europe and the US - might now find it hard to backtrack on them. Speaking at the Reuters Global Agriculture and Biofuel Summit in Paris, Leok Boonekamp, a division head in the OECD's Agro-food Trade and Markets Division, said, 'I'm not very optimistic that because we say that the policies are bad and wasteful that governments will go away and do something else.'
Flawed policies encourage damaging biofuels, says Royal Society
14 January 2008
Richard Van Noorden
RSC Chemistry World
Simplistic policies are encouraging biofuels that don't cut greenhouse gases, the UK's Royal Society has warned in a new report.
Not all biofuels are equally good at cutting greenhouse gas emissions, so rewarding the best should be a priority, explained John Pickett, who chaired the study. Yet current transport policies - such as the EU biofuels directive and the UK's renewable transport fuel obligation (RTFO) - only demand more transport fuel from renewable resources. 'Indiscriminately increasing the amount of biofuels we are using may not automatically lead to the best reductions in emissions,' said Pickett.
Instead, the report - Sustainable biofuels: prospects and challenges - favours policies that promote fuels with the lowest emissions by, for example, including greenhouse gas reduction incentives and certifying fuels for their emissions savings.
The recommendations came on the same day that EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas admitted that the EU had not forseen the social and environmental problems caused by its own biofuels targets - such as rising food prices and deforestation. 'We have to have criteria for sustainability,' he said.
But that could be easier said than done, the Royal Society says. 'How we develop these "sustainability criteria" in itself requires research,' commented report co-author Dianna Bowles, who works on novel agricultural products at the University of York.
Hard choices
Jeremy Woods, at the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, said that ethanol from UK-sourced wheat, for example, could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by anything from 10 to 80 per cent. The vast uncertainty simply reflected different agricultural practices and crop yields.
And it is not just agricultural processing that needs to be considered: effects on deforestation; food shortages; local climate; soil quality; distribution costs; the trade impacts of biofuel imports; and other unexpected variables could all affect the merits of any one biofuel process.
In other words, said Pickett, biofuel policy-makers are walking a thin line between making overly complex regulations, too costly and slow to research and implement - or being too simple, and so encouraging the wrong biofuels. Focusing on greenhouse gas reductions would be a good target to start with, but 'we must not create new environmental or social problems in our efforts to deal with climate change,' he said.
International concern
The UK's RTFO, whose first incarnation comes into force in April 2008, requires that 5 per cent of UK fuel comes from a renewable source by 2010. It is developing a carbon reporting and sustainability certification scheme. 'The RTFO is a reasonable start,' said Pickett. 'But unless certification is applied to the production of all biofuels, and is a system used by all countries, we will merely displace rather than remedy the potentially negative effects of these fuels.'
[OSTENSIBLY PRIVATE CERTIFICATION SCHEMES CAN PROVIDE OPPORTUNITIES FOR DISGUISED TRADE PROTECTIONISM]**
See: "Discerning The Forests From the Trees: How Governments Use Ostensibly Private and Voluntary Standards to Avoid WTO Culpability"
http://www.itssd.org/GTCJ_03-offprints%20KOGAN%20-%20Discerning%20the%20Forest%20from%20the%20Trees.pdf
Meanwhile, an OECD official has warned that even governments aware of the weaknesses of their biofuel policies - for example, the trade barriers that have been set up by Europe and the US - might now find it hard to backtrack on them. Speaking at the Reuters Global Agriculture and Biofuel Summit in Paris, Leok Boonekamp, a division head in the OECD's Agro-food Trade and Markets Division, said, 'I'm not very optimistic that because we say that the policies are bad and wasteful that governments will go away and do something else.'
The Ethanol Fallacy: Will Politicians Ever Learn???
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4237539.html?series=46
The Ethanol Fallacy
Op-Ed
Popular Mechanics (Feb. 2008)
By James B. Meigs (PM's editor-in-chief)
America needs smart alternative to oil, but the just-passed energy bill puts too much emphasis on the wrong alternative, PM's editor-in-chief says.
The idea is so appealing: We can reduce our dependence on oil-stop sending U.S. dollars to corrupt petro-dictators, stop spewing megatons of carbon into the atmosphere-by replacing it with clean, home-grown, all-American corn. It sounds too good to be true.
Sadly, it is.
Of course we need alternatives to oil. The world uses a cubic mile of petroleum each year, and demand keeps rising as the global economy booms. At first glance, corn seems like a heaven-sent substitute. American corn farmers are the most productive in the world, growing far more of the grain than we can possibly eat, and exporting mountains of the stuff to other countries. And the corn kernel is a marvel of energy storage. Converting that compact bundle of starches into alcohol is a relatively simple trick known to generations of moonshiners. So why not build corn liquor stills on an industrial scale and use the output to power our cars and trucks?
That's exactly what this country has been doing for the past several years. Some 134 ethanol plants are now in operation, consuming close to 1.6 billion bushels of grain, about 15 percent of our total corn production. To feed the ethanol machine, farmers planted almost 93 million acres of corn in 2007, a 19 percent increase over the previous year, and the highest figure since 1944 (when yields per acre were far lower).
The result is that the country is now experiencing an ethanol glut. Prices are sagging-as are plans to build ethanol refineries from sea to shining sea. Yet many in Washington seem determined to force still more ethanol into the system. The just-passed Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which President Bush has said he will sign, mandates corn ethanol usage of 15 billion gal. a year (more than three times today's consumption) by 2015. And presidential candidates have outdone each other with vows to flood the nation with ever-increasing rivers of ethanol for at least a generation.
It's great that our politicians have discovered the need for new energy technologies. But it appears that Washington is determined to put its money-our money-on the wrong horse. Right now, researchers are studying a host of energy solutions, including hydrogen, high-mileage diesel, plug-in hybrids, radical reductions in vehicle weight and cellulosic ethanol (made from cornstalks, switchgrass or other nonfood crops).
It is far too soon to say which of these holds the most promise. But, instead of promoting experimentation and competition to find the best solutions, politicians seem ready to declare ethanol the winner. As a result, our nation could wind up with the worst of both worlds: an ‘alternative’ energy that is enormously expensive yet barely saves a gallon of oil.
Let's start with the math. Corn doesn't grow like a weed. Modern corn farming involves heavy inputs of nitrogen fertilizer (made with natural gas), applications of herbicides and other chemicals (made mostly from oil), heavy machinery (which runs on diesel) and transportation (diesel again). Converting the corn into fuel requires still more energy. The ratio of how much energy is used to make ethanol versus how much it delivers is known as the energy balance, and calculating it is surprisingly complex.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory states that, “Today, 1 Btu of fossil energy consumed in producing and delivering corn ethanol results in 1.3 Btu of usable energy in your fuel tank.” Even that modest payback may be overstated. Skeptics cite the research of Cornell University professor David Pimentel, who estimates that it takes approximately 1.3 gal. of oil to produce a single gallon of ethanol.
If the benefits are in doubt, the costs are not. It would take 450 pounds of corn to yield enough ethanol to fill the tank of an SUV. Producing enough ethanol to replace America's imported oil alone would require putting nearly 900 million acres under cultivation-or roughly 95 percent of the active farmland in the country. Once we've turned our farms into filling stations, where will the food come from?
There's a simple reason that ethanol is popular with politicians: money. Substituting corn ethanol for a large fraction of the gasoline we burn will mean sluicing gushers of cash from more populated states to politically powerful farm states. And a lot of that cash will wind up in the pockets of the big agribusinesses, like Archer Daniels Midland, that dominate ethanol processing-and whose fat checkbooks wield enormous influence in Washington.
In fact, governments generally have a bad track record when it comes to picking technologies. In the midst of an earlier oil crunch, President Jimmy Carter seized on ‘synfuels’-refined from oil shale deposits-as a panacea. Oops. Synfuels turned out to be woefully uneconomic, environmentally disastrous and feasible only with massive government subsidies. It took years to kill the program off-and the last of the multibillion-dollar tax credits just expired in 2007.
The corn ethanol boondoggle threatens to be far, far worse. If enacted, current proposals will amount to a huge hidden tax on consumers, with benefits flowing to the politically connected. Once set in motion, such a program would be all but impossible to stop-even if other alternatives, like cellulosic ethanol, turn out to be vastly superior. And every dollar spent on corn ethanol is a dollar not spent on those other, more promising approaches.
So what should the government do? First off: no harm. Instead of trying to mandate specific technologies-and risk locking us into using the wrong one-Washington should create incentives to help the market choose the best approaches. One step would be to reward consumers for conservation: There are vast opportunities to make our homes, businesses and vehicles more efficient, and to make our economy stronger in the process.
Perhaps someday corn ethanol will prove itself a viable part of our energy mix. But corn liquor is powerful stuff, and it can make people do strange things. Let's keep it out of Washington's hands.
The Ethanol Fallacy
Op-Ed
Popular Mechanics (Feb. 2008)
By James B. Meigs (PM's editor-in-chief)
America needs smart alternative to oil, but the just-passed energy bill puts too much emphasis on the wrong alternative, PM's editor-in-chief says.
The idea is so appealing: We can reduce our dependence on oil-stop sending U.S. dollars to corrupt petro-dictators, stop spewing megatons of carbon into the atmosphere-by replacing it with clean, home-grown, all-American corn. It sounds too good to be true.
Sadly, it is.
Of course we need alternatives to oil. The world uses a cubic mile of petroleum each year, and demand keeps rising as the global economy booms. At first glance, corn seems like a heaven-sent substitute. American corn farmers are the most productive in the world, growing far more of the grain than we can possibly eat, and exporting mountains of the stuff to other countries. And the corn kernel is a marvel of energy storage. Converting that compact bundle of starches into alcohol is a relatively simple trick known to generations of moonshiners. So why not build corn liquor stills on an industrial scale and use the output to power our cars and trucks?
That's exactly what this country has been doing for the past several years. Some 134 ethanol plants are now in operation, consuming close to 1.6 billion bushels of grain, about 15 percent of our total corn production. To feed the ethanol machine, farmers planted almost 93 million acres of corn in 2007, a 19 percent increase over the previous year, and the highest figure since 1944 (when yields per acre were far lower).
The result is that the country is now experiencing an ethanol glut. Prices are sagging-as are plans to build ethanol refineries from sea to shining sea. Yet many in Washington seem determined to force still more ethanol into the system. The just-passed Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which President Bush has said he will sign, mandates corn ethanol usage of 15 billion gal. a year (more than three times today's consumption) by 2015. And presidential candidates have outdone each other with vows to flood the nation with ever-increasing rivers of ethanol for at least a generation.
It's great that our politicians have discovered the need for new energy technologies. But it appears that Washington is determined to put its money-our money-on the wrong horse. Right now, researchers are studying a host of energy solutions, including hydrogen, high-mileage diesel, plug-in hybrids, radical reductions in vehicle weight and cellulosic ethanol (made from cornstalks, switchgrass or other nonfood crops).
It is far too soon to say which of these holds the most promise. But, instead of promoting experimentation and competition to find the best solutions, politicians seem ready to declare ethanol the winner. As a result, our nation could wind up with the worst of both worlds: an ‘alternative’ energy that is enormously expensive yet barely saves a gallon of oil.
Let's start with the math. Corn doesn't grow like a weed. Modern corn farming involves heavy inputs of nitrogen fertilizer (made with natural gas), applications of herbicides and other chemicals (made mostly from oil), heavy machinery (which runs on diesel) and transportation (diesel again). Converting the corn into fuel requires still more energy. The ratio of how much energy is used to make ethanol versus how much it delivers is known as the energy balance, and calculating it is surprisingly complex.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory states that, “Today, 1 Btu of fossil energy consumed in producing and delivering corn ethanol results in 1.3 Btu of usable energy in your fuel tank.” Even that modest payback may be overstated. Skeptics cite the research of Cornell University professor David Pimentel, who estimates that it takes approximately 1.3 gal. of oil to produce a single gallon of ethanol.
If the benefits are in doubt, the costs are not. It would take 450 pounds of corn to yield enough ethanol to fill the tank of an SUV. Producing enough ethanol to replace America's imported oil alone would require putting nearly 900 million acres under cultivation-or roughly 95 percent of the active farmland in the country. Once we've turned our farms into filling stations, where will the food come from?
There's a simple reason that ethanol is popular with politicians: money. Substituting corn ethanol for a large fraction of the gasoline we burn will mean sluicing gushers of cash from more populated states to politically powerful farm states. And a lot of that cash will wind up in the pockets of the big agribusinesses, like Archer Daniels Midland, that dominate ethanol processing-and whose fat checkbooks wield enormous influence in Washington.
In fact, governments generally have a bad track record when it comes to picking technologies. In the midst of an earlier oil crunch, President Jimmy Carter seized on ‘synfuels’-refined from oil shale deposits-as a panacea. Oops. Synfuels turned out to be woefully uneconomic, environmentally disastrous and feasible only with massive government subsidies. It took years to kill the program off-and the last of the multibillion-dollar tax credits just expired in 2007.
The corn ethanol boondoggle threatens to be far, far worse. If enacted, current proposals will amount to a huge hidden tax on consumers, with benefits flowing to the politically connected. Once set in motion, such a program would be all but impossible to stop-even if other alternatives, like cellulosic ethanol, turn out to be vastly superior. And every dollar spent on corn ethanol is a dollar not spent on those other, more promising approaches.
So what should the government do? First off: no harm. Instead of trying to mandate specific technologies-and risk locking us into using the wrong one-Washington should create incentives to help the market choose the best approaches. One step would be to reward consumers for conservation: There are vast opportunities to make our homes, businesses and vehicles more efficient, and to make our economy stronger in the process.
Perhaps someday corn ethanol will prove itself a viable part of our energy mix. But corn liquor is powerful stuff, and it can make people do strange things. Let's keep it out of Washington's hands.
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