Chesapeake Bay Journal: Reliance on corn ethanol may have more problems than promise

Reliance on corn ethanol may have more problems than promise

By Karl Blankenship

In 1908, Henry Ford proved to be ahead of his time. He built the world’s first flex-fuel vehicle: The Model T, which could burn either gasoline or ethanol from corn.

All cars manufactured today can burn an “E10” blend—10 percent ethanol to 90 percent gasoline. More than 6 million “flex fuel” vehicles on the road can burn either gasoline or, like the Model T, a mostly ethanol blend known as “E85,” which is 85 percent ethanol.

But some question whether that’s a good choice.

Last year, 12 percent of the nation’s corn harvest went toward ethanol, supplying about 2.8 percent of the nation’s fuel. The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that in about two years—even with increased corn acreage—ethanol plants will use 30 percent of the corn crop, producing nearly 12 billion gallons of ethanol.

Given that U.S. gasoline consumption is about 140 billion gallons a year, that could convert almost all vehicle fuel to E10.

Going beyond that is problematic; although a growing number of vehicles can burn E85, the owners may not want to. A gallon of ethanol has about a third less energy than a gallon of gasoline, so mileage drops rapidly.

In October 2006, Consumer Reports estimated that drivers paying $2.91 per gallon for E85 actually paid about $3.99 for the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline because the distance the vehicles traveled per gallon declined by 27 percent.

Further, demand for ethanol is already boosting the cost of corn for other uses—like food, the biggest user of corn.

A bit more than half of U.S. corn production goes to animal feed, where producers have been hard hit. Some will go out of business; the others will be passing costs on to consumers.

“If feed costs for livestock and dairy producers continue to increase, the higher costs will eventually lead to higher food costs,” said Rob Wonderlich, of the Dairy Farmers of America, in recent testimony to Congress.

As land is diverted to corn, the cost of other crops, such as soybeans, is expected to rise, according to the USDA.

The problem could be more dire for countries that import corn—the United States supplies the vast majority of the world’s corn exports—which will both decline, and become more expensive. The USDA projects that corn production this year will increase by 16 percent, but total exports will decrease by 14 percent.

Ironically, part of the push for ethanol stems from a desire to reduce imports from the Middle East and other politically unstable areas. But Lester Brown, an agricultural economist and president of the Earth Policy Institute, noted that diverting food to fuel may create unrest of its own for areas such as Indonesia, Egypt, Algeria, Nigeria and Mexico, which import corn. The high price of corn tortillas has already led to civil strife in parts of Mexico.

Brown estimates that the amount of corn it would take to fill a 25-gallon gas tank with ethanol one time would feed one person for a year.