Burn, Baby, Burn!

After hearing the pros and cons for years now on Ethanol, I have decided this issue needed some in depth fact checking. First distant history - Ethanol was first prepared synthetically in 1825 by a scientist named Michael Faraday (Remember that name? For those concerned about EMP, he is the inventor of the Faraday Cage).

Ethanol is the bio fuel that is the main driver in the United States. Because the United States has produced so much corn in bumper years as well as to keep the price of corn from becoming depressed, it has been mandated that 40% of our annual corn crop would be used in the production of Ethanol.

Now a bit of recent history. By 2010, over one-quarter of all the maize (corn) and other grain crops grown in the US went to produce fuel for cars and not to feed people. As much as I would like to blame this on the current Administration, the biofuel revolution that was launched by former President Bush in 2007 started impacting world food supplies in 2010. That year 107,000,000 tons of grain, mostly corn, was grown by US farmers to be blended with gasoline. This was nearly twice as much as in 2007 when Bush challenged farmers to increase production by 500% by 2017 to save energy and reduce carbon emissions.

Here is part of an blistering article from a March 2011 Australian publication which addressed this madness:

The US spends about $6 billion a year on federal support for ethanol production through tax credits, tariffs, and other programs. Thanks to this financial assistance, one-sixth of the world's corn supply is burned in American cars; enough corn to feed 350 million people for an entire year.

 

Government support of rapid growth in biofuel production has contributed to disarray in food production. Indeed, as a result of policy in the US and Europe, including aggressive production targets, biofuel used more than 6.5 per cent of global grain output and 8 per cent of the world's vegetable oil last year, up from 2 per cent of grain supplies and virtually no vegetable oil in 2004.

This year, after a particularly bad growing season, we see the results. Global food prices are the highest they have been since the UN started tracking them in 1990, pushed up largely by increases in the cost of corn. Millions more people will be undernourished than would have been the case in the absence of official support for biofuels.

 

We have been here before. In 2007 and 2008, the swift increase in biofuel production caused a food crisis that incited political instability and fuelled malnutrition. Developed countries did not learn. Since 2008, ethanol production has increased by 33 per cent.

 

As I just said, this is absolute madness! The growing years we had in 2010 and 2011 were very good compared to what we are experiencing this year. People will starve; many more millions will either go hungry or malnourished. People in this country, still in the grip of the Great Recession, will have higher food prices on just about everything.

Besides the hunger and increased food pricing issues, let us not forget about the impact of Ethanol on our vanishing resource - water. Prior studies have estimated, based on national production averages, that one liter of corn-derived ethanol should require 263 to 784 liters of water to both grow the crop and convert it into fuel. Now researchers at the University of Minnesota have concluded that the amount of water used in ethanol production varies hugely from state to state, ranging up to 2,138 liters of water per liter of ethanol, depending on regional irrigation needs. With our aquifers becoming depleted and suffering through the worst national drought since the 1930's, this multiplies the madness.

 

Finally there is the issue of pollution. Factories that convert corn into the gasoline additive ethanol are releasing carbon monoxide, methanol and some carcinogens at levels "many times greater" than they promised. The problem is common to most, if not all, ethanol facilities. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) being released by the ethanol plants include formaldehyde and acetic acid, both carcinogens. Methanol, although not known to cause cancer, also is classified as a hazardous pollutant.

The final nail in the coffin for Ethanol production is the odor. Anyone who has ever driven past a plant in full operation knows exactly what I am talking about. Some towns with active factories produce an odor that is called “extremely offensive” and can be noticed a mile away and still detectable three miles out.

To summarize, Ethanol production in the United States:

• It literally takes food out of the mouths of the world's neediest and
• It causes the price of food to increase not only in this country, but also the world and
• It uses an incredible amount of scarce ground water and
• Pollution is a byproduct of production and
• The stink.

We need an executive order immediately which halts the burning of our food in these Ethanol plants. To not do so would be a crime against humanity. Our proven reserves of petroleum increases every year in the United States and Canada. We don't need to burn our food for energy. If anything, we can use sugar cane (like in Argentina) or switch grass. But corn? Absolutely not!