Latest Column: Environmentalists Say "NO" to Corn-based Ethanol

Ethanol, not the greenest option
By Derek Larson

St. Cloud (MN) Times

Published: April 02. 2008 12:30AM

If you listen to talk radio or read the letters to the editor for a few weeks you're bound to come across someone castigating environmentalists for embracing ethanol. "It takes more energy to make than it produces!" "It's driving up food prices!" "It's government meddling in the market!" "Those crazy environmentalists want to force us all to buy ethanol!"

The fact is, they're pretty close to the truth on all but the last point: Environmentalists have been warning us about the folly of corn-based ethanol for years.

The problem is that lawmakers didn't listen. If they had, they would know that:

Corn-based ethanol is inefficient. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the fuel produced has only 30 percent more energy value than that required to produce it.

Ethanol production demands immense amounts of water, about 4 gallons for each gallon produced.

Corn monoculture involves the heavy use of petroleum products, including fertilizers, pesticides and fuel for machinery.

Ethanol production requires electricity, which is produced from dirty coal in most of the Corn Belt.

Corn's potential is limited. Converting the country's entire corn output to ethanol would only satisfy 12 percent of our demand for gasoline.

If the direct flaws in corn-based ethanol weren't enough to frighten lawmakers off, they might have listened to the environmentalists who warned of the potential impact a "corn rush" would have on food prices. We're seeing it now.

Fallout

The price of corn has doubled since 2006, which is great for struggling farmers. But that's also driven up the cost of animal feed and any food products with substantial corn inputs. Combine that with the spike in wheat prices — due largely to rising global demand — and you get the highest rate of inflation in food prices since the 1980s. Coming at a time when energy costs also have skyrocketed, it's no wonder families are struggling to make ends meet.

And yes, Virginia, this is indeed a case of the government meddling in the market.

Due primarily to the influence of the agriculture lobby the 2007 energy bill extended the subsidies that have kept the ethanol industry alive since the 1970s and established mandates that will keep it growing into the future. Tens of billions of dollars of tax money have been spent subsidizing corn production in the past decade, and now even more will go to support ethanol production directly.

Thanks, but no thanks

If corn-based ethanol was really the solution, why can't it compete without subsidies, especially in the era of $100-a-barrel oil? Possibly because consumers just aren't interested.

E85 fuel is available at less than 1 percent of all U.S. filling stations.

Ethanol contains about 15 percent less energy by volume than gas, so despite the slightly lower pump price it costs more per mile to burn than gas.

A 2007 GM study found that 70 percent of those who own ethanol burning flex-fuel vehicles didn't know it; only 10 percent of those who did actually bought E85.

Most environmentalists will agree that some government subsidies are desirable. But knowing that corn-based ethanol reduces net greenhouse gas emissions by only 13 percent over petroleum, they'd probably argue that this isn't one of them.

Other alternatives

The reality is that greens aren't gaga over ethanol. Turning a commodity food crop into an inefficient fuel crop is foolish. Instead the government should be investing in a comprehensive alternative fuels program that drives innovation across the board and lets the market settle on the most efficient technology with the greatest environmental benefits.

It may be cellulosic ethanol, as President Bush has suggested; some studies have shown it might yield as much as 35 times the energy required to produce it, a 100-fold improvement over corn. Or perhaps it's biodiesel, which is only about seven times as efficient as corn-based ethanol but can reduce total greenhouse gas emissions by 68 percent. Or maybe it's not a biofuel at all but rather electricity produced by wind or solar power that will prove to be the most efficient way to move things around.

One thing is clear: We can't grow our way to energy independence with corn. In fact, if we simply increased the average fuel efficiency of all our vehicles by 12 percent we'd save as much gas as all the corn in the country could replace. As any environmentalist can tell you, the cheapest gallon of fuel you'll ever find is the one you didn't have to buy in the first place.

Fear For (Not Of) Obama

When Jesse Jackson came to my college campus on a campaign stop in the spring of 1988, my classmates and I were awed by his speech. We cheered wildly. We sang classic protest songs, mocked Ronald Reagan, and looked toward a future closer to MLK's vision than we saw in the world around us.

I also remember the Secret Service agents that swarmed our campus that day, and later sitting a few feet away from one of them, a man wearing a suit and mirrored aviator sunglasses in a gym that had to be 90 degrees. Sweat ran down his face but he did not blink or wipe it off. Armed agents surrounded the stage and even sat among us, "undercover," posing as students. (We knew they weren't students because their clothes were all wrong-- this was Portland when grunge was simply the way we dressed and not yet a marketing tool. The female agents wore skirts without combat boots!)

But one of my most lasting impressions from Jackson's visit was fear for him-- fear that he would win the nomination and be killed before the election. A decade later, in 1998, I stood on the balcony of the Lorainne Hotel in Memphis, in the very spot where Dr. King was shot and fell into the arms of his friends, including Jesse Jackson. I thought back to that 1988 campaign stop and for a moment was glad that Jackson hadn't won, despite my voting for him; once again I feared the violent, racist past was really still with us.

Today, twenty years after that campaign rally that fear has once again raised its head. Few will talk about it, fewer still will write about it in the US. But if you read the papers from outside the country it's all over the place: people are worried that the grisly American tradition of killing our youngest, brightest leaders may not be dead. Barack Obama, they warn, will be a target.

Here's an example from an Australian newspaper that captured this concern today:

Listing the scores of assassinations and attempts that have haunted the US presidency, I suggested that now any number of racist maniacs, enraged by the prospect of a black president, must be plotting to kill the Democratic front-runner. As past assassinations (and numerous close calls) remind us, no president can be totally protected.

No country since ancient Rome has experienced the killing of so many leaders. The subject came up when I was preparing to interview the author of The New Rome?, a fine piece of political writing by Cullen Murphy, managing editor of The Atlantic Monthly for more than 20 years. He was concerned that I'd raise the issue of Obama being assassinated because every Australian interviewer had done so. In contrast, he said, no one in the US media has raised the possibility.

I copped the blame, knowing of no other Australian commentator who had raised the issue. And I knew I would have self-censored if my column appeared in a US paper rather than The Australian. As many US journalists must be doing. To discuss even the possibility of an Obama assassination in the US would be asking for trouble. Throwing accelerant on the flames of insanity in a nation with a blood-soaked history, with far more than its share of home-grown terrorists and far too many guns. [Philip Adams, The Australian, 2/26/08]

So the old fear is back. One would hope we've moved beyond this. Even though we're afraid to talk about it, I'm sure many of us are also hoping the Secret Service is doing an extra good job these days, perhaps trading in the mirrored aviators for something a bit less 80s looking but still on the job, refusing to blink. Hopefully the college students who flock to see Obama aren't thinking about MLK, RFK, or even John Hinkley or Squeeky Fromme. But it's hard for me to forget, and hard not to worry.

It's going to be a long election season. For many reasons.

My latest newspaper column: Push Candidates on Climate

Times Writers Group: Push candidates on climate
By Derek Larson
Saint Cloud (MN) Times

Published: February 06. 2008 12:30AM


As we rush toward the November elections, voters would do well to reflect on three developments in January, all of which underscore the need for voters to press presidential candidates on issues related to climate change.

Only through a considered change of leadership and a well-reasoned approach to the global climate crisis will we reclaim our traditional position as a nation that, at its best, unites people to solve common problems for the good of all the world's citizens.

In the first story, the League of Conservation Voters released an analysis of the major Sunday-morning network political talk shows that tracked questions asked of the presidential candidates during 2007. Of 2,938 questions only six were on global warming. This despite polls showing large majorities of Americans are concerned about the issue and significant time spent by many candidates discussing their climate and energy strategies on the stump.

Second, a range of speakers at the annual Washington conference sponsored by the National Council for Science and the Environment made it clear that the climate situation is much worse than most people think. Indeed, the debate has shifted significantly from "is it happening" to "just how bad will it be?"

Danger zone

Conference participants were dominated by discussion of how close we are to the dividing line between "dangerous" and "catastrophic" disruption of the global climate system. With this shift in emphasis comes a new way of categorizing responses, captured handily in three terms: mitigation, adaptation and suffering.

Mitigation incorporates all the things we might do to avoid making things worse than what's already bound to happen based on past emissions: reducing carbon, becoming more energy efficient, addressing the global imbalance in energy use, and other familiar responses.

Adaptation reflects how we will deal with unavoidable climate disruptions. The amount of human-induced change in the atmosphere already guarantees significant changes to weather patterns, sea levels and precipitation regimes worldwide. Many of these will be serious enough to require major changes in patterns of human life, economics, settlement and agriculture.

Suffering is a dependent variable: The more we invest in mitigation and adaptation, the less people will suffer.

The third development was the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where politicians and capitalist heavyweights talked about the global economy.

One of the more interesting events at Davos was a discussion about the confluence of poverty and climate change during which rock musician and anti-poverty activist Bono observed that the growing global climate disruption may be the first calamity in human history to be predicted in advance. He noted that many significant global reforms in 20th century came in the wake of major calamities: the League of Nations after World War I, the United Nations after World War II and the plodding but steady trend toward globalization after the Cold War.

What to expect

The challenges of global climate change exceed all of these in scope and impact, but we have the distinct advantage of knowing, at least to some extent, what to expect in advance. As Bono rightly pointed out, this offers the opportunity to reduce the scale of suffering for many millions if we plan now to avoid changes that will otherwise produce the critical famines, refugee crises and possibly even wars of the 21st century.

Near the end of Bono's discussion moderator Thomas Friedman of The New York Times noted wryly that "It is far more important to change leaders than light bulbs." That is where we come in. Most of the remaining presidential candidates — including McCain, Obama and Clinton — have taken responsible positions on climate change and would likely reverse the foot-dragging that has characterized the Bush administration's approach if elected.

It is our responsibility as Americans and members of the world community to push the candidates on this issue, to demand a Marshall Plan or Apollo project on climate. We should do the same with candidates at all levels of government.

While we cannot recapture the years lost to the denial of overwhelming scientific evidence, we can help our country regain its moral authority and do what it does best: rally the world to develop solutions for a problem far beyond the ability of any single nation to solve on its own.

Super Turnout Tuesday in Minnesota, Obama Wins

Turnout far exceeded any predictions for Minnesota's caucuses. Many precincts are reporting 10-20 times the turnout as 2004. At my caucus site in St. Cloud party officials sent out for more ballots-- twice. In my precinct the vast majority of voters had not attended a caucus before; those of us who had were listed on pre-printed rosters while newcomers signed in on blank sheets at a 3-to-1 rate. They had to send out for more blank sheets as well. It was great to see so many people from our neighborhood turn out, including many college students and other young people who were first time participants.

The turnout news was great. So was the fact that Obama won by a very large margin. At least Minnesota Democrats recognize Hillary Clinton as a moderate, corporate Democrat with negatives so high she stands no chance of winning the general election. Hopefully exit polling will tell us if Obama won because he's been successful at reaching voters, or because people were voting against Hillary.

As I type Fox News is reporting a 68-32 Obama victory with 55% of precincts reporting.