Filed under: Ethanol
Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" expanding, possibly due to corn bubble
American farmers use a lot of fertilizer on their crops and much of that fertilizer ends up running off the fields before it's absorbed by the plants. When that happens it ends up in streams and rivers. In the central part of the United States where a lot American agriculture happens, most of those rivers end up eventually flowing into the Mississippi River. That means that anything that goes into those rivers ends up down the Mississippi and ultimately into the Gulf of Mexico.Unfortunately decades of intensive nitrogen-rich fertilizer use has created a zone at the mouth of the Mississippi that is starved of oxygen. This "dead zone," which now measures over 7,900 square miles, was first discovered in 1985 and it now appears to be growing much larger. The increase in corn cultivation as a result of ethanol demand may be partly to blame. The business of growing corn means that more nitrogen runs off from corn fields and into the watersheds. Previous EPA estimates had about 210 million pounds of nitrogen fertilizer going into the Gulf annually, with 2007 figures not yet available. The increase in corn growing and the size of the algae bloom visible from satellite photos points to a big increase.
[Source: MSNBC]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
mike 8:17PM (1/06/2008)
And Agra-Business Denies the Existence of these "Dead Zones" or it's caused by Sun spots, or it's too late to fix it, or it's "ok" if we change the eco-system, because we know what we're doing, or man's contribution is too small to be the cause.
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BlackbirdHighway 10:27PM (1/06/2008)
Ironically, most of the fertilizer comes from oil, the very thing were supposed to be not using by growing all this corn.
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Dad 10:32PM (1/06/2008)
I suggest that anyone who is really genuinely worried about the impact that corn is having on this problem stop using anything that involves corn. In other words, put up or shut up. This blame everyone else and never take any responsibility for your own behavior gets old real quick.
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BillySharps 10:50PM (1/06/2008)
Yet another reason corn ethanol is one of the worst ideas we've every come up with.
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kballs 1:10AM (1/07/2008)
We really need cellulosic ethanol if we keep making any ethanol at all. It would allow us to harvest all the invasive plants and noxious weeds (scotchbroom, mesquite, blackberries, etc.) for ethanol feedstock. That means growing feedstock everywhere BUT farms (where we want to grow FOOD). That means ZERO fertilizer, ZERO pesticide, ZERO water, ZERO inputs (other than harvesting/hauling/processing energy which comes with any crops and even getting oil out of the ground and converting it to fuels).
Any fuel crop we grow needs to avoid fertilizer/pesticide/water usage at all cost, otherwise the environmental benefit is vastly negated or inverted.
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gsolman6 8:48AM (1/07/2008)
"I suggest that anyone who is really genuinely worried about the impact that corn is having on this problem stop using anything that involves corn. In other words, put up or shut up. This blame everyone else and never take any responsibility for your own behavior gets old real quick."
No a better idea would be to pass on the costs of environmental damage to the producers and through them to the consumers. Then farmers might find ways to reduce runoff or to use less impactful methods.
Is it the fault of us consumers that corn subsidies exist that promote this overproduction. I sure as hell did not vote for any ethanol subsidies - as a matter of fact I wrote my congressman to stop all fossil fuel and ethanol subsidies because it is a lose-lose proposition.
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Tim 9:11AM (1/07/2008)
The CIA would call this type of unintended consequence "Blow Back." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldgbOxDX6DE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12oy7L3-v8k
More biofuels = less jungle, less biodiversity, less life in the sea due to fertilizer run off and more starvation due to higher food costs. The "cure" could be worse than the disease!
Blowback from our occupation of the Middle East in the name of securing "our" oil for over 50 years including dozens of bases, regime decapitation, bombing etc. created the current Jihad against the west. Our current "war" which was NOT authorized under Constitutional requirements is helping the Jihadists recruit and train more generations of fighters worldwide. The high cost of the US Nation building is killing the US the same way it killed the USSR.... Bankruptcy! Look the US $Dollar vs Gold in the last 10 years. http://www.kitco.com/charts/popup/au3650nyb.html
The Republicrats are just too stupid, foolish, egotistical and stubborn to admit that repeating or continuing a mistake is NOT the way to correct it.
The ONLY person in the Presidential race who would change this is Ron Paul and that’s why FOX kept him out of Sunday’s debate.
Fox news is owned by Newscorp http://www.cjr.org/resources/index.php?c=newscorp and Newscorp majority stockoholder is Rupert Murdock http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=THE+HORROR+THAT+IS+RUPERT+MURDOCH
BIG GOVERNMENT SOCIALISM ALWAYS SCREWS THINGS UP!!!!!
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sensitive_man 9:53AM (1/07/2008)
http://healthygulf.org has some info on the dead zone too.
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fred schumacher 11:32AM (1/07/2008)
If you read the article you will see that the worst dead zone events happened before the ethanol boom. So what percent of the variance does corn ethanol explain? Just saying that it MAY cause a dead zone doesn't mean that it is the MAIN cause or even a significant cause.
Fertilizer is not made from oil. Nitrogen fertilizer is made from natural gas. Potash and phosphate are mined.
Today, fertilizer application has become very scientific, with GPS equipped fertilizer spreaders tied in to soil-type mapped databases that regulate fertilizer application on the fly, as the spreader goes through the field. Fertilizer is very, very expensive. You use the minimum to do the job. You also use the minimum tillage to do the job. Fuel is very very expensive. Combines are equipped with GPS, flow sensors, and data recorders so the farmer knows, at the end of the year, exactly what each part of a field produced and at what input levels. (It's called MEY - aiming for Maximum Economic Yield.) Today's farming is high-tech.
If export corn is included, three-fourths of the American corn crop goes into animal feed. If you want to blame anything for the dead zone, it should be meat. Not only does meat demand set corn production acreage, but much of the feedlot manure that is created and put back on the fields gets flushed off in the spring with run-off water. The manure is rich with nitrogen.
It's the world-wide demand for meat that is driving this price cycle. Subsidies have precious little to do with it, especially when grain prices are higher than the trigger points for subsidies.
However, corn ethanol, a pioneer technology, will in the future morph into biomass ethanol or other liquid fuels. Land that is in corn now could be placed into perennial grass crops, which are low-fertility, low-input, no tillage crops. Ethanol would then help clean up the dead zone.
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Kardax 1:47PM (1/07/2008)
Let's not forget the growth of FOOD demand. Eliminating corn-based ethanol isn't going to fix that one.
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philmcneal 7:50PM (1/07/2008)
i just wanted to say, the comments are great, i'm learning everything from each "bias" member. I love ABG!!!
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mike 9:41PM (1/07/2008)
If you're growing Corn for Fuel, then you're paying the "Stupid Tax".
Net Energy from Switchgrass Much Higher then Expected:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/01/study-finds-net.html#more
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Tim 10:59AM (1/08/2008)
Mike, is it still the "Stupid Tax" when we are forced to "voluntary donate" or face prison time?
Perhaps you meant to say "ignorant, foolish or corrupt politician tax."
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slo-gin 1:07PM (1/08/2008)
Some of you people are unbelievable, if America decreased its corn production there would be "dead-zones" all over the world, not of fish starving for oxygen but of people starving for food. Sometimes I wonder if todays environmentalist cares about humanity at all.
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mike 8:57PM (1/08/2008)
slo-gin,
Sorry, I thought the corn was for corn-fed cows, to fatten them up quickly on corn, and give us cholestorel. Then there's corn-syrup, to give us diabetes. But, maybe you're right, maybe we are exporting corn to feed the worlds poor, I don't know.
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Nicolette 8:43PM (2/06/2008)
There is actually an insurance/warranty plan that the government passed for all farmers... Basically it is asking the farmers to not use excessive fertilizer on a portion of their crops. If the farmer produces less crop then they are insured...
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040612/bob9.asp
Look it up for yourself. It's not just corn, it is all crops. The best thing we can do is buy organic. It tastes better and it is better for you. At this point in the game it's not about war, or being a vegetarian... It is about stepping up and doing something about it. People are very good at blaming everyone and everything except for themselves. And the earlier comment about environmentalists not caring about humans... Two views on that: You have to care about the environment for human sustainability, that is the whole reason - so that there is something here for humans to inhabit. 2) We wouldn't be in this situation if it weren't for humans.
Everyone needs to do their part: recycle, buy recylced goods, buy organic... the list is endless.
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Autumn 11:16AM (9/25/2008)
i think that the Dead zone is somthing that we all should learn about because you never know what could happen in the world today.
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