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Against the Grain: What Were They Thinking II?
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Apr 03, 2008 11:00am |
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| Category | Blog Entry |
| News Date | Thursday, April 3, 2008 04:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | All that glitters is not gold. And all that grows is not green.
That is the belated realization about grain ethanol — in fact, about any ethanol whose feedstock is grown on cropland. Joe Romm has done a good job posting on this issue, including his report on the recent studies featured in Science magazine. I’d like to weigh in with a few additional points
The folly of grain ethanol moved this week from Science magazine to TIME in a cover article titled “The Clean Energy Scam“. TIME traces the carbon-rich life-cycle of fuel from grain. As food and fuel compete for corn, the price of the crop rises. As the price rises, farmers have more incentive to grow it. To grow it, they use energy-intensive fertilizers and fuels.
To create more corn, farmers are turning prairies into cropland, releasing carbon that was stored by grasses and undisturbed soils. That unfortunate trend is well underway. As USA Today reports, landowners throughout the Farm Belt are growing crops on land that has not been cultivated for decades and, in some cases, centuries. Last year, farmers pulled 2.5 million environmentally sensitive acres out of the federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Another 5 million acres now preserved under CRP are scheduled to become available for planting over the next two years, as farmers’ conservation contracts expire.
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There is some good news in this story. The rapid increase in ethanol production has demonstrated how quickly the nation can mobilize to produce new energy resources. With the right policies –such as a stable production tax credit — we might mobilize the economy just as quickly to create and sustain a boom in wind energy, solar energy, geothermal energy, low-impact hydro, and bioenergy from feedstocks that have positive net carbon and energy benefits. Among them are cellulosic materials grown on degraded and untillable land, organic municipal and agricultural wastes and algae. |
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