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TODAY Thursday 5 June 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
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TODAY Thursday 5 June 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
TODAY IN THE WORLD: Fabulous Ethanol
My sources in the Heartland would talk only under conditions of unbreakable anonymity. They worry that local farmers will find out what they actually think about ethanol.
"Total bullshit," said one, "a giant subsidy and an energy nosebleed."
"Welfare for Iowa," said another. "It's a scheme to use corn because we grow too much of it."
They were reacting to a front-page story in yesterday's New York Times that Ford would soon build 250,000 vehicles that could run on either gasoline or ethanol. Ethanol is an alcohol fuel, 95% of which is made from the distillation of corn. Its combustion releases fewer noxious chemicals into the air than does the combustion of gasoline, though ethanol's contributions to global warming are now estimated to be slightly worse. Unlike most petroleum these days, ethanol is produced domestically, and the safeguarding of its sources of supply would not require a Rapid Deployment Force.
Keith Bradsher, the Times reporter who broke the story, writes that no one thinks that Ford is motivated by reasons of national security or environmental protection (though the dual-fuel vehicles will sport an icon of a green leaf popping up through a highway). Under a little-known provision of the federal fuel-economy law, the production of "alternative fuel" vehicles softens the requirements for a manufacturer's overall fleet fuel efficiency. And since automakers are gaining their biggest profits these days from vehicles that guzzle gas -- pickup trucks, vans, sport/utility wagons -- they're looking for ways to meet federal requirements without sacrificing growth in their most popular product lines. Chrysler is poised to make the same move as Ford.
Some of the enviro lobbyists are outraged. It's all a shuck, they say, pointing out that ethanol is not a realizable option for most drivers, since there are only 40 service stations in the country that pump the stuff. This is all about making the way safe for more Ford Explorers.
That is surely so, but I wanted to check in with my Corn Belt sources to see how things were playing down on the farm. Farmers love ethanol, of course, because they can grow the feedstock. And under current law, they receive special income tax benefits for growing a fuel-destined crop, almost always corn. Indeed, farmers are already highly subsidized to grow corn. They get tax write-offs on fertilizer, seeds, and machinery, and if they need irrigation, most of the water is supplied by federal taxpayers. Without all these subsidies, plus the additional subsidies for the distillers, ethanol just wouldn't have a chance in the marketplace.
Which doesn't have to end the argument, of course; maybe subsidies for an ecologically-desirable liquid fuel aren't such bad things. The problem with corn-based ethanol is that it's just not very ecological in the first place.
Depending on who you talk to and how they run their numbers, the production of ethanol is either a net energy loss or a slight net energy gain. That is, when you calculate the energy requirements to grow and distill the corn (huge amounts going to nitrogen fertilizer) and then subtract that figure from the energy contained in the ethanol itself, at best you get a small number. Marty Bender in Salina, Kansas (who's not afraid to talk on the record) estimates that if every square inch of US cropland grew corn that became ethanol, there would be a net energy gain of 10 percent for the nation's diet of liquid fuels consumed by cars, trucks, and buses. It might be easier to carpool, he suggests.
Marty's calculations don't even factor in the costs of the soil erosion that would ineluctably occur when farmers tried to expand corn production onto non-bottomlands. All in all, better to keep the carbon in the ground than in the gas tank. A energy-rich carbon molecule in soil will continue to sustain production over time; a molecule of fuel is spent in an instant, and adds to our woes (and our pleasures). There's a definite need for Americans to figure out efficient, ecological ways to convert plants to mechanical energy; ethanol from corn just isn't one of them.
TODAY ON THE SITE
For information on Websites that talk intelligently about cars, trucks, and fuel efficiency, go right to our Automobiles (Fuel Efficiency) High Fives and the authoritative list from Dan Becker and Steve Pedery of the Sierra Club.
6/04: Swine and Federalism
6/03: A New Measure
6/02: My Front Yard
5/30: Funders
5/29: Quantification
5/28: Over the Top
5/27: Solar Hippies
5/23: Spiffy Cars, Clunker Bikes
5/22: Petroleum Heresy
5/21: We Irish
5/20: Shallow Backpackers
5/19: Songbirds
5/16: Fat, Fat, Fat
5/15: Our Forthright Administration
5/14: Coral Reefs of the Sahara
5/13: (Life Before) Death and Taxes
5/12: Kids
5/09: Free Trade and Hormones
5/08: Sherry Boehlert, Republican
5/07: Fort Davis, West Texas
5/06: Europe (yawn)
5/05: Divorce, Mothers, Equality
5/02: Killer Grannies and the Highway Bill
5/01: China
4/30: Pity the Mangrove
4/29: Grizzlies off Battery Park
4/28: Mighty Monsanto
4/25: Growth
4/24: Refrigerator Wars
4/23: The Day the Earth Day Stood Still
4/22: Doorman Ecology
4/21: Toyota Steps Out
4/18: Victims of Extremism
4/17: Our White Guy Problem
4/16: Coca-Cola and the Merrit Parkway