Al-Gae Gore

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, July 30, 2007 4:30 PM PT

 

Alternative Fuels: Environmentalists want us to use corn to run our cars. But the effort to keep the seas from rising may be killing the life in them from Chesapeake Bay to the Gulf of Mexico.

 

The Earth is indeed getting greener lately, particularly the coastal waters of the U.S., thanks to agricultural runoff due to a mandated surge in ethanol production fueled by an odd combination of environmentalists and politically connected agribusiness.

 

A recent study from the World Resources Institute says the development of a corn-based ethanol market will only worsen problems already associated with large-scale corn production, including groundwater depletion, soil erosion and algae blooms, as well as "dead zones" in waterways receiving pesticide and fertilizer runoff.

 

Of the country's entire corn crop for 2007, 27% is earmarked for corn and other biofuels destined for our cars and trucks, up from 20% in 2006. Not only is that demand raising the price of food across the board almost as fast as gasoline; the increased use of fertilizer and water to meet it ironically is killing the environment in order to save it.

 

An oxygen-poor "dead zone," created by oxygen-sucking algae fed by nutrients used to grow corn and other bio-fuels in the Midwest watershed of the Mississippi River, already exists in the Gulf of Mexico. The 7,900-square-mile area with almost no oxygen, a condition called hypoxia, is about the size of Connecticut and Delaware together.

 

More corn grown for fuel means more agricultural runoff from farms of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous, which feed algae blooms. As the algae die, they sink to the sea floor, and the bacterial breakdown of the organic matter consumes the oxygen fish, crabs and other sea creatures need to live.

 

Ethanol from corn sounds like an energy panacea, but the devil is in the details. It takes 4,000 gallons of fresh water per acre per day to replace evaporation in a cornfield. Each acre requires about 130 pounds of nitrogen and 55 pounds of phosphorous.

 

Never mind the fossil fuel used by farm equipment that plows, cultivates and harvests the crop. Then the corn must be refined into a product that produces 20% to 30% less energy than gasoline and transported around the country by truck.

 

The Gulf of Mexico isn't the only body of water affected by the biofuel frenzy. An article in the Washington Post warns of ecological damage to Chesapeake Bay as a result of the surge in demand for ethanol.

 

A Virginia Tech study predicts that farmers in the bay watershed will plant 500,000 new acres of corn in the next five years. The study estimates that such an ethanol-driven increase in cornfields could add an additional 8 million to 16 million pounds of runoff pollution to Chesapeake Bay.

 

"Corn-based ethanol hasn't been pursued because this is the best solution," says Scott Cullen of the Network for New Energy Choices. "It's been because this has been pushed the hardest." Even if all corn in the U.S. was used for fuel, Cullen reckons, it would offset only about 15% of the country's gasoline use while causing significant environmental damage.

 

Ethanol has indeed been pushed by farm-state senators, and it is not irrelevant that Iowa is the first stop for presidential wannabes. If Idaho were the first primary state, we might be making ethanol from potatoes. But at what environmental cost?

I don't think that corn-based ethanol is efficient enough to become a viable alternative to fossil fuels. We would be better off importing sugar-cane based ethanol from Brazil, where they have a surplus.

 

Unfortunately there are not a whole not of efficient alternatives right now as far as technology to improve on fossil fuels in cars. Ethanol is the best option, but it has a lot of drawbacks.

I don't think that corn-based ethanol is efficient enough to become a viable alternative to fossil fuels. We would be better off importing sugar-cane based ethanol from Brazil, where they have a surplus.

 

Unfortunately there are not a whole not of efficient alternatives right now as far as technology to improve on fossil fuels in cars. Ethanol is the best option, but it has a lot of drawbacks.

 

And you know this because of your expertise in mechanical engineering and your knowledge of all the latest technologies, right?

I keep track of the latest technologies, yes. But I am far from an engineer.