Ethanol

Over the past few months, it seems like many folks not associated with or beholden to the corn clique of the agribusiness industry have started to realize that biofuels relying on food crops — corn in particular — might not be such a good idea.

For example, consider this graphic which appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Can we quit drinking the ethanol kool-aid now?  (Although, the algae line looks interesting.  I wonder what the catch is….)

I’ve observed on this blog previously that I have a fascination with complex relationships with systems. It’s one of the things that attract me to my little niche of the actuarial world, where I enjoy poring through piles of data to spot odd correlations upon which my businesses can profit.

Sometimes my love of patterns and correlations takes on a bit of a macabre tone. For example, consider this New York Times article:

Drought has already spurred significant changes in Australia’s agricultural heartland. Some farmers are abandoning rice, which requires large amounts of water, to plant less water-intensive crops like wheat or, especially here in southeastern Australia, wine grapes. Other rice farmers have sold fields or water rights, usually to grape growers.[...]

The global agricultural crisis is threatening to become political, pitting the United States and other developed countries against the developing world over the need for affordable food versus the need for renewable energy. Many poorer nations worry that subsidies from rich countries to support biofuels, which turn food, like corn, into fuel, are pushing up the price of staples. The World Bank and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization called on major agricultural nations to overhaul policies to avoid a social explosion from rising food prices.

With rice, which is not used to make biofuel, the problem is availability. Even in normal times, little of the world’s rice is actually exported — more than 90 percent is consumed in the countries where it is grown. In the last quarter-century, rice consumption has outpaced production, with global reserves plunging by half just since 2000. A plant disease is currently hurting harvests in Vietnam, reducing supply. And economic uncertainty has led producers to hoard rice and speculators and investors to see it as a lucrative or at least safe bet.[...]

Senegal and Haiti each import four-fifths of their rice. And both have faced mounting unrest as prices have increased. Police suppressed violent demonstrations in Dakar on March 30, and unrest has spread to other rice-dependent nations in West Africa, notably Ivory Coast. The Haitian president, René Préval, after a week of riots, announced subsidies for rice buyers on Saturday.

I’ve written previously about my idea of a more coordinated semi-mandatory investment in new energy infrastructure. However, the unintended consequences of speculation in the energy market, as well as the potential fallout from shifts in agricultural markets if/as climate change manifests, have me wondering if maybe some of that potential R&D shouldn’t also go towards investments in promoting domestic/local food production… or finding sustainable alternatives, at least… in those locales where importation of food may become / is becoming problematic.

Seen in USA Today:

The widespread use of ethanol from corn could result in nearly twice the greenhouse gas emissions as the gasoline it would replace because of expected land-use changes, researchers concluded Thursday. The study challenges the rush to biofuels as a response to global warming.

The researchers said that past studies showing the benefits of ethanol in combating climate change have not taken into account almost certain changes in land use worldwide if ethanol from corn — and in the future from other feedstocks such as switchgrass — become a prized commodity.[...]

The study said that after taking into account expected worldwide land-use changes, corn-based ethanol, instead of reducing greenhouse gases by 20%, will increases it by 93% compared to using gasoline over a 30-year period. Biofuels from switchgrass, if they replace croplands and other carbon-absorbing lands, would result in 50% more greenhouse gas emissions, the researchers concluded.[...]

“We should be focusing on our use of biofuels from waste products” such as garbage, which would not result in changes in agricultural land use, Searchinger said in an interview. “And you have to be careful how much you require. Use the right biofuels, but don’t require too much too fast. Right now we’re making almost exclusively the wrong biofuels.”

I’m one of several folks who have been concerned about the unintended consequences of drinking the ethanol kool-aid, ranging from stressing already limited water supplies to fallout from the increased competition for food crops.

Can we now start looking for more viable sustaniable fuel options, rather than just pandering to agribusiness lobbyists?

So, remember how the feds have caved into the corn division of corporate agribusiness in promoting corn-based ethanol as the current preferred alternative fuel?

Remember too how several of us have expressed concern about the resource consumption and energy inefficiency involved with corn-ethanol?

Seen at Scientific American:

Once established, the [switchgrass] fields yielded from 5.2 to 11.1 metric tons of grass bales per hectare, depending on rainfall, says USDA plant scientist Ken Vogel. “It fluctuates with the timing of the precipitation,” he says. “Switchgrass needs most of its moisture in spring and midsummer. If you get fall rains, it’s not going to do that year’s crops much good.”

But yields from a grass that only needs to be planted once would deliver an average of 13.1 megajoules of energy as ethanol for every megajoule of petroleum consumed—in the form of nitrogen fertilizers or diesel for tractors—growing them. “It’s a prediction because right now there are no biorefineries built that handle cellulosic material” like that which switchgrass provides, Vogel notes. “We’re pretty confident the ethanol yield is pretty close.” This means that switchgrass ethanol delivers 540 percent of the energy used to produce it, compared with just roughly 25 percent more energy returned by corn-based ethanol according to the most optimistic studies.

Perhaps Bush wasn’t completely silly in his promotion of switchgrass in a past State of the Union address. It’s a shame, however, that the idea hasn’t caught on as preferable to the cult of corn ethanol.

And one more compromise appears to have been struck as Congress sought to close the books on 2007. From the New York Times:

The bill, which passed on a bipartisan vote of 314 to 100, sets higher fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks for the first time in 22 years and requires the annual production of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022, a fivefold increase from current ethanol production levels.

The measure, the Energy Independence and Security Act, also establishes new efficiency requirements for household appliances and government buildings, and aims to phase out the incandescent light bulb within the next decade.

Its passage is one of the largest steps on energy the nation has taken since the oil crises of the 1970s. But its full costs will not be known for years. Critics say it will make cars and trucks less safe and more expensive, divert farmland to costly production of feedstock for ethanol and other synthetic fuels, and raise the price of food because of competition for corn and grain between food producers and fuel refiners.

I love seeing conservation being pressed in new building design…especially in government building design, since “leading by example” can be a potent tool in changing how we think of energy consumption. However, I’m still disappointed that folks in Washington are listening too much to the corporate farm lobby to be aware of the downsides of ethanol production. (For example, the amount of water required to distill ethanol in parts of the country where a declining water table is an issue.)