Converting corn into ethanol biofuel, sounded like a good idea to some people, including Congress. However, record high food prices, which many experts link to ethanol production, have led to riots in Haiti, Mexico, and other countries around the globe. This comes as no surprise. As early as 2004, a study by the International Energy Agency titled Biofuels for Transport (pdf), expressed concern that “as crops (or cropland) are drawn away from other uses, prices can rise.”
Last year the Sierra Club and the Worldwatch Institute jointly released a study on ethanol production in Iowa titled Destination Iowa (pdf). The report pointed out that rising corn prices “benefited some, but have caused a host of other problems” including putting “conservation land back into production.”
Scott Cullen, Senior Policy Advisor for the Network for New Energy Choices, warned last year that “expansion of the corn ethanol industry will lead to more water and air pollution and soil erosion of America's farm belt, while failing to significantly offset fossil fuel use or combat global warming.”
The Earth Policy Institute calls converting grain (namely corn) into fuel a “misguided effort to reduce” oil dependence which generated “global food insecurity on a scale never seen before.” The Institute calls for an end to the “subsidy for converting food into fuel and to do it quickly before the deteriorating world food situation spirals out of control.”
An article on the website Science Alert listed the reasons why the benefits of first generation biofuels can be discredited:
- The increase in fuel security is insignificant as just a 5-10 per cent replacement of fossil fuel would require the conversion of much of a countries grain production.
- The carbon dioxide reduction benefits of first generation biofuels have been shown to be negligible to negative.
- Owners of arable acres may be able to retire in comfort but some in agriculture will lose.
- Food price inflation resulting from high grain prices may be manageable in the developed countries but in the developing countries it will tear them apart both economically and politically.
- Higher prices for grain may not lead to the expected worldwide supply response and the modernization of agriculture in developing countries.
- Suggestions that grain ethanol production is necessary as a stepping stone to the introduction of cellulose ethanol appear unfounded. The grain ethanol infrastructure will not be located where needed for the production of cellulose ethanol. -- Science Alert
An article by the World Changing Team cited two studies published in the journal Science in February; one by University of Minnesota researchers, and the other by Princeton University researchers. The studies “found that biofuels can actually produce more carbon dioxide emissions than they save—if they force natural habitats to be converted to cropland, releasing the carbon contained in trees and grasses and in the soil they grow on.”
In February the San Francisco Chronicle published an opinion piece by Alexander E. Farrell, Associate Professor of Energy and Resources at the University of California Berkeley who advocates making fuel from waste, natural prairie grasses (on land not fit for food crops), and algae. “We can see real progress toward climate friendly biofuels today. Many scientists in university and private laboratories are working on this goal, and the U.S. Department of Energy has helped to fund half a dozen advanced biofuel pilot plants, Farrell believes.
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