Biofuel Hazard

The USDA chief economist says the outlook for ethanol is poor, which predictably means that the government is going to double down on it. It's the great hope of politicians the world over that they can get a silk purse out of this sow's ear. Outside the circles of politics and industry beneficiaries, though, there's less enthusiasm and more worry.

Jill Richardson posted a great biofuel news roundup over the weekend at LaVidaLocavore where I found this CivilEats interview with Dr. David Pimentel, which summarizes his most recent findings this way:

1) According to recent analysis, it takes 143% more energy to make one gallon of ethanol than is contained in the ethanol itself.

2) If the entire United States corn crop were used for fuel, it would replace a mere 4% of US oil consumption.

3) One of the possible replacements for corn ethanol is called cellulosic ethanol – made from plant stalks, corn husks and other agricultural waste – but this material is even less efficient than corn and takes even more energy to produce.

4) It currently requires 1,700 gallons of water to produce each gallon of ethanol (mostly to grow the corn.)

In place of taking more energy to produce ethanol than is contained in it, read: negative carbon balance. Also, if you've been following this blog, or perhaps just the news, you probably already realize that trading water for fuel at a 1700:1 ratio makes for an unworkable long-term solution. And we would still, as the Energy Justice Network points out in this fact sheet, never meet our energy needs with ethanol.

Though what about that other biofuel, biodiesel? EJN says that aside from algae-sourced biodiesel, plant biodiesel has resource problems similar to corn ethanol for unworkability:

... In order produce enough biodiesel to convert our entire transportation needs to soy biodiesel, we would need to plant 2.8 billion acres of farmland in soybeans. In the US, roughly 302 million acres of land is now used for growing crops, with the majority of that actually being used to produce animal feed for the meat industry. Each car in the US would need approximately 10 acres of soybeans to supply its fuel needs. While corn-based ethanol is energy intensive, soy-based biodiesel is land intensive – taking 5 times more land to produce the equivalent of biofuel energy. Consider vegetarianism saving land from avoiding wasteful cycling of food crops through animals to produce food; however, vegetarians using biodiesel made from soybeans are usurping 6 times more land for their cars than their beef-eating counterparts are for cows. ...

As EJN details at the link, tropical biodiesel produced from palm oil is even more destructive, promoting the clearing of millions of acres of rainforest. As noted in a recent Mother Jones article, rainforest clearing has made Indonesia the world's third largest emitter of carbon dioxide.

Arguments over whether farmland should go for livestock or crops will probably rage for a long time. But anyone involved in the discussion who genuinely cares about global warming should agree that whatever food is produced from agricultural lands, it's unconscionable to be burning it for transportation while worsening our carbon predicament at the same time.

(Photo credit: Akash k on Flickr.)