Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

The misguided politics of corn ethanol
Published: September 19, 2007
 http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/19/news/edethanol.php


Backed by the White House, corn-state governors and solid blocks on both
sides of Congress' partisan divide, the politics of biofuels could hardly
look sunnier. The economics of the American drive to increase ethanol in
the energy supply are more discouraging.

American corn-based ethanol is expensive. And while it can help cut oil
imports and provide modest reductions in greenhouse gases compared with
conventional gasoline, corn ethanol also carries considerable risks. Even
now as Europe and China join the United States in ramping up production,
world food prices are rising, threatening misery for the poorest countries.

The European Union has announced that it wants to replace 10 percent of its
transport fuel with biofuels by 2020. China is aiming for a 15 percent
share. The United States is already on track to exceed Congress' 2005 goal
of doubling the amount of ethanol used in motor fuels to 7.5 billion
gallons by 2012. In his State of the Union speech in January, President
George W. Bush set a new goal of 35 billion gallons of biofuels by 2017. In
June, the Senate raised it to 36 billion gallons by 2022. Of that, Congress
said that 15 billion gallons should come from corn and 21 billion from
advanced biofuels that are nowhere near commercial production.

The distortions in agricultural production are startling. Corn prices are
up about 50 percent from last year, while soybean prices are projected to
rise up to 30 percent in the coming year, as farmers have replaced soy with
corn in their fields. The increasing cost of animal feed is raising the
prices of dairy and poultry products.

The news from the rest of the world is little better. Ethanol production in
the United States and other countries, combined with bad weather and rising
demand for animal feed in China, has helped push global grain prices to
their highest levels in at least a decade.

Earlier this year, rising prices of corn imports from the United States
triggered mass protests in Mexico. The chief of the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization has warned that rising food prices around the world have
threatened social unrest in developing countries.

A recent report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, an economic forum of rich nations, called on the United States
and other industrialized nations to eliminate subsidies for the production
of ethanol which, the report said, is driving up food costs, threatening
natural habitats and imposing other environmental costs. "The overall
environmental impacts of ethanol and biodiesel can very easily exceed those
of petrol and mineral diesel," it said.

The economics of corn ethanol have never made much sense. Rather than
importing cheap Brazilian ethanol made from sugar cane, the United States
slaps a tariff of 54 cents a gallon on ethanol from Brazil. Then the
government provides a tax break of 51 cents a gallon to American ethanol
producers - on top of the generous subsidies that corn growers already
receive under the farm program.

Corn-based ethanol also requires a lot of land. An OECD report two years
ago suggested that replacing 10 percent of America's motor fuel with
biofuels would require about a third of the total cropland devoted to
cereals, oilseeds and sugar crops.

Meanwhile, the environmental benefits are modest. A study published last
year by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, estimated
that after accounting for the energy used to grow the corn and turn it into
ethanol, corn ethanol lowers emissions of greenhouse gases by only 13
percent.

The United States will not meet the dual challenges of reducing global
warming and its dependence on foreign suppliers of energy until it manages
to reduce energy consumption. That should be its main goal.

There is nothing wrong with developing alternative fuels, and there is high
hope among environmentalists and even venture capitalists that more
advanced biofuels - like cellulosic ethanol - can eventually play a
constructive role in reducing oil dependency and greenhouse gases.

What's wrong is letting politics - the kind that leads to unnecessary
subsidies, the invasion of natural landscapes best left alone and soaring
food prices that hurt the poor - rather than sound science and sound
economics drive America's energy policy.