Ethanol is ‘Subsidized Food Burning’

• By Roger Segelken 
  Cornell Chronicle, March 6, 2009 
  Straight to the Source 

Neither increases in government subsidies to corn-based ethanol fuel nor hikes in the price of petroleum can overcome what one Cornell agricultural scientist calls a fundamental input-yield problem: It takes more energy to make ethanol from grain than the combustion of ethanol produces.

At a time when ethanol-gasoline mixtures (gasohol) are touted as the American answer to fossil fuel shortages by corn producers, food processors and some lawmakers, Cornell’s David Pimentel takes a longer range view.

“Abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuel amounts to unsustainable, subsidized food burning,” said the Cornell professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Pimentel, who chaired a U.S. Department of Energy panel that investigated the energetics, economics and environmental aspects of ethanol production several years ago, subsequently conducted a detailed analysis of the corn-to-car fuel process. His findings will be published next month in the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences and Technology.

Among his findings:

* An acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn for processing into 328 gallons of ethanol. But planting, growing and harvesting that much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $347 per acre, according to Pimentel’s analysis. Thus, even before corn is converted to ethanol, the feedstock costs $1.05 per gallon of ethanol.

* The energy economics get worse at the processing plants, where the grain is crushed and fermented. As many as three distillation steps are needed to separate the 8 percent ethanol from the 92 percent water. Additional treatment and energy are required to produce the 99.8 percent pure ethanol for mixing with gasoline.

* Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion to ethanol, 131,000 Btu are needed to make 1 gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 Btu. “Put another way,” Pimentel said, “about 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in ethanol. Every time you make 1 gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 Btu.”

* Ethanol from corn costs about $1.74 per gallon to produce, compared with about 95 cents to produce a gallon of gasoline. “That helps explain why fossil fuels — not ethanol — are used to produce ethanol,” Pimentel said. “The growers and processors can’t afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol. U.S. drivers couldn’t afford it either, if it weren’t for government subsidies to artificially lower the price.”

* Most economic analyses of corn-to-ethanol production overlook the costs of environmental damages, which Pimentel says should add another 23 cents per gallon. “Corn production in the U.S. erodes soil about 12 times faster than the soil can be reformed, and irrigating corn mines groundwater 25 percent faster than the natural recharge rate of ground water. The environmental system in which corn is being produced is being rapidly degraded. Corn should not be considered a renewable resource for ethanol energy production, especially when human food is being converted into ethanol,” Pimentel said.

* The approximately $1 billion a year in current federal and state subsidies (mainly to large corporations) for ethanol production are not the only costs to consumers, the Cornell scientist observes. Subsidized corn results in higher prices for meat, milk and eggs because about 70 percent of corn grain is fed to livestock and poultry in the United States. Increasing ethanol production would further inflate corn prices, Pimentel said, noting: “In addition to paying tax dollars for ethanol subsidies, consumers would be paying significantly higher food prices in the marketplace.”

Nickels and dimes aside, some drivers still would rather see their cars fueled by farms in the Midwest than by oil wells in the Middle East, Pimentel acknowledges, so he calculated the amount of corn needed to power an automobile:

* The average U.S. automobile, traveling 10,000 miles a year on pure ethanol (not a gasoline-ethanol mix), would need about 852 gallons of the corn-based fuel. This would take 11 acres to grow, based on net ethanol production. This is the same amount of cropland required to feed seven Americans.

* If all the automobiles in the United States were fueled with 100 percent ethanol, a total of about 97 percent of U.S. land area would be needed to grow the corn feedstock. Corn would cover nearly the total land area of the United States.

Local Remanufacture at Counterpulse

Counterpulse, an event space in San Francisco for arts and culture, held a discussion panel Wednesday evening entitled “Local Remanufacturing Our Way out of the Depression.” The panel and discussion were a breath of fresh air in an atmosphere of fear of catastrophe. These are the people who are preparing for continuing economic breakdown and developing positive methods to build local economies.

 

Peter Berg of the Planet Drum Foundation, Neil Seldman of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and Kevin Drew of the City of San Francisco’s Department of the Environment served as speakers for the panel.

 

Berg began by discussing the export of recyclable materials versus remanufacturing recyclables locally. Local remanufacture is not only better on the environment, but also better on the local human economy. When we achieve a high level of recycling—say 75%—we’re actually achieving a high level of garbage separation. We are merely separating it so that it can be sold off to another country.

 

Seldman later made the point that some believe much of the low-grade plastic actually ends up in an incinerator. Although to me, this would mean a reversal of the monetary exchange. Waste Management would be paying them to take the plastic versus them paying WM. Either way, we are recycling, but into a cycle that was bad to begin with.

 

Seldman also argued that we have in the United States a waste oligopoly. Allied and Waste Management are separate but in cahoots, because if they did merge, “someone might say something about it.” This oligopoly works to control recycling and build incinerators, to which Seldman is opposed. There are new forms of waste disposal being developed, he said, but these are essentially incineration in disguise. Plastics will be melted and the gas thus released is then burned, for example.

 

Seldman also proposed positive changes like a national tax on garbage, deconstruction rather than demolition, and the building of repair skills, such as in electronics. If there were local recycling, he argued, more jobs would be created: there are more jobs in recycling than in waste.

 

One proposal he rejected was that of requiring companies to deal with their own waste created by the consumers of their products. He claimed that this would eliminate unions, although did not explain why.

 

Kevin Drew’s comments concluded the panel. He spoke of the possibilities of local glass recycling, and even a revisiting of the returnable bottle. “I lived in a returnable world,” he stated, speaking of his experience with waste as a child. The One-Way Bottle, as he called it, is a new phenomenon.

 

Discussion was impassioned and pertinent, with questions being raised about reaching those outside the Bay Area Bubble, as well as the problematics of pollution caused by recycling facilities.

 

I give Counterpulse high marks for a timely and relevant topic, and engaging, smart speakers. I hope venues around the Bay Area continue to discuss and debate methods of rebuilding our local economy.

Check out Counterpulse.org

Also On:

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/03/12/18576369.php

Personal Statement

I just came across the personal statement that I wrote in application to the Green String Institute. It is important to look back on things that you have written some time ago, in order to track and stay focused on what you believe in and what inspires you…

 

I am motivated to participate in Green String’s Internship position because I foresee a future in which people will need to be knowledgeable on sustainable food production in order to subsist. Drastic changes in agriculture need to occur in order to avoid a complete breakdown of our food economy. I hope to make those changes happen, or at least prepare for that breakdown through my own personal enrichment.

 

My fieldwork on houseless train-hoppers while at UC Berkeley left a deep impression on my views of the world. My subjects’ critiques of housing, land, food, and politics were elegant and enlightening. They essentially abandoned all the social systems they deemed corrupt, instead choosing to live off the waste of an over-consuming society. Many of them had dreams to live on their own self-sufficient farms, although life on the streets seemed to me to make that dream far out of reach.

 

After graduating from the Anthropology Department, I continued study in housing and agriculture, researching sprawl, slums, and industrial crop production. I have been particularly influenced by the writings of Wendell Berry. His essays speak a wealth of truth for the present day, even though he was writing 30-40 years ago. Had more people heard his call to change, what would the world look like now? His writings are more pertinent than ever, providing guidelines for a synergistic relationship with the land and arguments against the destruction that industrial agriculture reaps on our most precious home.

 

I find myself swaying between extreme pessimism and excited optimism on these issues, for although the situation on our planet seems dire, I feel a seed of hope sprouting in the form of awareness and recognition of the seriousness of the need to reform our economies. Now, instead of environmentalists being perceived as “hippies” or “tree-huggers,” we are in a position to work together to literally save our planet.

 

A long-time friend of mine has been living in Hawaii for the past eight months, living and working on farms, and we often speak together about the growing feeling of apocalypse. There are many farms in Hawaii owned and inhabited by people who feel similarly about the possibility of an erosion of our food economy, and this belief intrigues me. I hope to eventually move to Hawaii in order to research the apocalypse communities that have formed there. What do these communities have to teach the rest of the country and world?

 

Sustainability defines a system that can regenerate and renew itself constantly and consistently. Human systems can be sustainable by learning from and harnessing natural regenerative systems. Places with a strong sense of community have a greater ability to be sustainable. Berry writes about transient professionals who, in order to be successful in their field, must never form a sense of community and must never consider a place their home, because that would prevent them from performing their various exploitative jobs. This was a stark contrast from my past research subjects who considered every place their home– hence they were not “homeless.” Knowledge of and participation in one’s community makes for sustainability because members can be aware of what products are available immediately around them.

 

One of my greatest concerns about human interaction with their surrounding community/environment is our disconnection from the sources of our commodities. In fact, most people do not even wish to know where their commodities come from, because the truth is too painful. Instead, people choose to blindly purchase and consume. For example, my aunt and uncle live in El Dorado Hills, a relatively rural area outside of Sacramento. My uncle purchased a side of beef from a neighbor who had slaughtered their own cow. My aunt found this disgusting, and regretted her husband’s newly acquired meat’s presence in the freezer. Why has it become easier to eat a dinosaur-shaped ‘chicken nugget’ than a side of beef from the cow down the street? Why are the nuggets not shaped like chickens, but instead an almost mythical and fantastical creature? Do we prefer our food to remain in the sphere of fantasy?

 

The issue of disconnection led to my decision to cease eating animal flesh and, as much as possible, all animal products. It is bad enough to have little to no control over the treatment of the horticultural products I consume, I do not desire the torture of animals in my belly. A stronger community would allow me to have knowledge about what is happening to the soil because of my need to eat, as well as what is happening to the animals who provide dairy, eggs, and meat. If people were forced to awareness of where these products originate, perhaps we would not be consuming so much meat and creating the issues of waste, land use, and hunger we have now.

 

I have strong commitment and motivation regarding agricultural issues, but I have much to learn, and am in need of a space in which to learn. Traditional schooling is possible, but also costly, and lacks the hands-on experience I desire. Currently, I am single and have no family or dependents of any kind. Now is the time to commit myself fully and deeply into a program such as this. I have a tremendous ability to get immersed in my course of study, but also need a community of peers with which to collaborate. Among the talents and traits I would bring to Green String are a keen and critical insight, an interdisciplinary sensibility, and a strong desire to contribute to and engage in a course of instruction.

 

Although not a religious person in the mainstream sense, I do believe that we are ‘all God’s children’ in that each one of us is always learning if we choose to harness it, and so always in a state of dependence. I feel that every experience I have and person I meet is an opportunity to become fuller and more engaged as a person. Participating in the Green String Institute would bring me closer to the person that I hope to be and to succeed in what I hope to accomplish.