by Cole Mellino
Today, more corn is grown in America for ethanol than for food or for livestock feed. For every 10 ears of corn grown in the U.S., two are consumed by humans, and the other eight are used for feed and fuel. In the last year, the scales have tipped so that ethanol represents the largest share of corn use — 5 billion bushels of corn went to animal feed and residual demand while “the nation used more than 5.05 billion bushels of corn to fill its gas tanks.”
That is sure to rile all those who see corn ethanol as an over-subsidized boondoggle for the climate, a group that includes Climate Progress (see “The Fuel on the Hill” and “Let them eat biofuels!“)
Corn ethanol was always touted as a “stepping stone” to advanced fuels. That is still true in theory. But with the government supporting traditional ethanol for so long, it’s time to refocus our efforts non-food based fuels. Here are the top five reasons why the U.S. should shift incentives away from traditional corn ethanol:
- Life cycle studies show that corn ethanol ranges from barely better than petroleum fuels to significantly worse, especially if you take into account land and water use issues, increased deforestation, and increased fertilizer use.
- Corn ethanol contributes to rises in food prices because of competition for arable land to grow food. With more corn for biofuels taking up that space, the price of grains and other agricultural products increases.
- For many in the developing world, rising prices mean they don’t eat. People in poor countries, especially in import-heavy sub-Saharan Africa, feel the impact of rising food prices far worse than in developed countries. This is because they spend so much more of their income on food. As the Poor people do not have that luxury. As the UN Reported earlier this month, 26 countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, are still at extreme risk of hunger, with biofuels playing a significant role in exacerbating the problem.
- Climate change mitigation from biofuels will be “very limited” before 2050. “We will not have any greenhouse gas savings for the next 20 years…because they are working with first generation crops,” according to Mahendra Shah, an advisor to Qatar’s food security program.
- By focusing our national investments on corn ethanol, we prevent other technologies, including other biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol and micro algae biodiesel, which are low greenhouse gas emitters, from competing with corn ethanol.
Much has been written about the environmental and social consequences of food-based fuels. But with the U.S. now using more corn for ethanol that for animal feed or food for humans, that alarm is likely to increase.
— Cole Mellino is an intern on the energy team at the Center for American Progress
Related Posts:
- “The Corn Ultimatum: How long can Americans keep burning one sixth the world’s corn supply in our cars?”
- Are biofuels a core climate solution?
- Can words describe how bad corn ethanol is?
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Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
O.K. Wall Street, you have proven that there is more money to be made fueling cars and growing meat for the rich Nations than feeding the people of the poor Nations. You have also proven that there is more money to be made in polluting the air, water and earth than keeping livable commons.
Looks like time for a New Kid on the block and a Government of, by, and for the PEOPLE.
Amen, Leif.
Start with convincing Senator Tom Harkin he must give up on ethanol. Try it.
Taken internally?
Leif:
And that evidence about what activities makes more money shows that sometimes the “invisible hand of the marketplace” flips you the bird and then punches your lights out.
As I say so often on my own site, the free market should be a tool to be used to achieve society’s goals, not a god to be worshiped, and not a weapon to attack the less fortunate among us. The market is astonishingly good at making very short term resource allocations based on pricing data, but that’s it. Anything else we want, like a social safety net, basic fairness in the market itself, reduction in environmental damage, etc. has to arise from public policy or it simply won’t happen.
Really! Expecting capitalists to put human life (particularly that of other, browner, types)before profit maximisation. What are you?- a Goddam Carmnist? If 9 out of 10 capitalists refuse to commit an obscenity, you’ll always find that one ‘entrepreneur’ with a fittingly attenuated conscience who will leap at the opportunity. Capitalism is the perfect lowest common denominator system, the reductio ad absurdum, the terminal race to the bottom, and we are living through its end-stage. Of course millions are not living-they are dying of needless starvation or by NATO bombs dropped on their homes or by untreated disease etc, and these numbers will soon swell into the hundreds of millions, and all the time the capitalists will go on, feverishly plotting to pile up more and yet more filthy lucre.
Clear studies show that ethanol generates more harmful tropospheric ozone than other fuels.
Very, very stupid to promote ethanol. It’t true cost is immense.
See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091214101408.htm or Google “ethanol ozone”
Once the capitalists have invested their money, once the profits and the subsidies provided by their political employees are flowing, nothing can stop them. Not conscience, not compassion, not human empathy. You could say that a process produces a toxin that attacks all living matter, animal or plant, and the pathocrats couldn’t care less. And tropospheric ozone is just that substance.
I agree. Waste of public funds.
As I suggest one can go in for Biofuels from Agave(Americana) Sisal Agave which is a care free growth plant which has Cellulose and Fermentable Sugars. Mexico is already doing this.
Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
Wind Energy Expert
E-mail: anumakonda.jagadeesh@gmail.com
It’s astonishing that corn ethanol is still in business. All of the evidence about displacing food supplies and worsening global warming has been in for a few years now. All Congress or Obama would have to do is end the subsidies.
It’s not just Wall Street- it’s Dallas, and wherever Cargill and Monsanto are headquartered.
American corn production has doubled over the last 30 years to accommodate the need for more corn for ethanol. This rise in production was the result of higher prices. So we’re producing the same amount of corn for food that we always have been.
Ethanol is certainly not a perfect fuel by any means. But it is produced in America and as a matter of national security we should encourage its use. Hopefully we can increase corn production even more and have more ethanol production.
Finally, 30 years ago farmers all across the U.S. were going broke due to low prices. If prices are higher, that’s a good thing. Each country should raise its own grain and not fuss at the United States over how we choose to use ours.
Further proof that any government meddling in the market for energy production is counterproductive.