Rising demand for alternative energy sources was one of the key themes for the 2007 Chicago Auto Show. Automakers still giddy from President Bush’s State of the Union promise address to “continue investing in new methods of producing ethanol” and the passage of H.R.547, the Advanced Fuels Infrastructure Research and Development Act, touted the latest in hybrid, electric and hydrogen fuel cell concept rides.
While our intrepid field reporters evaluated the worldchanging qualities of these autos, Chicagoans coped with ever more expensive tortillas across the city. Not surprisingly, the two topics (automobiles and corn tortillas) are connected on many levels. The American Farm Bureau Federation's chief economist told the Chicago Sun Times
There’s a growing demand for corn for the gasoline additive ethanol. And with more corn being exported, prices have risen upward of $5 a bushel, the highest in at least 10 years.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates the nation’s 110 ethanol plants used 2.15 billion bushels of corn in 2006. There are now 77 ethanol plants in construction across North America, and with a 51-cent-a-gallon subsidy that won’t expire until 2010 and a 54-cent-a-gallon tariff on incoming ethanol, it is unlikely that it will slow down anytime soon.
Farmers are likewise flocking to the corn rush, forgoing traditional crops like cotton, soybeans and wheat in favor of planting corn this year. Corn ethanol certainly holds considerable appeal: billboards have been spotted throughout the Midwest, juxtaposing Saudi oil businessmen with American farmers asking passersby, “Who would you want to buy your oil from?” The allure of an American-born solution to our looming energy crisis is potent.
Yet, as illustrated by Mexican citizens protesting the rise in tortilla prices on February 1st, corn ethanol poses a conflict between food and energy. Consumers are also going to encounter higher prices on other common products, including food containing high fructose corn syrup and meat from corn-fed factory cattle. Lester Brown, director of the Earth Policy Institute, said that an “epic contest is brewing between the world’s 800 million motorists and the 2 billion poorest people, who spend as much as half their income on food.”
Beyond corn ethanol’s impact to the food supply, there is considerable concern for the potential harm to the world's biodiversity because of increased need for farm acreage. Babe Winkelman wrote in Checkbiotech.org:
It is also estimated that U.S. farmers will need to increase corn acreage to 90 million acres by 2010, which is about the time another 70 to 90 ethanol plants come online, producing about 12 million gallons of fuel.
Those seeking to capitalize on the corn ethanol boom are moving into areas not fit for row crops; exposing those areas to consequences endemic to corn rotation like field erosion and increased inputs of farm chemicals like atrazine and nitrogen fertilizer (contributing to the already New Jersey-sized dead zone in the Gulf Coast). The crops are then transported to distilleries powered by natural gas or coal. While producing cleaner emissions than petroleum-based oil, corn ethanol may have too many environmental consequences to be honestly touted as the solution. To be true, most in the know view corn ethanol as a transitional fuel as we search for more permanent solutions that can match current demands and will grow with increasing demand.
During the Chicago Auto Show, Worldchanging Chicago Editor Patrick Rollens and I sat down with GM’s vice president of research & development and strategic planning, Larry Burns. He expressed enthusiasm over the potential use of plains grass for cellulosic ethanol, and he has very good reason for his excitement. Not only could cellulosic ethanol meet energy demands, but the biomass needed comes only from inedible parts of crops, posing a much diminished threat to the world food supply.
Misguided policy is the obvious hurdle to a viable commitment to cellulosic ethanol. Will Congress renew the subsidies for corn ethanol in 2008? What of the potential for sugarcane and jatropha based biofuels? A renewal of the tariff in 2010 could endanger the U.S.’s access to these potential technologies. National Commission on Energy Policy Counsel David Conover, one of the expert panelists at a recent Senate biofuels conference, said Congress should consider nixing those subsidies instead of renewing them — directing them instead to research for cellulosic ethanol.
However subsidies and research swing, automakers are struggling to anticipate the market and prepare for demand. We are likely to see many breakthroughs and inventions in the next few years, but we must learn from the hubris of our past and proceed cautiously. Seemingly benign advancements can have unseen consequences, so it helps to evaluate the life cycle implications of the energy choices we are likely to make.
