Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute president and author of Plan B 2.0 yesterday briefed the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on the potential implications of a continued rush towards corn ethanol. The paper Lester Brown submitted to the Committee begins thus:

The escalating share of the U.S. grain harvest going to ethanol distilleries is driving up food prices worldwide. Investment in fuel ethanol distilleries has soared since gasoline prices jumped at the end of 2005. Once completed, distilleries now under construction could double U.S. ethanol output, turning nearly 30 percent of next year's U.S. grain harvest into fuel for automobiles. This unprecedented diversion of the world's leading grain crop to the production of fuel will affect food prices everywhere, risking political instability. - Biofuels Blunder

The article continues to outline an alarming convergence of factors that are currently affecting the world grain market - eg. world grain demands have exceeded production for the last seven years, putting grain stockpiles at their lowest in thirty-four. As the price of corn rises worldwide, so too do a huge array of products that depend on it.

In the past, food price rises have usually been weather related and always temporary. This situation is different. As more and more fuel ethanol distilleries are built, world grain prices are starting to move up toward their oil-equivalent value in what appears to be the beginning of a long-term rise. - Biofuels Blunder

The world is only 57 days away from a major humanitarian disaster in food supplies, and, given the unpredictable nature of weather patterns in recent years, and predictions of worse to come, the potential for crop failures are on the increase.

Against this backdrop, Washington is consumed with "ethanol euphoria." President Bush in his State of the Union address set a production goal for 2017 of 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels, including grain-based and cellulosic ethanol, and fuel from coal. Given the current difficulties in producing cellulosic ethanol at a competitive cost and given the mounting public opposition to coal fuels, which are far more carbon-intensive than gasoline, most of the fuel to meet this goal might well have to come from grain. This could take most of the U.S. grain harvest, leaving little grain to meet U.S. needs, much less those of the hundred or so countries that import grain.

The stage is now set for direct competition for grain between the 800 million people who own automobiles, and the world's 2 billion poorest people. The risk is that millions of those on the lower rungs of the global economic ladder will start falling off as rising food prices drop their consumption below the survival level. - Biofuels Blunder

These are all ingredients for a recipe for disaster. Unfortunately, it's not just President Bush that is an eager biofuels advocate - all the main presidential candidates get 'mysteriously' converted on this issue as well.

Hear how Hillary Clinton changed her stance on biofuels once she decided to run for office

 

McCain Changes His Stand on Biofuels

 

Are there alternatives to effectively running down the poor of this world with our vehicles?

There are alternatives to this grim scenario. A rise in auto fuel efficiency standards of 20 percent, phased in over the next decade would save as much oil as converting the entire U.S. grain harvest into ethanol.

One option that is gaining momentum is a shift to plug-in hybrids. Adding a second storage battery to a gas-electric hybrid car along with a plug-in capacity so that the batteries can be recharged at night allows most short-distance driving-daily commuting and grocery shopping, for example-to be done with electricity. If this shift were accompanied by investment in hundreds of wind farms that could feed cheap electricity into the grid, then cars could run largely on electricity for the equivalent cost of less than $1 per gallon gasoline. - Biofuels Blunder

Let's hope Lester Brown's study is not just filed away and forgotten by the Senate Committee. You can do your part by bringing this page to the attention of your local representative.

 

Further Reading:

• Food Prices on the Up & Up
• A Vision for a Better Future
• Biofuels - It's Getting Annoying Now
• Veiling Our True Predicament - Politics & Industry