> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/g/a/2008/04/02/cstill...
>
> Fuel or folly?
>
> Ethanol and the law of unintended consequences
>
> by Cinnamon Stillwell      Wednesday, April 2, 2008
>
> In the pantheon of well-intentioned governmental policies gone awry,
> massive ethanol biofuel production may go down as one of the biggest
> blunders in history. An unholy alliance of environmentalists,
> agribusiness, biofuel corporations and politicians has been touting
> ethanol as the cure to all our environmental ills, when in fact it may
> be doing more harm than good. An array of unintended consequences is
> wreaking havoc on the economy, food production and, perhaps most
> ironically, the environment.
>
> Biofuels are fuels distilled from plant matter. Ethanol is corn-based,
> but other common biofuel sources include soybeans, sugar cane and palm
> oil, an edible vegetable oil. In the search for alternatives to fossil
> fuels, many countries have turned to biofuels, which has led to a
> booming business for those involved. In the United States, ethanol is
> the primary focus and, as a result, corn growers and ethanol producers
> are subsidized heavily by the government.
>
> But it turns out that the use of food for fuel is wrought with
> difficulties. Corn, or some derivative thereof, is a common ingredient
> in a variety of packaged food products. So it's only natural that, as
> it becomes a rarer commodity due to the conflicting demands of biofuel
> production, the prices of those products will go up. The prices of
> food products containing barley and wheat are also on the rise as
> farmers switch to growing subsidized corn crops. During a time of
> economic instability, the last thing Americans need is higher prices
> at the grocery store, but that's exactly what they're getting.
> At the same time, corn is the main ingredient in livestock feed and
> its dearth is causing prices of those products to rise as well.
> Farmers have had to scramble to find alternative sources of feed for
> their livestock and, in some cases, have had to sell off animals they
> can no longer afford to feed. This, in turn, has led to an increase in
> the price of meat and dairy products for consumers.
>
> The hit on the livestock industry has also affected jobs, with
> countless employees being laid off due to the downturn. Pilgrim's
> Pride Corp., the nation's largest chicken producer, announced in March
> that it was closing a North Carolina chicken processing plant, and six
> of 13 U.S. distribution centers, due to the jump in feed costs. Even
> Iowa, the state that produces the most corn and therefore the supposed
> beneficiary of new jobs due to ethanol production, has seen its
> unemployment rate rise over the past year. The plant layoffs and
> closings already underway due to global competition and the
> fluctuating market have continued unabated.
>
> Another adverse impact of ethanol production is potential water
> shortage. One gallon of ethanol requires four gallons of water to
> produce. According to a recent report from the National Research
> Council, an institution that focuses on science, engineering,
> technology and health, "increased production could greatly increase
> pressure on water supplies for drinking, industry, hydropower, fish
> habitat and recreation."
> Not only is ethanol less productive than gasoline as a fuel source,
> its production is hurting the environment it was intended to preserve,
> particularly in the Third World. The amount of land needed to grow
> corn and other biofuel sources means that their production is leading
> to deforestation, the destruction of wetlands and grasslands, species
> extinction, displacement of indigenous peoples and small farmers, and
> loss of habitats that store carbon.
>
> Scientists predict that the Gulf of Mexico, already polluted by
> agricultural runoff from the United States, will only get worse as
> demand for ethanol, and therefore corn, increases. Meanwhile, rain
> forests throughout Central and South America are being razed to make
> way for land to grow biofuel components. Tortilla shortages in Mexico,
> rising flour prices in Pakistan, Indonesian and Malaysian forests
> being cut down and burned to make palm oil, and encroachments upon the
> Amazon rainforest due to Brazilian sugar cane production -- all these
> developments indicate that biofuels are turning out to be more
> destructive than helpful.
>
> The latest issue of Time magazine addresses the subject in frightening
> detail. Michael Grunwald, author of the cover story, "The Clean Energy
> Scam," posits a worldwide epidemic that could end up being a greater
> disaster than all the alleged evils of fossil fuels combined. As he
> puts it:
> "Deforestation accounts for 20 percent of all current carbon
> emissions. So unless the world can eliminate emissions from all other
> sources -- cars, power plants, factories, even flatulent cows -- it
> needs to reduce deforestation or risk an environmental catastrophe.
> That means limiting the expansion of agriculture, a daunting task as
> the world's population keeps expanding. And saving forests is probably
> an impossibility so long as vast expanses of cropland are used to grow
> modest amounts of fuel. The biofuels boom, in short, is one that could
> haunt the planet for generations -- and it's only getting started."
>
> Accordingly, the United Nations has expressed skepticism about ethanol
> and other biofuels. But the European Union seems to have bought into
> the biofuel craze with proposed legislation to mandate its use. This
> proposal has set off alarm bells in the United Kingdom, particularly
> with the British government's chief science advisor, Professor John
> Beddington, who has warned that a food and deforestation crisis is
> likely to overtake any climate concerns. "The idea that you cut down
> rainforest to actually grow biofuels seems profoundly stupid," he
> stated. Similarly, the British government's top environmental
> scientist, Professor Robert Watson, called the policy "totally
> insane."
> Some British environmentalists apparently agree, as do members of the
> American environmental movement. As noted in the aforementioned Time
> article, the Natural Resources Defense Council's Nathanael Greene, the
> author of a 2004 report that rallied fellow environmentalists to
> support biofuels, is "looking at the numbers in an entirely new way,"
> now that biofuel production exists on such a large scale.
>
> None of this has deterred American politicians from jumping on the
> ethanol bandwagon. No doubt, they see it as a means of garnering
> political support from the farm lobby and in particular ethanol
> producers, to whom they have provided generous federal subsidies.
> Indeed, President Bush, who according to his 2006 State of the Union
> address is a switchgrass enthusiast, has signed a bipartisan energy
> bill that will greatly increase support to the ethanol industry, as
> well as mandating the production of 36 billion gallons of biofuel by
> 2022.
>
> In an election year, there has been no shortage of environmental
> platitudes aimed at voters and, inevitably, ethanol has been a
> mainstay. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has been
> singing the praises of ethanol in Iowa, while her rival, Barack Obama,
> merely criticized her for not doing so earlier. Republican candidate
> John McCain, once an ardent opponent of ethanol, has suddenly become a
> convert.
>
> The motto among both Democrats and Republicans on this issue seems to
> be "If it sounds good, push it," and a gullible public -- seduced by
> climate change hysteria and a "Going Green!" advertising onslaught --
> is buying into it.
>
> While the search for alternatives to fossil fuels, and in particular
> the dependence upon foreign sources thereof, is laudable, future
> avenues must be considered more carefully. As the looming ethanol
> disaster has demonstrated, yet again, the road to hell is paved with
> good intentions.
> ----------------
> For full biofuel facts, seehttp://home.att.net/~meditation/bio-fuel-hoax.html
>
> Christopher Calder