Is the ethanol boom about to bust?

Yes

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by Roy C Dudgeon

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Why Ethanol Is Not An Ecologically Appropriate Alternative Fuel

Yes the ethanol boom is about to bust, or if it isn't, it should be. There are three main reasons for this.

1. Ethanol production involves diverting land from food production to energy production in a world where millions go to bed hungry every day. This means that the more land is diverted from producing food to producing energy, the less land is available for food production.

The problem is that there is only a limited amount of arable land, and what there is is slowly disappearing. There are various reasons for this, including: salinization (soils becoming too salty to be productive), soil erosion or desertification, and urban sprawl (building or paving over productive lands).

Thus, as world populations increase, diverting limited available lands from food production to energy production is not a long-term strategy consistent with feeding the world, and can certainly never replace petroleum. It also increases the price of food, making it less affordable to the world's poor.

2. Ethanol production is actually subsidized by petroleum inputs in several ways. First, much of the electricity which will be used to produce ethanol in the new production facilities being built in the United States, in particular, will be provided by coal-burning power plants. Thus any saving in greenhouse emissions from burning "cleaner" ethanol will be more than offset by the coal used in it's production.

Second, farm machinery used to plant and harvest corn (from which ethanol is primarily made) almost universally runs on diesel, which is also derived from petroleum. Many agricultural inputs, including artificial fertilizers and pesticides, are also derived from petroleum.

Thus ethanol production is actually indirectly converting oil and coal to ethanol by way of corn, which is far from an efficient way of producing renewable energy. In fact, ecological anthropologists pointed out decades ago that contemporary industrial agriculture actually /uses/ more energy in the form of petroleum inputs than it /produces/ in terms of usable food calories (Harris 1977:284). Add to that the energy that is used in transportation and manufacturing in the production of ethanol, and I find it hard to imagine that ethanol production could be considered sustainable without petroleum subsidies.

3. Ethanol, while based on the use of renewable, living things, is not emission free. True, ethanol is a cleaner burning fuel than petroleum, but it still releases both carbon dioxide (contributing to global warming) and nitrogen oxides (contributing to acid rain) as all combustion does. Given the petroleum subsidies involved in it's production, the marginal gains in cleanliness which it offers over petroleum are really negligible from an ecological perspective.

Yet all the necessary technology already exists to create a completely emission free and completely sustainable energy system. This system involves a combination of photovoltaics (active solar) and wind turbines to provide electricity (both are emission free). This power is then used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen by means of electrolysis. The hydrogen is stored for use as a fuel, while oxygen (which we all breathe) is released into the environment. The hydrogen may then be used as a fuel in a fuel cell in order to produce three things-waste heat, electricity and water vapor. The power can be used in transportation and in back up generators to provide power when wind and solar aren't. This system is referred to as "the hydrogen economy" in the ecological literature.

To conclude, if the ethanol boom is not about to bust, we should hope it does soon. The sooner we stop pretending we can produce "alternative" fuels based on petroleum subsidies, and get busy investing our time and money developing truly emission free and sustainable energy systems the better. Its better for you and me. It's better for the Earth. And its better for our children.

References, additional reading:

Seth Dunn, (2000) "The Hydrogen Experiment," World Watch, November-December.

Ma rvin Harris (1977) Cannibals & Kings: The Origin of Cultures, Vintage Books.

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