Guest Column: GOING HOG WILD ON CORN?
On Ethanol: Conservation Should Precede Biofuels Mania
By Tom DeLuca, Guest Writer, 2-28-07
Montanans by nature are not the type to rush into an untested activity or fad. However, when it comes to energy, the whole country is in a frenzied search for alternative fuel sources. While this nation absolutely requires alternatives to fossil fuels, we first need to learn to conserve fuel; and second, thoroughly evaluate the sustainability of any proposed alternatives.
In the recent State-of-the-Union address, President George W. Bush advocatedreducing US gasoline consumption by 20 percent in 10 years: “Twenty in Ten”. This is a goal that could easily be attained through increased fuel economy standards. However, the Bush Administration instead chose to focus on biofuel development to displace 15 percent (or 35 billion gallons) of our unchecked petroleum consumption. Unfortunately, the nation currently produces only a fraction of this much biofuel and environmental concerns are not being considered. Since Montana is poised to play a major role in biofuel development, we must take a good look before we leap.
To date the only significant biofuel infrastructure in the US is corn grain ethanol. In 2006 we produced over five billion gallons of ethanol (less than 3 percent of transportation fuel demand) from corn produced on 9 million acres of prime farm land. That is a lot of corn, but not much fuel.
Even if every single acre of corn in the US were put into ethanol production it would only satisfy 14 percent of our projected fuel consumption.
There are a lot of other reasons to resist the lure of grain ethanol as a biofuel, here are just a few: (1) It takes one gallon of fossil fuel to produce 1.3 gallons of grain ethanol (not much gain); (2) Corn grain ethanol production promotes soil erosion (20 pounds of soil lost per gallon of ethanol); (3) The amount of corn required to fill one 25 gallon tank of gas could feed an person for a year; (4) Corn is an important export to developing countries, diversion to ethanol production may strain our capacity to supply these countries; (5) Ethanol cannot be transported by pipeline; (6) Ethanol plants demand large volumes of water and generate waste water.
The other major biofuel slated for development is cellulosic ethanol which is produced from logging residues and biomass crops. Cellulosic ethanol has a positive energy balance (about 5:1 units of ethanol per unit of fossil fuel), stores carbon, and can be produced from crops that actually protect soils. Unfortunately, cellulosic ethanol is not yet commercially available, thus the nation must go from zero to 25 billion gallons cellulosic ethanol in ten years.
Cellulosic ethanol requires a lot of biomass and thus a lot of land. It would take approximately 306 million tons of cellulosic biomass to produce 25 billion gallons of ethanol.
If Montana supplied just 10 percent of this biomass from logging residues or grasses, then 3 – 6 million acres of land in the state would be employed in annual biofuel production. Interesting idea. However, only about 400,000 acres of timbered lands are currently harvested each year in the whole Rocky Mountain West. Furthermore, biomass can only be hauled about 50 miles economically, thus grass crops in Scobey or logging residues in Yaak may be an unrealistic endeavor.
The environmental impacts of cellulosic ethanol producing plants are unknown. Some potential impacts include: (1) Ethanol plants require about four gallons of water per gallon of ethanol produced (a lot of water in a dry state); (2) The use of crop or logging residues denies soils of carbon and nutrients; (3) Ethanol plants require a constant flow of biomass (will fuel demand drive timber harvest?).
Biofuels certainly hold an important a place in our country’s fuel mix. Yet in a nation that insists on driving large vehicles that average less than 21 miles per gallon, the production of grain ethanol at the expense of soil resources and in the face of increasing global populations is, at best, irresponsible.
Cellulosic ethanol has a bright future, but source volumes and impacts must be scrutinized. As a society, it is our responsibility to learn to conserve fuel before we are entitled to the consumption of soil degrading fuels produced from food of fiber resources.
EDITOR’S NOTE: As an ecologist for The Wilderness Society, Mr. DeLuca specializes in issues of forest ecology, land resources, and environmental sustainability.
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Comments
Hence I do not fill up with E85 as I do not see the direct benefits of using it. I see the benefits down the road for generations to come. But wide use and acceptance won't happen till the direct benefits are realized.
That being said, I also agree that Ethanol isn't a very good stepping stone, and I think you outlined the reasons why very well.
I AM a big fan of biodiesel, however. It doesn't rpoduce the gallons/acre that ethanol does, but each gallon contains more energy. And diesel in general gets better milage than gasoline, or E85.
Unfortunately, biodiesel suffers a parallel problem to ehtanol: its made from an inefficient crop, soybeans; at around 50 gallons per acre. Thats in most of the country; in Montana, we have the oppotunity to grow it from rapeseed or canola or mustardseed- dryland- at around 110 gallons per acre. In the tropics they generate it from palm, at around 600 gallons per acre! But you have to clear a lot of tropical jungle to satisfy our thirst for transportation.
But the real future would be algea-based biodiesel. I just ran across this article:
http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=16840
About ponds filled with algea. They absorb carbon dioxide and sunlight, and can then be mined for vegetable oil- the feedstock to making biodiesel.
Good article. Although it would be good to see your source for these facts (for the sceptics). They seem to be pretty acurate in my opinion.
One thing you forgot to mention. Ethanol contains 76000 Btu in a gallon, or about two-thirds the energy of gasoline. Cars get lower milage with ethonol.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/fuel/rvp.html
I agree with the water issue. The midwest is already sucking the Ogallala Aquifer dry. Increasing ethonol (via corn) will only make things worse. Lands that have been vacant for decades are now being open for growing more corn. A lack of water will be this country's next big crisis.
I agree with Jimurl. There is no silver bullett. However, some good old Demand Side Management (DSM) would do wonders for gas conservation, but you'll never see a politician ask the public to do that!
How about plug in electric cars? There is a lot nighttime base-load energy going to waste in this country. Again, not the cure, but part of the solution.
And, as Jason notes "Ethanol contains 76000 Btu in a gallon, or about two-thirds the energy of gasoline."
Thus, (1.3 x .66 = 0.86) it takes more fossil fuel energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than the ethanol energy that gallon will yield.
In other words, producing ethanol will in fact speed up our depletion of fossil fuels and increase the emission of greenhouse gases.
Unfortunately, similar analyses show similar results for biodiesel and even worse for cellulosic ethanol. Not only, do biofuels produce no "silver bullets," they seem to be expensive shots in the dark.
The proponents of biofuels seem to have overlooked the Second Law of Thermodynamics (essentially, in energy conversion, there is no free lunch).
At our current rates of consumption, we'll use up the fossil fuel bounty Mother Earth has given us--from several hundred million years of relatively inefficient production technology--in 50 years (for oil and natural gas) to 250 years (coal). We're burning it up about a million times faster than it was made.
We'd better be careful about how we use what's left and not be wasting it on unworkable solutions like ethanol.
I don't think its a matter of running out of petroleum. I think its a matter of building, and continuing to build, a huge infrastructure based on an assumption about fuel costs. And ignoring the fact that those fuel costs will undoubtedly skyrocket when the resource becomes dear.
Oil companies are already making very long term investments to extract oil that would be unprofitable below $55 / barrel (eg: offshore arctic exploration & production-its difficult and expensive). They know a lot about oil markets--presumably, more than anyone else. This indicates to me that they expect the value of a barrel of oil to go very high, and stay there.
...also, I think you missed the beginning of Gary Richardson's statement: "At our current rates of consumption, .... " I think we would all agree that our rate of consumption will go down as the price goes up drastically.