# Questions Over Environmental Benefits of Corn-Based fuel



## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

Biofuels Boom Raises Tough Questions
Sunday March 11, 6:14 am ET 
By Matt Crenson, AP National Writer 
Biofuels Boom Raises Tough Questions Over Environmental Benefits of Corn-Based Ethanol

NEW YORK (AP) -- America is drunk on ethanol. Farmers in the Midwest are sending billions of bushels of corn to refineries that turn it into billions of gallons of fuel. Automakers in Detroit have already built millions of cars, trucks and SUVs that can run on it, and are committed to making millions more. In Washington, politicians have approved generous subsidies for companies that make ethanol.
And just this week, President Bush arranged with Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva for their countries to share ethanol production technology.

Even alternative fuel aficionados are surprised at the nation's sudden enthusiasm for grain alcohol.

"It's coming on dramatically; more rapidly than anyone had expected," said Nathanael Greene, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

You'd think that would be good news, but it actually worries a lot of people.

The problem is, ethanol really isn't ready for prime time. The only economical way to make ethanol right now is with corn, which means the burgeoning industry is literally eating America's lunch, not to mention its breakfast and dinner. And though ethanol from corn may have some minor benefits with regard to energy independence, most analysts conclude its environmental benefits are questionable at best.

Proponents acknowledge the drawbacks of corn-based ethanol, but they believe it can help wean America off imported oil the way methadone helps a junkie kick heroin. It may not be ideal, but ethanol could help the country make the necessary and difficult transition to an environmentally and economically sustainable future.

There are many questions about ethanol's place in America's energy future. Some are easily answered; others, not so much.

WHAT IS ETHANOL?

Ethanol is moonshine. Hooch. Rotgut. White lightning. That explains why the last time Americans produced it in any appreciable amount was during Prohibition. Today, just like back then, virtually all the ethanol produced in the United States comes from corn that is fermented and then distilled to produce pure grain alcohol.

WILL MY CAR RUN ON IT?

Any car will burn gasoline mixed with a small amount of ethanol. But cars must be equipped with special equipment to burn fuel that is more than about 10 percent ethanol. All three of the major American automakers are already producing flex-fuel cars that can run on either gasoline or E85, a mix of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. Thanks to incentives from the federal government, they have committed to having half the cars they produce run on either E85 or biodiesel by 2012.

HOW FAST IS ETHANOL PRODUCTION GROWING?

About as fast as farmers can grow the corn to make it. According to the Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group, ethanol production has doubled in the past three years, reaching nearly 5 billion gallons in 2006. With 113 ethanol plants currently operating and 78 more under construction, the country's ethanol output is expected to double again in less than two years.

IS ETHANOL BETTER THAN GASOLINE?

For all the environmental and economic troubles it causes, gasoline turns out to be a remarkably efficient automobile fuel. The energy required to pump crude out of the ground, refine it and transport it from oil well to gas tank is about 6 percent of the energy in the gasoline itself.

Ethanol is much less efficient, especially when it is made from corn. Just growing corn requires expending energy -- plowing, planting, fertilizing and harvesting all require machinery that burns fossil fuel. Modern agriculture relies on large amounts of fertilizer and pesticides, both of which are produced by methods that consume fossil fuels. Then there's the cost of transporting the corn to an ethanol plant, where the fermentation and distillation processes consume yet more energy. Finally, there's the cost of transporting the fuel to filling stations. And because ethanol is more corrosive than gasoline, it can't be pumped through relatively efficient pipelines, but must be transported by rail or tanker truck.

In the end, even the most generous analysts estimate that it takes the energy equivalent of three gallons of ethanol to make four gallons of the stuff. Some even argue that it takes more energy to produce ethanol from corn than you get out of it, but most agricultural economists think that's a stretch.

BUT AREN'T THERE ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS TO ETHANOL?

If you make ethanol from corn, the environmental benefits are limited. When you consider the greenhouse gases that are released in the growing and refining process, corn-based ethanol is only slightly better with regard to global warming than gasoline. Growing corn also requires the use of pesticides and fertilizers that cause soil and water pollution.

The environmental benefit of corn-based ethanol is felt mostly around the tailpipe. When blended into gasoline in small amounts, ethanol causes the fuel to generate less smog-producing carbon monoxide. That has made it popular in smoggy cities like Los Angeles.

WHAT ABOUT ETHANOL'S ECONOMIC BENEFITS?

Making ethanol is so profitable, thanks to government subsidies and continued high oil prices, that plants are proliferating throughout the Corn Belt. Iowa, the nation's top corn-producing state, is projected to have so many ethanol plants by 2008 it could easily find itself importing corn in order to feed them.

But that depends on the Invisible Hand. Making ethanol is profitable when oil is costly and corn is cheap. And the 51 cent-a-gallon federal subsidy doesn't hurt. But oil prices are off from last year's peaks and corn has doubled in price over the past year, from about $2 to $4 a bushel, thanks mostly to demand from ethanol producers.

High corn prices are causing social unrest in Mexico, where the government has tried to mollify angry consumers by slapping price controls on tortillas. Lester R. Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, predicts food riots in other major corn-importing countries if something isn't done.

U.S. consumers will soon feel the effects of high corn prices as well, if they haven't already, because virtually everything Americans put in their mouths starts as corn. There's corn flakes, corn chips, corn nuts, and hundreds of other processed foods that don't even have the word corn in them. There's corn in the occasional pint of beer and shot of whisky. And don't forget high fructose corn syrup, a sweetener that is added to soft drinks, baked goods, candy and a lot of things that aren't even sweet.

Some freaks even eat it off the cob.

It's true that animals eat more than half of the corn produced in America; guess who eats them? On Friday the Agriculture Department announced that beef, pork and chicken will soon cost consumers more thanks to the demand of ethanol for corn.

It's also true that there's a difference between edible sweet corn and the feed corn that's used for ethanol production. But because farmers try to grow the most profitable crop they can, higher prices for feed corn tend to discourage the production of sweet corn. That decreases its supply, driving the price of sweet corn up, too.

In fact, many agricultural economists believe rising demand for feed corn has squeezed the supply -- and boosted the price -- of not just sweet corn but also wheat, soybeans and several other crops.

America's appetite for corn is enormous. But Americans consume so much gasoline that all the corn in the world couldn't make enough ethanol to slake the nation's lust for transportation fuels. Last year ethanol production used 12 percent of the U.S. corn harvest, but it replaced only 2.8 percent of the nation's gasoline consumption.

"If we were to adopt automobile fuel efficiency standards to increase efficiency by 20 percent, that would contribute as much as converting the entire U.S. grain harvest into ethanol," Brown said.

ISN'T THERE A BETTER RENEWABLE FUEL SUBSTITUTE FOR GASOLINE?

Most experts think it will take an array of renewable energy technologies to replace fossil fuels. Ethanol's main drawbacks come not from the nature of the fuel itself, but from the fact that it is made using a critical component of the world's food supply. Ethanol would be more beneficial both environmentally and economically if scientists could figure out how to make it from a nonfood plant that could be grown without the need for fertilizers, pesticides and other inputs. Researchers are currently working on methods to do just that, making ethanol from the cellulose in a wide variety of plants, including poplar trees, switchgrass and cornstalks.

But plant cellulose is more difficult to break down than the starch in corn kernels. That's why people eat corn instead of grass. Plus it tastes better.

There are also technical hurdles related to separating, digesting and fermenting the cellulose fiber. Though it can be done, making ethanol from cellulose-rich material costs at least twice as much as making it from corn.

HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE BEFORE CELLULOSIC ETHANOL IS COMPETITIVE WITH CORN ETHANOL AND GASOLINE?

Some experts estimate that it will take 10 to 15 years before cellulosic ethanol becomes competitive. But Mitch Mandich, CEO of Range Fuels, thinks it will be a lot sooner than that. The Colorado-based company has started building a cellulosic ethanol plant in Georgia that converts wood chips and other waste left behind by the forest products industry. Another company, Iogen Corp., has been producing cellulosic ethanol from wheat, oat and barley straw for several years at a demonstration plant in Ottawa, Canada.

HOW MUCH MORE EFFICIENT WOULD CELLULOSIC ETHANOL BE COMPARED TO CORN ETHANOL?

Studies suggest that cellulosic ethanol could yield at least four to six times the energy expended to produce it. It would also produce less greenhouse gas emissions than corn-based ethanol because much of the energy needed to refine it could come not from fossil fuels, but from burning other chemical components of the very same plants that contained the cellulose.

HOW MUCH GASOLINE COULD CELLULOSIC ETHANOL REPLACE?

The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that the United States could produce more than a billion tons of cellulosic material annually for ethanol production, from switchgrass grown on marginal agricultural lands to wood chips and other waste produced by the timber industry. In theory, that material could produce enough ethanol to substitute for about 30 percent of the country's oil consumption.

A University of Tennessee study released in November reached similar conclusions. As much as 100 million acres of land would have to be dedicated to energy crops in order to reach the goal of substituting renewable biofuels for 25 percent of the nation's fuel consumption by 2025, the report estimated. That would be a significant fraction of the nation's 800 million acres of cultivable land, the study's authors said, but not enough to cause disruptions in agricultural markets.

"There really aren't any losers," said University of Tennessee agricultural economist Burton English.

REALLY? NO LOSERS AT ALL?

There might be losers. Simple economics dictates that if farmers find it more profitable to grow switchgrass rather than corn, soy or cotton, the price of those commodities is bound to rise in response to falling supply.

"You can produce a lot of ethanol from cellulose without competing with food," said Wallace Tyner, an agricultural economist at Purdue University. "But if you want to get half your fuel supply from it you will compete with food agriculture."

There may also be ecological impacts. The government currently pays farmers not to farm about 35 million acres of conservation land, mostly in the Midwest. Those fallow tracts provide valuable habitat for wildlife, especially birds. Though switchgrass is a good home for most birds, if it became profitable to grow it or another energy crop on conservation land some species could decline.

WILL ETHANOL SOLVE ALL OF OUR PROBLEMS?

Ethanol is certainly a valuable tool in our efforts to address the economic and environmental problems associated with fossil fuels. But even the most optimistic projections suggest it can only replace a fraction of the 140 billion gallons of gasoline that Americans consume every year. It will take a mix of technologies to achieve energy independence and reduce the country's production of greenhouse gases.

"I think we're in a very interesting era. We are recognizing a problem and we are finding lots of potential solutions," said David Tilman, an ecologist at the University of Minnesota.

But if we're serious about achieving energy independence and mitigating global warming, Tilman and other experts said, one of those solutions must be energy conservation.

That means doubling the fuel economy of our automobiles, expanding mass transit and decreasing the amount of energy it takes to light, heat and cool our buildings. Without such measures, ethanol and other innovations will make little more than a dent in the nation's fossil fuel consumption.


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## hunter9494 (Jan 21, 2007)

great article, this is the one i refered to in another post. what an eye opener.


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## dieseldog (Aug 9, 2004)

I hate to tell you but the fuel, fertilizer and pesticides will still be used on those acres whether they grow corn or another crop on those acres. So that is a mute argument.


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

In the same quantity?? not near as much according to what I've read


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## g/o (Jul 13, 2004)

Bobm, Switch grass is a relative to corn whereas much of the same pesticides you use on corn you can use on switch. An example when I started my switch grass 20 years ago we sprayed it with atrazine which killed all the grass except the switch. The main reason we planted it was because we could spray it to control weeds instead of mowing. If it were to be raised as crop diesel dog is correct we would spray the hell out it and it will really respond to fertilizer like corn. The grower I got my seed from use to plant it in rows so he could side dress with anhydrous ammonia. Now I really have you lost right Bobm :lol:


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

ANd I thought anhydrous ammonia was only for making my meth :lol:

http://www.p2pays.org/ref/17/16279.pdf

AS a grass according to this article it would not have to be replanted each year and could by harvested once or twice a year depending on conditions?

Would that not save some money not have to replant it each year?


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

dieseldog said:


> I hate to tell you but the fuel, fertilizer and pesticides will still be used on those acres whether they grow corn or another crop on those acres. So that is a mute argument.


I disagree, it is not a mute point. If it is used to grow corn, it must be counted as part of the energy input, that is elementary. If it is used to grow wheat, then it is part of the energy to grow wheat. The above quote is a very convoluted way of thinking simply to avoid the truth. Also, the demand for corn will cause the little remaining prairie and other marginal lands to be broken up. These lands may not go into corn, a farmers good land will go into corn and he will break up prairie or hay land to support other crops. 
Many of these new programs when not well thought out are not only energy inefficient they are habitat destructive. Remember PIK (payment in kind)? Farmers were paid not to plant. What did they do? They got the payment not to plant their fields, but they all thought this is the chance to get $6 bushel wheat. They went out and broke up any remaining land they had, and North Dakota had a record wheat crop. The program was intended to reduce wheat production which would increase the wheat payment in the market. If wheat prices are down who's fault is that. You can't grow a 100 bushels of wheat when your customer demand is only 50 and expect the same price per bushel. If I go into a store and want one loaf of bread, is someone going to put a gun to my head and make me buy two loaves.


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

Heres another article on it I found interesting the last paragraph makes alot of sense

Under the Influence of Ethanol
America's corn-based ethanol program carries high costs in fish, wildlife and tax dollars

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Ethanol is even more popular now than when Americans made it to fuel themselves rather than their cars, and some of the behavior it generates is no less silly. The cornbelt, Congress and the departments of Energy and Agriculture are hawking the stuff as if it were Dr. Kickapoo's Elixir for Rheum, Ague, Blindness and Insanity. Bill Gates has invested $84 million in it. In the last five years the amount of corn poured into ethanol distilleries has tripled to 55 million tons. At this writing, projections by the Department of Agriculture have world grain use growing by 20 million tons in 2006, 6 million tons of which will be consumed by the world's rapidly proliferating and hungry human beings, 14 million tons of which will be consumed by America's proliferating and gas-guzzling cars. Eighteen percent of all the corn we grow goes into ethanol production, and goals mandated by Congress will sharply increase that percentage.

It all started in 1990 with amendments to the Clean Air Act, revolutionary in that they regulated not just how we burn gasoline but how we make it. In areas out of compliance with air-pollution standards, gasoline had to include at least two percent oxygen-containing chemicals (oxygenates), the better to combust carbon monoxide, toxic hydrocarbons, and smog-producing volatile organic compounds. There were only two choices--ethanol and the petroleum-based methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE). This was precisely what the cornbelt had fantasized about and lobbied for. Suddenly the moribund ethanol industry had a future. City air would become breathable. We'd have plenty of fuel. It was going to be a win-win-win.

But instead of cleaning up America, ethanol has added to the mess we're making out of our water and air. Now the Bush Administration has decreed that ethanol replace the far more efficient MTBE as an oxygenate. But with current refining technologies and anti-pollution paraphernalia on motor vehicles there's no need for any oxygenate, a fact the powerful agribusiness lobby doesn't want you to know. Under its withering pressure, Congress and the executive branch have committed the nation to ethanol as both oxygenate and fuel.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 requires that US gasoline contain 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol by 2012, up from 4 billion. One hundred and one ethanol plants are online, and 44 are under construction. Eighty million US acres were planted to corn in 2006; and the ethanol boom will require 10 million more just in 2007. Ethanol, we are being told, is going to "reduce our dependence on foreign oil" and "lead us to energy independence." "Live Green, Go Yellow," effuses General Motors, one of the major roadblocks to fuel-efficiency standards. "Fill Up, Feel Good," gushes the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council, a front for agribusiness.

How will ethanol affect your fishing, apart from possibly ruining your outboard motor? (Ethanol does this in lots of ways. Just ask David Blinken, the famous Montauk fly-fishing guide, who recen-tly spent $25,000 pulling his deck, replacing his fuel lines and tank, extracting aluminum-oxide gum from his carburetors and basically rebuilding his twin 100-horse Yamahas.) First, no crop grown in the United States consumes and pollutes more water than corn. No method of agriculture uses more insecticides, more herbicides, more nitrogen fertilizer. Needed for the production of one gallon of ethanol are 1,700 gallons of water, mostly in the form of irrigation taken from streams either directly or by snatching the water table out from underneath them. And each gallon of ethanol produces 12 gallons of sewage-like effluent.

Ethanol plants are gross polluters of air and water, and because of the exorbitant price of natural gas some of the new ones will be coal-fired, adding to the already dangerous mercury content of fish. The response of the Bush administration has been a proposal to relax pollution standards for ethanol production. Under the conservation programs of the 1985 Farm Bill and its successors, some farmers are bootstrapping their way toward sustainable agriculture, but corn production still erodes topsoil about 10 times faster than it can accrete.

The toxic, oxygen-swilling stew of nitrates, chemical poisons and dirt excreted from the corn monocultures of our Midwest pollutes the Mississippi River and its tributaries, limiting fish all the way to the Gulf where it creates a bacteria-infested, algae-clogged, anaerobic "Dead Zone" lethal to fish, crustaceans, mollusks and virtually all gill breathers. In some years, depending on seasonal heat and water conditions, the Dead Zone can cover 8,000 square miles. And it's expanding.

No habitat is more important to fish and wildlife than wetlands. They filter out pesticides and sediments, and they consume phosphates and nitrates. At least 70 percent of the wetlands in the cornbelt have already been lost. But, in order to produce surplus corn for ethanol, remaining cornbelt wetlands are being drained. In some areas--Nebraska, for instance--corn has to be irrigated by pumps that suck water from the ground faster than it percolates back in. Both pumps and the ethanol plants themselves are powered by natural gas, the frenzied production of which is creating horrendous problems for fish and wildlife in the West.

Where is the land to grow all the extra corn needed for ethanol supposed to come from? Well, the Bush administration has an idea: In testimony to Congress, the USDA's chief economist, Keith Collins, has raised the possibility of using land enrolled under the Farm Bill's Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Not so coincidentally, it happens that this is precisely the idea that the corn lobby had come up with. In an op-ed in the December 6, 2006 Des Moines Register Bruce Rastetter, CEO of Hawkeye Renewables, Iowa's largest ethanol producer, writes: "First, the government should immediately release some of the 37 million acres that now sit idle in the US Department of Agriculture's Conservation Resources [sic] Program."

"We're hearing rumors every day that the [USDA's] Farm Services Agency is on the verge of announcing they're going to allow people to liquidate CRP contracts to grow more corn for ethanol," says Julie Sibbing, point person for the National Wildlife Federation's agriculture and wetlands program. "That's a huge concern. They've been studying CRP to see if there's land they can pull out to grow more corn. We're hearing from folks up in the plains that farmers are going in and breaking up virgin prairie. It's lousy land for agriculture, but they're planting it because of the high price of corn brought on by this ethanol boom. It's scary. And there are huge water requirements. People are building these ethanol plants anywhere, paying no attention to the water needs. We're worried about instream flows."

CRP--originally conceived not for the benefit of fish, wildlife or soil but simply to reduce surplus, government-subsidized corn--has restored two million acres of wetlands and adjacent buffers, produced 7.1 million acres of new native grasses, protected 170,000 miles of streams, restored 1.2 million acres of rare and declining wildlife habitat and saved 450 tons of soil (enough to fill 37.5 million dump trucks). What's more, CRP annually produces 15 million pheasants and 2.2 million ducks and sequesters 48 million tons of carbon dioxide. It is absurd to suggest we can't afford CRP. The increased soil productivity it has provided is worth $162 million a year, increased waterfowl hunting $122 million, increased wildlife viewing $629 million, and runoff reduction $392 million.

Thanks to CRP and other Farm Bill conservation programs, Iowa--the corn capital of the nation--is suddenly teeming with smallmouth bass and, in the state's northeast hill country, wild trout. Yes, wild trout. "Our trout fishery is one of the best kept secrets in the country," declares Rich Patterson, who directs the Indian Creek Nature Center in Cedar Rapids and serves on the Circle of Chiefs of the Outdoor Writers Association of America. "When I first came here 28 years ago it was all put-and-take, guys tossing corn to stupid hatchery trout. I'm catching incredible wild trout in streams that were mucky in the 1980's. And there has been a tremendous turnaround on smallmouths. They're sight feeders, and with clearing water they're increasing like crazy."

Marion Conover, chief of fisheries for the Iowa Fish and Wildlife Division, confirms Patterson's assessment. "The smallmouths are a reflection of improved clarity in our streams because of buffer strips and best management practices funded through the Farm Bill's conservation title," he says. "We manage four stream segments as catch-and-release for smallmouth--on the upper Iowa, Cedar River, Middle Raccoon, and Maquoketa. These are higher-quality streams, but we've seen smallmouths improve in places like the Mississippi River, parts of the Des Moines River, and the Missouri River in the Sioux City area of all places. It's simply a function of less dirt in the water. But there's a concern among the whole environmental community about what bodes for the future, what our landscape is going to look like next year or five years from now."

The Iowa brookies are a national treasure, genetically distinct from Yankee brook trout, Appalachian brook trout and even fish from Wisconsin and Minnesota. In 1980 only one of the state's streams had native brook trout reproduction, and only four had brown trout reproduction. Today there are at least 23 with self-sustaining browns and six with self-sustaining native brookies. The division's northeast fisheries supervisor, Bill Kalishek, expects that by the time you read this, new survey results will have significantly increased these numbers. And if Farm Bill programs remain intact, streams where there is now only sporadic reproduction will become self-sustaining. The brookies are small, but the browns are huge in relation to the little spring creeks in which they abide. Kalishek reports that 15- to 20-inchers are not unusual, and he's seen them up to 28 inches. "The unglaciated terrain here in northeast Iowa is highly erodible," he told me. "So cropland is very eligible for CRP. That program has taken a lot of the most highly erodible land out of row-crop production and reduced the amount of sediment getting washed into the streams. Not only has the water quality improved, so has the substrate quality for spawning."

But America's ethanol orgy frightens Kalishek and his colleagues. "I've seen some of the results already," he says. "The bulldozers are out there on the little corners of cornfields that used to be brushy draws or old fence lines so farmers can grow more corn. A lot of our general-signup CRP enrollments--where whole, erodible fields were taken out of production--are expiring in the next two or three years. And I'm worried that with this increase in corn production we're going to take a big step backwards in water quality and stream habitat and in our trout populations."

Well, as we so frequently tell ourselves and are told by our federal government, we all have to make sacrifices for energy self-sufficiency. But the sacrifices fish-and-wildlife advocates and taxpayers are being asked to make for ethanol do not and cannot decrease our dependency on foreign oil. In fact, they do just the opposite. This is because it takes more energy in the form of fossil fuels to make corn-based ethanol than we get from it.

Some researchers dispute this, but almost without exception they are directly or indirectly funded by or otherwise allied to agribusiness or the USDA (a wholly owned subsidiary of agribusiness). The credible stats issue from independent researchers whose studies have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and who have no irons in the fire. Two of the more notable ones are Dr. Tad W. Patzek, a chemical engineer from the University of California at Berkeley, and Cornell University's Dr. David Pimentel.

Pimentel, author of 24 books and nearly 600 scientific papers and selected by the Department of Energy to chair two scientific panels on ethanol production, told me this: "Ethanol is a boondoggle. Optimistically, using Department of Energy numbers, it amounts to one percent of our petroleum use. Ethanol requires almost 40 percent more energy to produce than you get out of it; we're having to import oil to make this stuff. And, of course, the environmental impacts to water, air and soil are enormous. During the fermentation process, when yeast is working on the starches and sugars, large quantities of carbon dioxide are released. In fact, some plants collect it and sell it to beverage companies. So it's a double whammy for global warming--not only burning fossil fuel but carbon dioxide production."

Pimentel reports that ethanol, which yields only two-thirds the energy of gasoline, gets 45 times more federal subsidy per gallon than gasoline. "That's what's attracting all the flies," he says. All told, you and I are spending at least $3 per gallon on ethanol subsidies for a total of $6 billion per year. Without all this gravy train, Pimentel has calculated that the cost for 1.33 gallons of ethanol (the equivalent in energy yield to a gallon of gasoline) would be $7.12.

The subsidies aren't going to family farms but to bloated, effluent-spewing agribusiness giants that get hungrier and dirtier with each feeding. According to one estimate--by financial analyst James Bovard of the Cato Institute--every dollar in profits earned by the nation's largest ethanol producer, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), costs taxpayers $30.

In February 2006 Energy Secretary Sam Bodman showed up at ADM's Decatur, Illinois, headquarters to pose with CEO Allen Andreas and announce that the Department of Energy would offer $160 million for the construction of three biorefineries for ethanol production. "This funding will support a much-needed step in the development of biofuels and renewable energy programs," declared Bodman. "Partnerships with industry like these will lead to new innovation and discovery that will usher in an era of reduced dependence on foreign sources of oil, while strengthening our economy at home."

This is the same ADM that made it to number 10 on the University of Massachusetts' Political Economy Research Institute's "Toxic 100" list of America's worst corporate polluters, the same ADM that in 2003 was assessed $351 million in fines by the EPA for Clean Air Act violations at 52 plants in 16 states, the same ADM currently slugging it out with the state and feds in 25 judicial and administrative proceedings regarding its contamination of air, soil and water.

ADM is just one of many offenders. Another example: in June 2006 Ace Ethanol LLC of Stanley, Wisconsin, and John S. Olynick Inc. of Gilman, Wisconsin, (an excavating company) agreed to pay $61,000 after they'd been cited for filling wetlands adjacent to a tributary of the Wolf River. And Ace has been ordered by Wisconsin's attorney general to pay $300,000 in fines for Clean Air Act violations.

"I've been following this ethanol development very closely," says Iowa Fish and Wildlife's Kalishek. "And I have one hope--biomass ethanol. If we can get plants shifted over to biomass [cellulosic ethanol derived from wood chips, straw, hemp, crop stalks, etc.], we could have farmers growing something like switchgrass [one of the native prairie covers approved for CRP enrollment]. Then we wouldn't have to worry about erosion. There'd be many benefits for fish and wildlife and water quality. But it looks like the demand for corn for ethanol is going to continue to increase. Every prediction I've seen, and the most recent one came out of Iowa State University, is that demand for corn is going to outstrip Iowa's ability to produce corn. If you've ever driven across our state, you'd scratch your head and say, 'Huh? All that corn is not going to be enough to feed the ethanol plants?'"

The National Wildlife Federation shares Kalishek's hopes and fears. "We're working on a program for the next Farm Bill that would try to advance the whole next generation of technologies like switchgrass ethanol," says Sibbing. "A couple [cellulosic] plants are being built now--one in Iowa and one in Idaho. If we get to cellulosic ethanol, we can produce something like five times more per acre. It would be a lot better for land and water and a produce a lot more bang for the buck."

Switchgrass is certainly attractive to burn directly as a biomass fuel; and one day, perhaps, it will be an ethanol source. Because it is harvested in early spring or late summer or fall, declining ground-nesters such as quail and bob-o-link that fledge their broods in late spring would benefit. Switchgrass requires essentially no fertilization; and it's a perennial, which means there's no tilling, reseeding or erosion.

But, warns Cornell's Pimentel, cellulosic ethanol is far more difficult to produce than corn-based ethanol, which itself isn't practical or economical. "There are only about half as many starches and sugars in woody material and straw as in corn," he explains. "There are also extra steps. You have to use an acid or enzyme to release the cellulose from the lignin--the stuff that holds the plants up straight. If you use acid, you have to stop the acidity process with an alkali. So that's another step. You hear stories from pro-ethanol people that the lignin (about 25 percent of the wood) can be used for fuel, but that's if it's dry. It's dissolved in water, and to dry it takes a good deal of energy."

Ethanol rendered from crop stalks is no less problematical. And any major commitment to that source could be even more environmentally hurtful than corn-based ethanol by spiking already gross erosion rates.

So, until we figure out how to make ethanol cheaply and efficiently from native prairie perennials like switchgrass, where are we going to find the fuel to run our cars? Berkeley's Dr. Tad Patzek makes the point that corn is merely one way of converting solar energy to fuel. Solar cells, far more efficient, could make hydrogen fuel. That's where the subsidies need to go, he contends. But technology for practical, affordable hydrogen fuel, like technology for practical, affordable ethanol fuel, doesn't exist yet.

We do, however, possess the technology to build fuel-efficient automobiles. In the current charade designed by and for agribusiness we're allocating 18 percent of the corn we grow to ethanol, thereby cutting our petroleum consumption by one percent. *But Patzek has calculated that if we doubled automobile fuel efficiency, we'd cut petroleum consumption by 33 percent or, put another way, we'd increase our petroleum supply by a third. It's a revolutionary concept that America has never tried. Fish-and-wildlife advocates are calling it conservation*.


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## bioman (Mar 1, 2002)

One more story about corn...

Farmers Gear Up to Plant Massive Corn Crop 
By ROXANA HEGEMAN 
Associated Press Newswires
English
(c) 2007. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - A burgeoning ethanol market has the nation's farmers gearing up to plant massive amounts of corn this spring, creating shortages of some popular biotech hybrid seeds.

While growers should still be able to find plenty of corn seed to plant, it may not be the variety developed for their season or bred with the genetic modifications they want to combat insects and diseases in their region, experts said.

"It is a nationwide problem. One reason it is so severe in Kansas is that a lot of the seed available for us is being used to replace cotton acres in Texas and Mississippi. But the shortage is nationwide," said Terry Vinduska, the sales representative for Pioneer Hybrid International in Marion.

Kansas farmers do not typically plant the varieties of corn favored by Corn Belt growers farther north, Vinduska said. Farmers here need corn hybrids bred to resist local pests and to tolerate blistering hot summers that can wilt even irrigated crops.

Those popular varieties were sold out before Thanksgiving, he said.

Those are the same kinds of hybrids southern growers in the nation's Cotton Belt want. Many acres of cotton are going to be planted to corn this year rather than cotton, Vinduska said, noting the price of corn is close to double what it was at this time last year.

Consequently, some Kansas corn growers might not be able to find the biotech hybrids that are resistant to certain herbicides or to corn borer and root worm, he said.

"We will undoubtedly have lower yields, and in some cases we will have to spray with pesticides to control corn borer, so that will add to our costs," Vinduska said.

The National Agricultural Statistics Service does not release its prospective planting report until March 23, but the industry already expects a massive increase in corn acres nationwide given the demand for corn seed and fertilizer.

Bob Timmons, a corn grower near Fredonia, plans to plant around 1,000 acres of corn later this month -- about the same amount as last year. He said he is limited in the amount of farmland good enough to grow corn and sticks to his rotation.

Because he bought his corn in November, he found the seed variety he wanted, although not the seed size he preferred, he said. But he wasn't complaining, especially given high corn prices.

"It is pretty nice. We have had many years of bad prices," he said.

It's not yet certain how many more corn acres will be planted in Kansas this spring. Corn planting typically starts first in the southeast corner of the state by the third or fourth week of March.

Jere White, executive director of the Kansas Corn Growers Association, said he anticipates a significant increase over last year. He expects those added corn acres to come from farmers shifting from soybean acres in Kansas.

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PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- South Dakota Sen. John Thune has urged federal officials to give quick consideration to a proposal for using a 20 percent blend of ethanol in vehicles.

About half the gasoline sold in the nation is now a blend of 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline. In a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen L. Johnson, Thune urged the agency to prepare for quick certification of a blend of 20 percent ethanol and 80 percent gasoline.

The state of Minnesota will be requesting a waiver to allow the use of 20 percent ethanol in fuel, Thune said. When the EPA considers the Minnesota request, it should look at approving a broader standard that would allow the fuel in other states if those states and the fuel industry decide to use a 20 percent blend, called E-20, he said.

"We've got to continue to grow the demand for and usage of and develop the ethanol market for all the reasons everybody agrees are important, energy independence, clean air and obviously a good economy in the Midwest," Thune said.

The senator said the EPA will have 180 days to respond to the Minnesota request, but he hopes the agency will conduct its review quickly.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

Bob, that last post sums it up better than most. Corn ethanol is going to be a real problem for wildlife and fisheries. Nothing carries as many tons of soil into the stream as any type of row crop. Corn ethanol is just a feel good façade for environmentalists that are fools and agriculture welfare for farmers.


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## dieseldog (Aug 9, 2004)

I'm not saying ethanol is the best answer I am just simply stating that each farmer has X amount of acres and he is going to plant those acres every year , be it corn, wheat, barley, beans, so he is going to use fertilizer and chemicals each year no matter what crop he plants. And actually with all the RR crops now chemical use is actually less and safer for the environment than when atrazine was a big chemical.


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## Dak (Feb 28, 2005)

Ethanol is not the godsend many would have us believe it to be...


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

> And actually with all the RR crops now chemical use is actually less and safer for the environment than when atrazine was a big chemical.


I was eluding to the environmental degradation due to excessive erosion / siltation associated with row crops, not chemical use.

Also, simply because no matter what is planted in any particular field chemicals will be used does not subtract that energy / pollution portion of the corn ethanol equation. If you grow wheat the chemicals become part of the energy input of wheat. Eat a slice of bread and you contribute to chemical use to grow wheat, pump corn ethanol into your vehicle tank and you are without a doubt part of the corn and chemical use to produce it equation.

Dieseldog, go tell a local cop that your going to sell drugs in your neighborhood, but your not contributing to drug use, because if you didn't do it someone would. I'm sure he will be convinced.


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## dieseldog (Aug 9, 2004)

> Dieseldog, go tell a local cop that your going to sell drugs in your neighborhood, but your not contributing to drug use, because if you didn't do it someone would. I'm sure he will be convinced.
> 
> Good analogy, I would have thought you could come up with something better.
> 
> I think i will just go grow more corn cuz right now all i can hear is cha-ching,cha- ching, $$$$$$$$$$$ ! Stupid not to with these markets.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

dieseldog said:


> > Dieseldog, go tell a local cop that your going to sell drugs in your neighborhood, but your not contributing to drug use, because if you didn't do it someone would. I'm sure he will be convinced.
> >
> > Good analogy, I would have thought you could come up with something better.
> >
> > I think i will just go grow more corn cuz right now all i can hear is cha-ching,cha- ching, $$$$$$$$$$$ ! Stupid not to with these markets.


Now that's the truth, and I can deal with it even if I don't with corn ethanol. I think the whole program is a farce, but a farmer would not be a good businessman if they didn't take advantage of it. I don't blame the farmer as much as the government.
The corn ethanol ripple affect is already in the grocery store. Have you noticed the price of pork. To think it was under $0.25 for farmers just a few years ago. Soon a pork chop will cost more than a ribeye was last year. It's going up too.
The consumer/taxpayer will pay for this program in many ways including more pollution in the rural states so Los Angeles and New York don't have as much. Siltation will destroy aquatic invertebrate production and reduced protein intake will reduce waterfowl clutch size, and duckling survivability, not to mention that more shallow wetlands and fertilizer will choke wetlands with cattails. They will also pay April 15, at the grocery store, and at the gas pumps because of reduced mileage.
Switch grass ethanol I will not complain about. About six units of energy for each unit invested.


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## dieseldog (Aug 9, 2004)

I am all for looking at switch ethanol too. As in my area it would probably be a safer bet than corn but for now got to go with the flow. I think switch would be ok for some acres on my farm. But until it gets pushed to the front, well you know wh


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

I sure hope switch grass takes over the corn, and I hope you do well with it if you get into it dieseldog. 
I wish farmers had more options. They get pushed into corners by poor programs, but it's either go with it or someone will buy your farm and do it anyway, while you look for another job to support your family. Most of the poor farm practices occur in Washington.


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## 280IM (Mar 28, 2005)

Plainsman I agree with a lot you have said as for the ripple effect. I have some cattle in a feedyard and $4 corn is not working very well. If you have feed cattle for any lenght of time you have these wrecks. All meats will go up in time or the livestock producer will go broke. There is good and bad with the use of grian enthol just like anything else,but lets not judge it yet give it a year or two.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

280IM, I am sure it will improve, but it is a mess now. I don't see where the improvement will come, but I think they will have to find a way before the subsidies dry up. 
Until the switch grass can be developed I would prefer carbon mitigation through wetland restoration. I think the dollars per acre could meet the income level of farming the land. Wetlands are tough to farm year after year anyway. I once asked a friend if $40 an acre would do it. He had just finished figuring his ten year average the day before and on the 2000 acres he farmed he averaged $60 an acre net. This was five years ago.
So would something like this work for landowners. Lets say you restore a wetland, and the government pays you by estimated annual carbon storage and they tell you they can give you $40 and acre, but that you free to sell carbon credits on the market to increase your profit. So you enroll your acres with say the commodities exchange and anyone who is producing carbon can buy those credits on the market. So a power company burning coal in western North Dakota buys up your (lets say 60 acres) of wetland carbon credits at $50 an acre per year for your ten year enrollment with the government. Now you get $90 an acre for ten years. 
This is just a thought for North Dakota. I know that $40 is what they were getting around here, but I have talked to farmers in Iowa that were getting over $150 for CRP if they told me the truth. I think land values and rental sets the price. Something would have to follow along those lines. 
I see this as everyone winning, because the farmer gets a profit, taxpayers pay less for this than support price for grain, the power companies get by much cheaper than the very expensive technology that is available now to get that last 20 percent of carbon out of their emissions, and that holds our electric bill down. Not to mention habitat improvement, water retention, nitrogen absorption etc.

280IM, will your cattle operation survive the high corn price. I know the price is going through the roof in the grocery store, but that doesn't mean your getting any of it.


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## 280IM (Mar 28, 2005)

Wetlands should ALWAYS be wet lands. In my home state of Ne, in the corn belt, every wetland basin was drained, the shelter belts taken out, fence lines removed, so the pivot irragation systems could be used rather than gravity irragtion. Less water is used this way but there is no habit left at all. Now you can cuss the farmers for doing this, but every year the increase in land taxs and the never ending need for more income per acer causes the farmer to use every inch there is. The farms got bigger do to the better management by some, so less farmers and less farms. Irragated farm ground in some places now is bring $4,000 an acer do to the price of corn ethanol plants are paying. I would not invest in an ethanol plant myself as I think, this is only my opion, that we will see oil under $40 a barrel as the last frontier in Alaska will be deevloped and when Iraq is spit up to 2 or 3 countries oil again will be cheaper. Don't bet that this will happen this is just what I think.


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## g/o (Jul 13, 2004)

> I have some cattle in a feedyard and $4 corn is not working very well.


280 It could be much worse, I know the cash is not keeping up with the future's. I can't believe how the feeders have been so strong with these high corn prices. It has baffled me and my pocket book!!!


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## 280IM (Mar 28, 2005)

Have you ever meant a cattle feeder that has a memmory? Don't you know when you buy them as feeders they are always going up. I have been at this for 30 years and found out they do go down. These big hog units are going to take a beating.


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## prairie hunter (Mar 13, 2002)

I have heard it said that a civilization is in serious trouble when it uses its food for fuel.


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