Filed under: Ethanol, Legislation and Policy
Why corn ethanol is especially bad for California
Many corn ethanol production facilities are located somewhere near where the corn is grown. In the U.S., that means the Midwest, for the most part. But there is a lot of motion to get ethanol out to the coasts. Juliette Anthony, writing over at Renewable Energy Access, illustrates why corn ethanol is a terrible idea for California. Here's the first graph:Growth of the corn ethanol industry in California is fraught with unintended consequences, none of which are beneficial to the economy or the environment of the state. They include impacts on our overcommitted water resources, on our air quality, on the price of food, and on the financial burden to citizens while private investors profit.
It doesn't get better from there. Anthony details the many (and well-known) problems with corn-based ethanol, but she pays special attention to how limited water is in California. And how 'bout this gem:
If all the vehicles in California operated on E85 [the policy of the Governor and Legislature], the ethanol required would consume 70 percent of the entire U.S. corn crop, but only 13.6 percent of the energy in the fuel would be renewable because of the heavy use of fossil fuel.
All in all, the article is recommended. Perhaps Anthony would like to sign the say-no-to-ethanol petition.
[Source: Renewable Energy Access]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
TgB 7:59PM (9/14/2007)
This is just another hint at how bad for climate and other things most forms of biofuel actually are. Their production takes away food sources, promotes monocultures which leads to soil degradation and in some countries (i.e. Indonesia) rain forests are being burned down to make room for palm plantations for the production of palmoil for use as fuel. The CO2 reduction of the oil use as fuel can never hope to offset the amount that was released into the atmosphere through the burning not mentioning the remaining positive effects rain forests have on the environment.
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derek.hofmann 8:30PM (9/14/2007)
We should eliminate the ethanol tarriff to make it more economically feasible to import sugarcane ethanol (which is 7 times more efficient than corn) from Brazil.
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UH2L 8:50PM (9/14/2007)
If you think of ethanol as a way of people in the Midwest "buying local", then it's a good thing. Maybe it's not right for California or the east coast so they can continue to rely on fossil fuels. And as for the price of food going up, perhaps it will make us eat less in the U.S. That would be a good thing for the most part.
The author of the article talks about all the energy it takes to turn corn into ethanol, but what about all the energy it takes to drill for, transport oil, refine it, and transport gasoline? I'm sure these plants do bad things for the environment too, but she doesn't make a fair comparison. Drilling for oil or mining for oil sands surely causes much more environmental damage than harvesting corn on land that's already a farm.
Perhaps in California and the rest of the Southwest, they should have come up with solutions for the "oversubscription" of water resources there before they allowed for such population and economic growth. That's a separate issue.
Atul
http://www.thingsivenoticed.com
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Nick 11:34PM (9/14/2007)
I am glad to see that someone actually looks at the whole picture from both perspectives, most people who argue against ethanol use two primary arguements
1. It reduces the food supply and drives up the cost of food
2. It consumes a lot of energy and creates pollution to produce.
Rebuttal to 1. The majority of the corn that is harvested in the united states is used as cattle feed which eventually becomes beef. The amount of corn being redirected to the ethanol industry has little to no impact on the human food supply. Ironically enough the main by-product of ethanol happens to be cattle feed.
Rebuttal to number 2. As mentioned above there is a signifigant amount of energy that goes into drilling and transporting oil, i think mentioned on this site they said a transatlantic oil tanker creates the same amount of pollution as 245,000 cars (or something like that) going the same distance. As for the ethanol, here in Iowa there are almost 30 ethanol plants so the corn should rarely have to far to be transported. As for the farming pollution, these fields were going to be farmed anyways for cattle feed, just as they have been for many many years, so the farm polution is not going to increase because of it. Lastly transporting the Ethanol via Truck or Train, well the midwest is located in the MIDDLE of the united states so to get it anywhere relativly quickly as opposed to oil that comes mainly from, Middle east, no wonder Dubai is the richest city in the world.
Benefits of ethanol, strengthens the local economy, is becoming more and more efficient, has less toxic emmissions and less greenhouse gas emmisions when burned, production wise is environmentally less damaging than oil production, keeps money in the united states, creates market for any surplus corn, which is not uncommon here in Iowa until ethanol.
Downsides of ethanol, NOT the perfect solution - there is still pollution from usage and production, farmers may be tempted to not rotate fields and crops due to increased revenues from selling corn to ethanol, but I assume most farmers know this and still rotate fields regularly.
Anyways thats my 2 cents
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Fer 1:57AM (9/15/2007)
Someone should teach "Mr. Gobernator" some facts about the ethanol.
Someone is thinking not just hearing, thanks God.
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John Metcalf 8:37AM (9/15/2007)
Doesn't California have a lot of free sun?
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Tim 9:42AM (9/15/2007)
This is what happens when the government chooses a technology instead of letting the free market competition decide.
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GoodCheer 2:08PM (9/15/2007)
Nick brings up some very good points:
The increasing price of corn -by itself- will do very little to to increase the cost of feeding your family. How often do you eat corn? A couple of cobs in the late summer when it's in season?
The cost comes because corn is the primary foodstock of beef, and the price of beef is inevitably going through the roof. How often do you eat beef?
The leftovers of ethanol production can also be fed to cows, but the point of producing ethanol is that much of the chemical energy has been removed from the material. I certainly don't know much about either ethanol production or the digestive processes of cows, but it seems to me that if you remove energy from the corn, it must have less remaining in it to 'fuel' the cows. Right?
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rgseidl 4:55PM (9/15/2007)
California uses ethanol as an oxygenate for summer gasoline, to cut down on smog due to evaporative emissions from legacy gasoline vehicles. EPA and CARB withdrew their endorsement of synthetic MTBE last year after it was found to be a carcinogen and there had been several cases of ground water contamination at filling stations equipped with single-hulled storage tanks that had corroded.
Ethanol cannot safely be transported in existing fuel pipelines because it is highly hygroscopic. The concern is that the addition water could compromise not only fuel quality but also lead to corrosion of the pipelines. Instead, ethanol is delivered to California refineries by rail and truck and blended in locally. This is expensive, plus California would like a slice of the federal subsidies available for corn - but no other feedstock. Alternate oxygenates, e.g. a mixture of bio-methanol from forestry waste and synthetic propanol (a reduced form of glycerol, a byproduct of biodiesel production), do not enjoy the $0.54 per gallon import tariff that ethanol does.
Hence the push for corn ethanol production in California, even if it makes little environmental sense.
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Bill 5:36PM (9/16/2007)
Corn ethanol production has made it much more expensive for those who eat corn (rather than beef fattened on corn) to feed their families.
Tortilla prices south of the border have at least doubled. No externalities there?
And don't forget there are _far_ more subsidies on corn ethanol production than there ever were with merely growing corn (ADM, etc., get most of the benefits - not farmers!)
It will be very interesting to see what happens with corn ethanol production when Mexican sugar comes in tariff-free starting in January.
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GreyFlcn 11:41AM (9/19/2007)
Corn prices have gone way up for those who import corn.
http://greyfalcon.net/grocerybill.png
==California uses ethanol as an oxygenate for summer gasoline, to cut down on smog due to evaporative emissions from legacy gasoline vehicles.==
Wrong. It's used for a winter blend to cut down on CO. It actually increases summer smog.
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol9
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol2
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol5
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Jeff 12:15PM (11/14/2007)
I can't see any upside to ethanol at this point in time. First off, it will affect the food supply. Not only does corn provide food for beef, pork and poultry, it is used in thousands of products you use everyday. Just to get you to think outside the box, ever heard of corn syrup, corn chips, and oh yea that grain we send over seas to developing nations. Where do you think that comes from? Corn is the WORLDS food supply. Second we don't have the room to have any affect on America's need for transportation fuel. If you we turned every corn crop into a corn for ethanol crop we would provide only 12 percent of what the country needs to keep running. Finally for those who actually think you'll get a break at the pump, from the harvest to the distillation you're still looking at 3 dollars a gallon. I just feel at this point, the resources are not there to support this here in America.
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