Seven practical reasons why the ethanol boom is a political fraud at best, and a terribly bad idea:
“1) Corn as a crop is very tough on the land. The open soil between rows loses organic matter, thereby destroying soil aggregate stability and greatly reducing moisture retention. Destruction of organic matter increases atmospheric CO2, which may or may not be a problem, but for the farmer, it very rapidly compromises long-term soil health. More corn is not better for anybody in the long term.
“2) Increasing corn production throws an already weak rotation out of kilter. Corn-on-corn allows serious pests, like corn rootworms, to crank up their populations in a hurry, requiring heavier use of insecticides to control them. Disease pressures increase, and micronutrients such as zinc diminish rapidly. The reduction of nitrogen-fixing crops in the rotation necessitates greater applications of chemical fertilizers, which consume immense amounts of energy to manufacture and in some cases – including the very commonly used ammonia – further destroy soil organic matter.
“3) Ethanol produces a short-term and unsustainable price boom, distorting markets for years. Most farmers will see those conditions as permanent and borrow accordingly to expand. Cash rents for land are being driven to ridiculous levels and the owners will be reluctant to reduce them, even after conditions revert to normal.
“4) Land tenure becomes a year-to-year bidding war against neighbors, and when they can only count on a single year's use of the land, most farmers push rented land as hard as a rented mule. That diminishes long-term land health and productivity.
“5) Producing corn for ethanol, transporting it, fermenting it and distilling it uses at least as much energy as will ever be released from the ethanol.
“6) Ethanol twists and distorts normal supply-demand dynamics beyond recognition, making it very difficult for farmers to make other than short-term decisions based on immediate expediency.
“7) Absent the ability to plan within a sustainable long-term framework, the farm loses direction and impetus. Poor capital allocation and other malinvestments are a near certainty in such environments and ultimately threaten both family income and long-term survival of the farm as a viable business.”
“1) Corn as a crop is very tough on the land. The open soil between rows loses organic matter, thereby destroying soil aggregate stability and greatly reducing moisture retention. Destruction of organic matter increases atmospheric CO2, which may or may not be a problem, but for the farmer, it very rapidly compromises long-term soil health. More corn is not better for anybody in the long term.
“2) Increasing corn production throws an already weak rotation out of kilter. Corn-on-corn allows serious pests, like corn rootworms, to crank up their populations in a hurry, requiring heavier use of insecticides to control them. Disease pressures increase, and micronutrients such as zinc diminish rapidly. The reduction of nitrogen-fixing crops in the rotation necessitates greater applications of chemical fertilizers, which consume immense amounts of energy to manufacture and in some cases – including the very commonly used ammonia – further destroy soil organic matter.
“3) Ethanol produces a short-term and unsustainable price boom, distorting markets for years. Most farmers will see those conditions as permanent and borrow accordingly to expand. Cash rents for land are being driven to ridiculous levels and the owners will be reluctant to reduce them, even after conditions revert to normal.
“4) Land tenure becomes a year-to-year bidding war against neighbors, and when they can only count on a single year's use of the land, most farmers push rented land as hard as a rented mule. That diminishes long-term land health and productivity.
“5) Producing corn for ethanol, transporting it, fermenting it and distilling it uses at least as much energy as will ever be released from the ethanol.
“6) Ethanol twists and distorts normal supply-demand dynamics beyond recognition, making it very difficult for farmers to make other than short-term decisions based on immediate expediency.
“7) Absent the ability to plan within a sustainable long-term framework, the farm loses direction and impetus. Poor capital allocation and other malinvestments are a near certainty in such environments and ultimately threaten both family income and long-term survival of the farm as a viable business.”
12 comments:
1.Brazil, the fifth largest country in the world imports no oil, since half its cars run on alcohol fuel made from sugarcane, grown on 1% of its land.
2.We can reverse global warming. Since alcohol is made from plants, its production takes carbon dioxide out of the air, sequestering it, with the result that it reverses the greenhouse effect (while potentially vastly improving the soil). Recent studies show that in a permaculturally designed mixed-crop alcohol fuel production system, the amount of greenhouse gases removed from the atmosphere by plants—and then exuded by plant roots into the soil as sugar—can be 13 times what is emitted by processing the crops and burning the alcohol in our cars.
3.We can revitalize the economy instead of suffering through Peak Oil. Oil is running out, and what we replace it with will make a big difference in our environment and economy. Alcohol fuel production and use is clean and environmentally sustainable, and will revitalize families, farms, towns, cities, industries, as well as the environment. A national switch to alcohol fuel would provide many millions of new permanent jobs.
4.No new technological breakthroughs are needed. We can make alcohol fuel out of what we have, where we are. Alcohol fuel can efficiently be made out of many things, from waste products like stale donuts, grass clippings, food processing waste-even ocean kelp. Many crops produce many times more alcohol per acre than corn, using arid, marshy, or even marginal land in addition to farmland. Just our lawn clippings could replace a third of the autofuel we get from the Mideast.
5.Unlike hydrogen fuel cells, we can easily use alcohol fuel in the vehicles we already own.
6.Alcohol is a superior fuel to gasoline! It’s 105 octane, burns much cooler with less vibration, is less flammable in case of accident, is 98% pollution-free, has lower evaporative emissions, and deposits no carbon in the engine or oil, resulting in a tripling of engine life. Specialized alcohol engines can get at least 22% better mileage than gasoline or diesel.
7.It’s not just for gasoline cars.
8.Alcohol has a proud history. Henry Ford’s early cars were all flex-fuel. It wasn’t until gasoline magnate John D. Rockefeller funded Prohibition that alcohol fuel companies were driven out of business.
9.The byproducts of alcohol production are clean, instead of being oil refinery waste, and are worth more than the alcohol itself. In fact, they can make petrochemical fertilizers and herbicides obsolete. The alcohol production process concentrates and makes more digestible all protein and non-starch nutrients in the crop. It’s so nutritious that when used as animal feed, it produces more meat or milk than the corn it comes from. That’s right, fermentation of corn increases the food supply and lowers the cost of food.
10.Locally produced ethanol supercharges regional economies. Instead of fuel expenditures draining capital away to foreign bank accounts, each gallon of alcohol produces local income that gets recirculated many times. Every dollar of tax credit for alcohol generates up to $6 in new tax revenues from the increased local business.
11.Alcohol production brings many new small-scale business opportunities. There is huge potential for profitable local, integrated, small-scale businesses that produce alcohol and related byproducts, whereas when gas was cheap, alcohol plants had to be huge to make a profit.
12.Scale matters—most of the widely publicized potential problems with ethanol are a function of scale.
13.The byproducts of small-scale alcohol plants can be used in profitable, energy-efficient, and environmentally positive ways.
Both of you forgot to mention that:
1) ethanol produces up to 30% less fuel economy than gasoline.
2) ethanol is destroys anything not metal in your engine, which is everything that sits between metal pieces.
3) with the damage corn does to the soil and the rotation schedule needed, there isn't enough land in the US to make corn sustainable. Even if we grew nothing but corn.
4) when you calculate all the tax payer subsidies the corn growers get ethanol is actually about twice the highest price you've paid for gas.
5) ethanol sucks
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