The Ethanol Conundrum

By Aaron Midgett

Ethanol as a fuel source is one of the most misguided efforts to date and it continues to be touted as a great green alternative.  Oil companies, politicians and farm groups all place ads bragging about the great work that they are doing to save the planet with biofuels. Being a renewable energy scientist and a nature lover, I try to be green in the way that my family and I live, but supporting the production of ethanol from corn is ludicrous.

If we start with the basic fact that photosynthesis in corn is approximately 1% efficient, it becomes very clear that for ethanol to be viable, it would need to be produced extremely efficiently and without much waste.  This however is not the case.  For every bushel of corn turned into ethanol, 2.5 gallons of fuel are produced. This would be fine and dandy, except for the fact that it takes between 1.29-1.0 gallons of gasoline to produce enough ethanol to replace one gallon of gasoline at the pump.

The amount of energy lost in the production and operation of farm equipment, fertilizer, transportation, and ethanol production exceeds the equivalent amount of fuel gained by 20-30% in some studies, while in others it manages to break even.  To top it all off, even if corn took no energy to produce or turn into ethanol, the best the corn could do is to break even in the carbon game.  All of the carbon reduction that comes from growing corn is released back into the atmosphere immediately when burned as fuel.    Now add on top all of the other sources of carbon in ethanol production and it is worse for the environment than gasoline.

The ethanol boom has made food prices increase and drastically reduced the land available for food production.  While cellulosic ethanol (ethanol produced from waste plant material) and sugarcane are better alternatives that won’t interfere with food supply and are more efficient, both have significant problems that need to be overcome.  In cellulosic ethanol, the increased possessing needed still yields a large amount of wasted energy, and sugarcane has the problem of being mostly produced in tropical climates leading to the destruction of rain forests.   Even with these limitations, Brazil has managed to produce half of its fuel from sugarcane, and is now completely energy independent.

Another solution, while only in limited quantities, is biodiesel produced from used vegetable oil.  These oils that help to make anything fried delicious, are routinely put into landfills when they could be used to run cars around the country.  Due to the relatively small quantity of waste oil, this is not an option for large scale production, but there is no reason to waste these fuels when they could be used.

Just because corn subsidies are through the roof and producing biofuels makes us look greener, there is no reason to waste time, energy and effort on a process that is not beneficial to our energy independence or the environment. Instead, we should focus on real solutions that could potentially provide all of the benefits that we so desperately want.