Ethanol: A Dream Come True?

Its a lazy sunday, and I just happened across an interesting article about ethanol which sparked my interest.

Ethanol is the current golden child of alternative energy in this country. President Bush and other members of the administration love to mention ethanol - and it has had more than its fair share of press in recent months. I am as ready as anyone to jump on the bandwagon - after all, a cheap, plentiful source of renewable energy sounds pretty good to me. But lets just take a step back and ask ourselves whether this confidence is justified.

Ethanol can be made from a large variety of sources (pretty much any sugar and starch containing plant could be a source) - China is interested in using Tapioca, and most people are aware of Brazil's success story - ethanol made from locally grown sugar cane. Check out some excellent blogging on the sources of ethanol at http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2006/05/politics-of-ethanol.html (This is Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis blog).

Currently, almost all of the ethanol in the United States comes from corn, which is problematic because ethanol made from corn is not as energy efficient as other sources, such as switchgrass. As you can imagine however, the farm industry has an interest in keeping the ethanol production centered on corn in this country. Read this quote from the New York Times article entitled "Springtime for Ethanol":

"For an industry once dominated by the will of a single powerful producer, Archer Daniels Midland, ethanol has come a long way, joining the oil industry and producers of major agricultural commodities as an entrenched political force in Washington. And it now enjoys a powerful role in presidential politics because of Iowa’s status as one of the first states to select delegates to the parties’ nominating conventions.

But with dozens of new ethanol plants coming online this year, the ethanol lobby is facing a critical point. The political reality is that corn’s days as the chief crop for making the fuel may be numbered.

Corn-based ethanol can only marginally reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil. But it does little, if anything, to improve energy efficiency, and the mounting concern of some politicians is that relying on corn is leading to collateral damage in other parts of the agricultural economy and threatening the nation’s status as the leading corn exporter. The big increase in the works may mean consumers would end up paying more at the supermarket.

So the ethanol lobby and its political supporters now face the challenge of trying to maintain the momentum of ethanol’s feel-good story before the potential negative consequences of the rapid ramp-up become all too apparent.

Clutching the reins these last five years is Mr. Dinneen, a longtime Washington lobbyist who joined the association in 1988. He recalled his early years there as a pitched war with the oil industry. “I would wake up in the morning and try to think of a way to vilify the oil guys,” he said.

Today, to keep the ethanol train moving, ethanol makers are cozying up to the oil industry, forming political alliances and enlisting executives from companies like Chevron as they race to make a quicker transition to cellulosic ethanol made from nonfood crops, like switchgrass.

Otherwise, public support could turn against the fuel, which yields a third less energy than petroleum-based gasoline and still relies on a federal subsidy of 51 cents a gallon to remain competitive." (Alexi Barrioneuvo, "Springtime for Ethanol" The New York Times, 1/23/07).

This quote touches on some of the less appetizing aspects of ethanol. It also points out something that most crop scientists are well aware of - that ethanol made from corn is so inefficient as to be inviable. The real hope for ethanol lies in biotechnology, in techniques and genetically engineered crops which do not yet exist. To those familiar with the idea, the true dream of ethanol is to produce the energy from a bioengineered crop which requires little energy or nutrient input - something like switchgrass but even more energy efficient. This worries me. Let us suppose that such a crop is genetically engineered - it will probably be a weedy-grass species (a member of the composite family most likely). It will contain genes which make it extremely drought resistant, and able to live in soils with little nutrients. This plant will be grown in vast acres of monoculture in order to supply enough ethanol. In such a situation the crop will suffer from all the problems that our current monoculturing creates (the constant need for new pesticides, high energy inputs via fertilizers, loss of land). Additionally, its identity as a weed plant may aid it to spread far beyond where it was planted - thus transferring its own genes into the genes of "natural" plants found throughout the country.


A second NY Times article came out more recently (see http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/weekinreview/11egan.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1), and it stresses the hope of decentralized ethanol production. We Americans love to envision ourselves as a country of small farmers - and the unfortunate reality of large agribusiness has disillusioned us. One of the reasons that ethanol appeals to us so much is that we see decentralized ethanol production as a way to bring the small farmer back into business. Who wouldn't love to see small, poor farming towns across the country being revitalized by new ethanol plants? Politicians of both parties talk about new jobs, energy independence and ethanol as though the three are easily obtained and profoundly related. But lets be careful not to let this kind of rhetoric confuse us. Currently, ethanol is part of large agribusiness, it is even affiliated with certain gas and oil companies. Additionally, government subsidies for ethanol are huge - something I do not want to criticize, but just aknowledge. The public should recongize the limitations of ethanol and the fact that competitive ethanol will go hand in hand with bioengineered crops. In my opinion, ethanol should be part of the answer to America's energy crisis, but it should not be the only answer.