Acorn

Issue date: 2/8/08 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: Desiree Hykes

It is the darling of politicians and American car companies. They lavish it with fat subsidies and sing its sweet praises in campaign speeches, State of the Union addresses and energy bills. And if we are to believe car commercials, it causes children to skip through sunny fields in a utopian, post-oil paradise.

But is corn-based ethanol really the key to energy independence or is there an uglier side to this green solution?At first, the concept seems to make sense. The United States, after all, already boasts an impressive corn industry, with abundant grain fields stretching across the Midwest. The ability to harness that fertility into biomass energy production tempts us with the promise of clean-burning fuels and freedom from panic-inducing oil prices.

Unfortunately, corn ethanol cannot rise to the challenge without its own set of burdens.Americans already feel the sting of ethanol subsidies on their wallets. Since Congress called for accelerated building up of the U.S. ethanol industry in 2005, 20 percent of our nation's total farmland has been dedicated to grow corn for fuel production. This is a shot in the face to the organic food movement. Besides the fact that more corn means a less diverse array of crops-less soybeans and wheat, for instance-corn is also a nutrient-intensive plant. This could contribute to increased erosion, poor soil fertility and a need to pump the ground with chemical fertilizers-an overall weakening of American agricultural land and less crop yields in the future.

Plus, increased demand for corn has sent prices for the crop skyrocketing. The price for a bushel of corn rose from close to $2 in 2005 to as high as $4.86 a bushel last month. Of course, as other crops begin to vie for land with the expanding ethanol market, their prices, too, will rise. Some economists point out that this is already evident in the current numbers for soybeans.

The impact on food prices stretches far beyond grains and legumes. Corn is a favorite feed among livestock farmers, and so the inflated prices of the crop have caused meat and poultry to become more expensive as well. Shoppers now surely recognize the double whammy of cost inflation at the supermarket-a combination of rising agriculture prices and higher transportation costs.

The truly miserable aspect of the whole mess is that corn-based ethanol is not even that efficient. According to one Cornell University study, it takes 70 percent more energy to make ethanol than the net energy output of the fuel. This means that we will still need energy from other sources to produce ethanol, and with today's energy infrastructure, that means oil and coal.

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