The Ethanol Myth

There's lots of partisan stuff to blog this week. I thought I would take up a tough policy issue for a change of pace.

The special report "The Ethanol Myth" in Consumer Reports caught my eye on the news stand. Ethanol is a big issue in Illinois. We are major corn growers. We are among the largest ethanol producers and consumers. Illinois politicians are constantly trying to outdo each other on who loves ethanol more, and the public sees ethanol as a panacea for rising consumer prices, environmental protection, and world peace.

Consumer Reports smacks many of those notions down:

...after putting a 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe FFV through an array of fuel economy, acceleration, and emissions tests, and interviewing more than 50 experts on ethanol fuel, CR determined that E85 will cost consumers more money than gasoline and that there are concerns about whether the government’s support of FFVs is really helping the U.S. achieve energy independence. Among our findings:

• The fuel economy of the Tahoe dropped 27 percent when running on E85 compared with gasoline, from an already low 14 mpg overall to 10 mpg (rounded to the nearest mpg). This is the lowest fuel mileage we’ve gotten from any vehicle in recent years.

• With the retail pump price of E85 averaging $2.91 per gallon in August, according to the Oil Price Information Service, which tracks petroleum and other fuel prices, a 27 percent fuel-economy penalty means drivers would have paid an average of $3.99 for the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline.

• When we calculated the Tahoe’s driving range, we found that it decreased to about 300 miles on a full tank of E85 compared with about 440 on gasoline. So you have to fill up more often with E85.

• The majority of FFVs are large vehicles like the Tahoe that get relatively poor fuel economy even on gasoline. So they will cost you a lot at the pump, no matter which fuel you use.

• The FFV surge is being motivated by generous fuel-economy credits that auto-makers get for every FFV they build, even if it never runs on E85. This allows them to pump out more gas-guzzling large SUVs and pickups, which is resulting in the consumption of many times more gallons of gasoline than E85 now replaces.

The subscribers-only section points to some bigger problems with ethanol policy. Scientists are divided on whether ethanol offers more energy than the cultivation, harvest, transportation, processing and delivery process consumes. A Cornell University professor says that we consume 30% more energy in ethanol production than the fuel actually provides. According to Argonne Labs, the positive energy balance of ethanol is 35%.

Proponents of ethanol argue it doesn't add to the world's balance of greenhouse gases because it simply puts the same greenhouse gases in that it took out. But Tad Patzek, Berkeley professor of geo-engineering, says burning ethanol creates 50% more carbon dioxide than burning gasoline.

The National Corn Growers Association actually highlights a problem that most of us don't think about. 13.6% of the 2005 U.S. corn crop went to ethanol. While that corn isn't fit for human consumption, it means that corn fit for human consumption or for use as animal feed wasn't grown on that land. The NCGA says ethanol drives up the cost of corn by 5 to 10 cents a bushel:

"The folks who feed corn to cattle are already expressing concern about rising corn prices," Washburn says. "Once corn prices approach $3, these concerns will intensify"

Ironically for Illinois and our politicians, our love affair with corn-based ethanol appears shortsighted and recent investments in corn-based ethanol processing plants downright foolish.


"Most experts don't see the future of the ethanol industry taking root in America's cornfields. A more promising long-term solution is cellulosic ethanol, which can be made from a variety of other sources such as corn stover (leaves, stalks, and other leftover parts), rye straw, wood pulp, and possibly switchgrass (commonly used for hay).

'If this country is going to get big into ethanol, we need to tap into cellulosic ethanol,' says Friedman of the UCS (Union of Concerned Scientists), 'because it's cleaner and requires less fossil fuels than corn' to produce."

CR goes on to point out that an acre of say, switchgrass, actually returns much more energy than an acre of corn, so moving to cellulosic ethanol would allow us to replace much more gasoline, perhaps meeting 30% of the nation's gasoline needs and replacing every drop we get from OPEC.

CR cautions that providing enough raw vegetation to meet that goal requires tripling the amount of cultivated land and improving our ethanol processing technology. My bet is that if we move to ethanol we'll be getting alot of the raw material from Canada, but wouldn't it be ironic if the Prairie State went back to growing grass?

A thoughtful and balanced piece, with many nuggets I had to leave out. But it should be on every Illinois lawmaker and policymaker's reading list.