Ethanol comes from corn and sugar cane. The United States uses, say, 80 million acres of cropland for corn today. Perhaps the best of that cropland lies in the region served by the Chestertown Spy. Regardless, our lands are the most productive in Maryland. Our land use includes production of corn, soybeans, wheat, switch grass, timber, forage, and much more. This is, above all else, an agriculture based community.
There is now a national interest in ethanol. This will impact the agricultural base that produces it. We do not yet know the full extent of such influence in our counties. However, we do know that, opposed to many national interests and campaigns that can be controlled by the Mayor & Council of Chestertown, the County Commissioners, and other local governments, they do not have power over policies that advance ethanol. The facts suggest that we will want to have a say, at some point. How will this be voiced?
Energy and climate are two of the most central topics before the nation. How energy and climate impact national security and the economy is vital. In the national interest, all practical forms of American energy must be opened up, including oil and natural gas deposits, wind, solar, and nuclear energy. However, in a reach beyond this, current government policy is to increase biofuel use, such as enabling widespread use of E15, which is a mixture of 15% ethanol and 85% gasoline. This is being done with full knowledge that any biofuel use emits more carbon dioxide into the air than gasoline use.
Regardless that, as some believe, initiatives to limit greenhouse gases may be wasteful uses of government and private resources, current government climate policy is to invest in reducing emissions of carbon dioxide gasses into the air. Since biofuel emits more carbon dioxide than gasoline, energy policy conflicts with climate policy, and visa versa.
The policy disconnect is clearly codified by United States Department of Energy data that has been available for about 16 years. This government information provides that using ethanol emits 301.1 grams of carbon dioxide per vehicle mile traveled, while using gasoline emits only 272.4 grams of carbon dioxide per vehicle mile traveled. Using ethanol emits more carbon dioxide into the air than using gasoline.
In any event, scientists are not clear about a link between climate and carbon dioxide emissions. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) uses the term “very likely”. This is far from certainty founded through results from scientific method.
Nor have scientists established that “fossil fuel” is a culprit. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports, “From a scientific point of view, any particular molecule of carbon dioxide is neither ‘good nor bad’.” Before increasing risks due to ramping up biofuel use, we must reexamine policy that suggests carbon dioxide from fossil fuel is bad and carbon dioxide from carbonated beverages, pets, cattle, farm animals, humans, yeast, dry ice, fireplaces, charcoal grills, campfires, wildfires, alcohol and ethanol is good.
Dependence on biofuel creates an actual national security risk. As the thirst for ethanol builds, we will see that there are limits on what we can demand from agriculture – in our counties, and across America.
Corn yields about 10.7 barrels of ethanol per acre, meaning that ethanol production in the United States would be only about 842 million barrels annually, if every bit of the corn we currently produce went 100% to ethanol. None of the corn we produce on our farm today for feed, export to Russia, or human consumption in countless products would be used to such purpose. Ethanol would need all of it.
To keep this in perspective, our oil demand is 5,501 million barrels annually. Last year, biofuel production amounted to only 9% of foreign oil imports. Foreign oil imports increased last year. Increased biofuel use on any grand scale is not going to work, if for no other reason because of limited biomass crop land acreage in the US.
Much effort has been spent to convince the public that man creates climate change. But, the confusion about this is immaterial to the imperative of avoiding national security and economic dependence on biofuel. No argument about climate change is relevant to an ethanol fact check. The current energy policy and the current climate policy and biofuel courses of action are infeasible and insupportable. They are dangerous to our national security – and, by the way, these two policies also conflict with one another.
There are less lofty issues already upon us at the local level. On our farm, vehicles and machinery that employ ethanol have constant problems, or just don’t work. This is because, unlike the city dweller’s vehicles, farm equipment stands idle most of the time. Fire trucks and military equipment are also vulnerable as they are subject to ethanol down time. Just an example — in 2009, well-intentioned politicians insisted that the Austin, Texas Fire Department convert to biofuel. The result was catastrophic. Fire engines would not start. Months after this experiment was quickly stopped, the fire engines were still having maintenance problems.
We know that government energy policy of replacing gasoline with biofuel conflicts with government climate policy of decreasing carbon dioxide emissions. The reason for this conflict is that using ethanol emits more carbon dioxide into the air than using gasoline. National security depends on our oil and natural gas; not ethanol. Our local industry depends on selling corn; but not for ethanol.
MichaelTroup says
This deserves an amen.