Food, Ethanol, and Energy

According to an article in The Economist, food prices are near all-time highs in nominal terms, and above recent highs in real terms. This is due to an ensemble of disastrous farm policies encapsulated in The Farm Bill and our obsession with corn-based ethanol. Leaving aside the other glaring problems with The Farm Bill, corn-based ethanol is a monster that needs to be scared away.

While Iowa, Bush, Congress, and the campaigning Presidential candidates are pressing ethanol as our energy security panacea, those of us who don't have to win Iowa know better, including the Wall Street Journal in this article, which spells out the disillusionment with ethanol. Corn is a crop that is hungry for water and fertilizer, and therefore not very efficient, as fertilizer production is one of the dirtiest industries in the world in terms of GHG production. According to various estimates, it takes between 0.78 and 2.2 units of energy from oil to get 1 unit of energy in ethanol. Even according to the optimistic estimate, we aren't doing very well. Worse yet, every dollar we spend to subsidize ethanol is a dollar that can't be spent to develop a more promising technology.

Ethanol, in competing with food as a use of corn, is driving food prices up, which hurts the poor most. According to one estimate, modest ethanol substitution for gasoline will cost the US $1 billion per year. Even if we use all corn production for ethanol, it will only displace 12% of our gasoline usage. At the same time, current Congressional funding for ethanol results in subsidies for oil refineries--is this the industry we should be subsidizing in our pursuit of renewable energy?

I have been in dozens of energy conferences, and I have yet to hear a scientist say a good word about corn based ethanol. The production of ethanol from corn is an inefficient process. A scientist from Eastman went so far as to say that we'd be better off from a carbon-sink standpoint if we grew the corn and buried it rather than turned it into ethanol. Switchgrass and hybrid poplars are popular plants for carbon sinks because they grow quickly and with very few inputs. But corn is way down the list of something we ought to be growing on a global scale to solve our climate change problems. Before we overhaul our farm system and energy economy, oughtn't we consider the options and pick a rational one?

Join me in telling Congress and the Presidential candidates to refuse pandering to Iowa, especially now that their caucus is over.