Reminding Al Gore: 5 'Encouraging Truths' About Ethanol

Having an appreciation for Al Gore's commitment to science and advocacy of responsible policies on energy, the environment, and the economy, I was disappointed by his treatment of ethanol and other biofuels in his new book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis.

During the late 1970s, Gore was an early supporter of grain-based ethanol and other efforts to promote biofuels. Now, as he writes in his new book, Our Choice, he has changed his mind.

Because of his devotion to science and the facts, I have sent him a detailed letter, filled with what I hope he'll consider encouraging, not inconvenient, truths:

Encouraging Truth #1: Ethanol has come of age.

Ethanol has come a long way since when Gore first championed it. With 10.5 billion gallons set to be produced and sold this year, ethanol is a major factor in America's motor fuel supply. Today's ethanol industry is helping support nearly 500,000 jobs, providing more than $20 billion in new household incomes. Last year alone, the use of ethanol reduced emissions by the equivalent of removing 2.1 million gallons from American highways.

Encouraging Truth #2: American agriculture and the US ethanol industry are improving their productivity without jeopardizing the environment.

The average corn yield this season is 163 bushels per acre - up from 101 bushels in 1978. Higher yields have been achieved through better technology and farming practices, not through increased use of fertilizers, pesticides and other inputs. In fact, there has been a 27% decrease in irrigation water use per bushel, a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions per bushel, a 37% decrease in the land required per bushel, a 37% decrease in energy required per bushel; and 69% reduction in soil loss per bushel.

Meanwhile, improvements in corn ethanol production efficiency are following a similar path, including a 27% decrease in consumptive water use, a 22% reduction in fossil energy use, and a 7% increase in the amount of ethanol produced per bushel of grain in just the past five years.

Encouraging Truth #3: 'Food vs. fuels' is a false choice.

Gore writes "...further diversion of cropland from food to fuel will put upward pressure on food prices at a time when many impoverished regions of the world are facing growing concerns about food security." But the increased use of grain for ethanol in the United States has not reduced the amount of grain available for livestock feed, food processing, or exports. Furthermore, cropland is not being "diverted" from food and feed production.

Instead, increased productivity per unit of land has ensured that adequate supplies of grain are available for all uses, including biofuels. The US achieved a new record for corn exports in 2007, amid a significant biofuels boom. Corn exports have topped 2 billion bushels in four of the last five years, the first time in history that such volumes have occurred in a five-year span.

None of this obscures the moral and practical urgency of world hunger. But, as Gore well knows, the problems are access to food and food security. Producing ethanol is not the cause of these crises, and curtailing the production of biofuels is not the cure. There cannot be food security without energy security

Encouraging Truth #4: Ethanol doesn't increase greenhouse gas emissions.

Gore also writes: "largely because modern agriculture is so petroleum intensive, net greenhouse gas emissions from corn-based ethanol turn out to be almost equal to the emissions from gasoline." But corn ethanol production is not a "petroleum intensive" process. In a 2006 analysis, a group of researchers at U.C. Berkeley found that producing one unit of ethanol energy requires 20 times less petroleum than producing one unit of gasoline energy.

Encouraging Truth #5: Today's ethanol builds the foundation for the next generation of biofuels.

While Gore writes, "The production of ethanol in first generation biorefineries has been a disappointment," he goes on to admit: "However, it has... led to the emergence of an infrastructure that will prove highly valuable when second generation technologies are available to produce ethanol from nonfood crops." This includes shipping ethanol via pipelines, which occurs today all across Brazil and in the state of Florida.

That is one reason why corn-based ethanol is not a mistake. Rather, it is providing a strong economic and environmentally sustainable foundation upon which the next generation of biofuels, including improvements in existing technologies, will be built. Therefore, utilizing what is available today, the US should expand the demand, distribution and transportation of ethanol so that we can build a strong foundation for the next generation of biofuels.

Mr. Vice President, an objective review of the facts as they exist today lead to one inevitable conclusion: biofuels must be part of "our choice."

 

Follow Bob Dinneen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ethanolbob

Comments

[galonga]

01:57 PM on 12/10/2009

Mr. Dinneen very convenient­ly forgets to mention that Gore DOES praise ethanol, but the SUGARCANE ethanol, not corn-based ethanol!

In fact, he even says that he changed his mind: he used to support corn ethanol and now he does not.

And why is that? Could it be because sugarcane DELIVERS 8 TIMES MORE ENERGY THAN CORN?

Or because IT IS NOT EDIBLE?

Or perhaps because it REQUIRES ALMOST NO PESTICIDES­?

I don´t see Mr. Dinneen mentioning any of these important facts! And why may I ask? ;}

[mountainweb]

12:41 PM on 11/23/2009

You should have said Gores LACK of commitment to science. He has fallen into the trap of going for "impact" instead of reality of ethanol such as you describe.

[Biodiversivist]

10:15 AM on 11/22/2009

Gore has changed his mind because his mind is open and willing to accept new science as it arrives. How rare is that?

I do not see why Gore would be swayed by a letter from the CEO of the Renewable Fuels Associatio­n, a corn ethanol front group that spent almost a quarter of a million dollars lobbying last quarter:

http://www­.sfexamine­r.com/econ­omy/ap/558­22837.html­?c=y

Gore is not seeking office and therefore can no longer be influenced with lobby money.

I just read a CNN article that said corn ethanol has provided about 1,000 jobs in Nebraska. 50 states x 1,000 = 50,000 jobs. Divide the amount of money corn ethanol is costing the taxpayer, let's say $23 billion to be conservati­ve ($9 billion in higher food prices, $9 billion in lost gas mileage, and $5 billion in blending subsidies) by 50,000 jobs and each person could go sit on a couch and still bring home close to half a million dollars each. If government subsidies create jobs, we may have found the answer to unemployme­nt.

http://www­.cnn.com/2­009/POLITI­CS/10/24/s­otu.king.n­ebraska/

[jsarets]

08:36 AM on 11/22/2009

1 (jobs): The coal industry employs a lot of people, too. Doesn't make it right.

2 (efficienc­y): Your numbers don't make sense. One source says energy per bushel decreased 22% for dry mills and 7% for wet mills, while you don't provide your source for the 37% reduction. Also note that a 27% reduction in water consumptio­n from 2-8 million L/MWh is still a heck of lot more water than any other energy source, excluding soy biodiesel, which is an order of magnitude worse.

3 (food/fuel­): There's no good reason for humans or especially livestock to be eating so much corn anyway, so if the price of high-fruct­ose corn syrup and corn-fed beef goes up, I call that progress. But there's also no good reason to use virgin agricultur­al products to produce biofuels when we produce such vast quantities of agricultur­al and municipal organic waste.

4 (emissions­): Once again, your numbers are dubious. The source you linked makes no mention of a 20-fold reduction of petroleum consumptio­n relative to gasoline. It only says that greenhouse gas emissions are reduced perhaps 10-15%.

5 (foundatio­n): How does building a corn ethanol industry build a "foundatio­n" for sustainabl­e biofuels? This is a weasel word. Producing biodiesel from waste via thermal depolymeri­zation or Fischer-Tr­opsch is easier than ethanol. Ethanol is also difficult to transport efficientl­y through pipelines, whereas biodiesel is a much better "foundatio­n" in terms of the distributi­on chain.

[Biodiversivist]

11:43 PM on 11/21/2009

Truth #4:

According to a dozen peer-revie­wed science papers in the last few years, corn ethanol increases greenhouse gases. Corn ethanol is a fossil fuel intensive process. 50 to 80 percent of the energy contained in a gallon of ethanol came from fossil fuels. Expansion of agricultur­e not only displaces natural carbon sinks and biodiversi­ty but exacerbate­s the nitrogen cycle as well:

http://www­.nature.co­m/nature/j­ournal/v46­1/n7263/fi­g_tab/4614­72a_F1.htm­l

Truth #5:

Government subsidizat­ion and mandates for corn ethanol has been a colossal mistake. Ethanol has to be shipped by train and tanker truck because it cannot share our existing pipeline systems with other fuels. It isn't even compatible with today's car engines in higher blends. Cellulosic ethanol may never be affordable­. There are many types of biofuels being developed that are superior to ethanol. Ethanol is crushing competitio­n, not helping it. Why would a corn ethanol refiner cheer the arrival of competitor­s like Biobutanol­, Green diesel, and Bio-DME (which produces no soot and is as efficient in a diesel engine as convention­al diesel) to name a few?

http://www­.engineeri­ngnews.co.­za/article­/highly-ef­ficient-bi­ofuel-coul­d-replace-­diesel-200­9-11-20

How can you call a fuel that is forced down citizen's throats as a blend in our gas, that decreases our gas mileage, that raised the cost of food to Americans $9 billion, that we pay 45 cents a gallon to subsidize, "our choice?"

[Biodiversivist]

11:40 PM on 11/21/2009

Truth #1:

Corn ethanol does not do the environmen­t any favors: the emissions from the tractors, trains, and trucks used to produce and ship it, the refinery emissions generated making it, the NOx released from the fertilizer in the fields, the Gulf of Mexico dead zone, and whatever ecosystems it displaced.

Truth #2:

Boasting during a bumper crop year will be followed by excuses in a bad crop year. A dependency on corn ethanol will put us at the mercy of weather induced crop failures that will be tantamount to sporadic OPEC oil embargoes.

Truth #3:

Global crop yield improvemen­ts are no longer keeping pace with population growth. The number of chronicall­y hungry human beings has crossed one billion for the first time in human history. Humanity has consumed more grain than it has produced for seven of the last nine years, drawing down global grain reserves.

The fact that America continues to export corn simply means that we are growing more corn. The price of corn is the best indicator of global demand. Children starve when their moms can't afford corn. The annual average price of corn for the past three years is roughly 100% higher than (twice as high) it has been for the previous eight years:

http://www­.nass.usda­.gov/

Nobody has all of the answers for hunger but it is unlikely that raising the cost of food stapes 60% for the poor in the world is one of them.

[binca]

10:02 AM on 11/21/2009

A discouragi­ng truth:

Even if the production of ethanol can be made energy and carbon neutral, we are faced with the problem that no cost-effec­tive practical way has yet been found of transporti­ng ethanol via long-dista­nce pipeline due to problems with stemming from its hydrophili­c and corrosive nature.

What does this mean? Pretty much any ethanol you buy at the pump has to have been brought there on the back of a truck, introducin­g yet another significan­t energy expenditur­e along the ethanol supply chain.

[galonga]

01:59 PM on 12/10/2009

Ethanol IS NOT CORROSIVE.

In fact is IS SOLD AT ANY PHARMACY IN BRAZIL TO TREAT WOUNDS

Would you use sulphuric acid on a wound for example? Certainly not right?

Please talk about something you have actually SEEN (for all you know is the isopropil alcohol sold in the US), ok? :)

[research]

05:33 AM on 11/21/2009

Using land for fuels is insane and unnecessar­y.

Grow food, clothing, wood and such.

Eventually everything gets thrown out.

That's when we BioChar it into energy fuel and carbon negative fertilizer­.

Since everything from the land eventually becomes energy and fuel, there is plenty for all the world fuel needs.

Add to that 3 cent rooftop pv solar,

and the world energy problems are solved clean safe cheaper and forever.

See my profile for poof and links.