Corn Ethanol Issues
Consumers and governments throughout the world are finally beginning to embrace clean technologies. However, some of these solutions may not be as green or as economically viable as first assumed.
Corn-based ethanol, for example, comes with many problems unforeseen by early adopters. In an exhaustive recent report, the non-profit consumer organization, Food and Water Watch, warned that using massive tracts of farmland to grow corn for ethanol does not make economic or environmental sense.
The production cost of a gallon of corn based ethanol is around $1.50. This based on the report: Congressional Research Service: Agriculture-Based Renewable Energy Production, January 2007, pages CRS -10, adjustment for higher corn prices July 2007.
In fact, corn prices have more than doubled in the past year as the US government has offered millions of dollars in incentives to boost ethanol production. Because the production of corn for ethanol competes with the production of corn for food, the effects of this movement are unknown and, in fact, highly controversial. What’s more, because feedstock accounts for between 50 - 80% of biofuel production costs, every dollar increase in the price of a bushel of corn raises production costs by $0.35 per gallon (Source: The McKinsey Quarterly: Betting on Biofuels, 2007)
Cellulose (agricultural waste, wood waste etc.), on the other hand, is the main input for cellulosic ethanol. It cannot be digested by humans and therefore does not compete with the production of food. It is readily available and very inexpensive, as it is waste. In the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) report Biomass as Feedstock for a Bioenergy and Bioproducts Industry: The Technical Feasibility of a Billion-Ton Supply, it concludes that the United States has enough cellulosic biomass “to produce biofuels to meet more than one-third of the current demand for transportation fuels”. This is the future of the energy sector.
The production of cellulosic ethanol is far more efficient than its corn-based counterpart. The price per ton of the raw material using cellulose is much cheaper than grains or fruits. As cellulose is the main component of plants, the whole plant can be harvested. This results in much better yields per acre—up to ten tons, instead of four or five tons for the best crops of grain.
A second major consideration in the comparison of corn to cellulosic ethanol is that corn-based ethanol may really not be much greener than reformulated gasoline. A US Department of Energy study conducted by Argonne Laboratories at the University of Chicago found that starch-based ethanol reduces greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 18 - 29% of reformulated gasoline. The same study found that cellulosic ethanol reduces GHG by 85% over gasoline.
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