Corny fuel, again

World Oil, Dec, 2001 by Perry A. Fischer

In my September exploration column, I summarized a synopsis of an article by David Pimentel about ethanol that was to be published the following month. I titled it, "Corny fuel." Although I began with, "The last thing this editor would want to do is aggravate farmers," I really put my foot in it this time. I was mildly surprised at the number of letters I received. The comments ranged from "attaboy" to "you should check your facts," the latter referring to a mistake most farmers caught. Pimentel said there was a typo, namely, the energy equivalent of 1,000 gals of fuel to produce one acre of com. The correct number should be 140 gal/acre of gasoline to produce one acre of corn. I suppose it would have helped if I were a farmer.

To arrive at those numbers, Pimenthel took the average amounts of 14 items that went into corn production, including irrigation, lime, machinery and human labor. He then converted those items into heat equivalents that totaled 10.4 million kcal. Pimenthel says 10.4 million kcal is equal to 347 gal/hectare, assuming 30,000 kcal/gal of gasoline, or 140 gal per acre. Dollar equivalents computed from average market rates totaled $857.17, which yields 127 bu/acre of corn and 328 gal of ethanol. I obtained a copy of the l1,000-word report, and will send it to those interested. Serious inquiries only, please.

There are numerous studies on this topic. They all have one thing in common: different inputs, values and results. Hosein Shapouri, an agricultural scientist with the USDA, together with the Colorado School of Mines, published a paper in 1995 that said ethanol from corn production creates 24% more energy than it uses. It also claimed that ethanol can replace petroleum imports by a factor of 7 to 1, because it uses more abundant domestic feedstocks, such as natural gas and coal. Michael Wang, et al., at Argonne National Laboratory also found it to be net-energy producing, concluding that, "Current corn farming and ethanol production practice requires less energy to produce fuel ethanol than it contains." Net energy implies, of course, a violation of basic physics, but if you draw the "box" around carefully selected parameters and somehow compute the "average" farm, you can arrive at a net energy gain (or loss).

Best land use is the underlying theme in Pimentel's paper and is a matter for continuing debate; but in the end, it's economics that rule. And on that score, Pimentel is right. Even his critics readily admit that ethanol production requires hefty government subsidies that amount to roughly one-third of its market price.

Decades of experience in the U.S. and Brazil have shown that economies of scale will not end the need for subsidies. Brazil has tried--on a massive scale--to make ethanol a profitable, sustainable component of its energy independence. Instead, they have shown that drilling for oil and gas is better for achieving their goal of energy self-sufficiency, more economical and probably more environmentally sound than massive agricultural projects.

A few of the comments I received follow.

James Paris, an ethanol/oil consultant and a farmer, wrote, "You and your oil buddies fail to recognize...after you extract the ethanol from corn, you still have feed for animals."

Martin Dobson, a reservoir engineer in Wyoming who farms on the side, says, "It's akin to being a policeman who moonlights as a Little League umpire: Self-inflicted abuse. In my opinion there are fundamentally two things that make a country's wealth--its natural resources and its controlled biomass potential, i.e., energy/mining and food. The high-quality, abundant food we enjoy today could not be produced without the substantial energy input that is applied (tractors, fuel, fertilizer, herbicide, transportation to market, etc.). Why is it that the two most crucial elements to a country's progress have been fixed in price for the past 40 years? From what I have seen over 40 years, farmers are working themselves to an early grave, putting in more hours than ever without the potential of financial reward. In fact, most will die deeply in debt."

A colleague of mine wrote, "There are much better products than fuel that can be made from corn, such as whiskey; and it takes you to a different place than a car, too."

Surprisingly, no one mentioned the more obvious criticism: While not completely irrelevant, the argument about net energy loss or gain is unimportant. Should we convert the energy involved in every aspect of E&P operations, including labor and rig building, to kcal, then convert those to fuel equivalents, and then subtract the result from the actual oil produced to get the "true" net oil? Would that even have meaning? In any sense that finally matters, it is usefulness that matters most. Burning coal to produce electricity creates a huge net energy loss. In fact, converting any fuel to another fuel should produce a net energy loss. But can you power a radio with coal?

It's worth remembering that the future is unknowable. Tomorrow, some starchy weed might be discovered growing on the edge of the Serengeti that, when genetically modified, will be found ideal for ethanol production, even when grown on marginal, semi-arid land. You never know.