« Mikhail Gorbachev Admits He Is A Christian | Main | Obama's 'Very' Troubling (No, Make That Scary) World View (Updated) »

March 19, 2008

Oh Hell, Let Them Eat Biofuel

The energy requirements of ethanol production mean that using ethanol as fuel isn't all that much better for the environment than using gasoline; and at best - even if all the corn planted in the United States were used for ethanol, biofuel would still displace only 12 per cent of gasoline consumption.

But the Left has sold us a pig in a poke. In the course of falling for the environmentalists' delusions, Al Gore's great hoax on the world, and political power, wheat and food costs are soaring as the boom in ethanol production is driving up the price of food:

[...] Of the record 93 million acres of corn planted in the United States in 2007, about 20 per cent went to ethanol. Since most of the rest is used to feed animals, the prices of beef, milk, poultry, and pork are all affected by increases in the cost of corn.

[...] The high energy requirements of ethanol production mean that using ethanol as fuel isn't all that much better for the environment than using gasoline. One might think that burning the biofuel would release only the carbon dioxide that corn captures as it grows. But that simplified picture, which has often been conjured up to support the use of ethanol fuel, doesn't withstand closer scrutiny.

In fact, Polasky says, the fossil fuels needed to raise and harvest corn and produce ethanol are responsible for significant carbon emissions. Not only that, but the cultivation of corn also produces two other potent greenhouse gases: nitrous oxide and methane. Polasky calculates that corn-derived ethanol is responsible for greenhouse-gas emissions about 15 to 20 per cent below those associated with gasoline: "The bottom line is that you're getting a slight saving in terms of greenhouse-gas emissions, but not much."

If corn-derived ethanol has had little impact on energy markets and greenhouse-gas emissions, however, its production could have repercussions throughout the agricultural markets. Not only are corn prices up, but so are soybean prices, because farmers planted fewer soybeans to make room for corn.

The World Food Program is preparing to ration food aid for the world's hungriest poor. Why? Primarily because we're burning food in our automobiles. The rich-country mandates for biofuels have doubled and tripled world food prices in less than three years.

Unfortunately, we've allowed our government to spend billions on ethanol subsidies, artificially lowering the price, while selling us on the false promise of cheaper fuel from corn and cleaning up the environment. Instead of what the environmentalists and politicians have promised, we've taken a giant leap into a food nightmare; we've sleep walked into a rapidly-emerging world food crisis. All while our government places a 54-cent-a-gallon tariff on cheaper, more energy efficient ethanol from Brazil made from sugar cane that's far more energy efficiently produced than corn. Brazil's ethanol yields nearly eight times as much energy as corn-based options.

Yet the U.S. continues toward higher food prices and a food crisis - still pushing ethanol from corn.

Really dumb, huh!

Related: ETHANOL'S POTENTIAL: Looking Beyond Corn

Cross posted from Hyscience

Posted by Abdul at March 19, 2008 4:12 PM