By JOHN RICHARD SCHROCK
When ethanol became a gasoline additive in the U.S., botany colleagues told me it took as much energy to plant, grow and distill the corn as we produced in product. While the efficiency of ethanol extraction has since improved, the cost of our corn ethanol policy measured in other forms of damage seriously questions our continued usage of this additive. This fuller analysis is detailed in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) released earlier this year.
Dr. Tyler Lark of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, along with eight other co-authors from Kansas State University, University of California–Davis and the University of Kentucky detail problems using corn ethanol supplement in our gasoline in “Environmental Outcomes of the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard” (RFS). The PNAS journal is peer reviewed and highly ranked among world journals.
Data show that the RFS ethanol policy resulted in an expansion of corn cultivation by 2.8 million hectares (~6 million acres) and the result of diverting corn to ethanol “...increased corn prices by 30 percent and the prices of other crops by 20 percent....” from 2008 to 2016.
Based on current historical data, the report estimates that “...for every billion gallons per year expansion of ethanol demand, we would expect a 5.6 percent increase in corn prices....”
Compared to other crops, corn needs nitrogen fertilizer. This increased annual fertilizer use from 3 to 8 percent annually. Increased fertilizer runoff in turn resulted in more water pollution. Increased farming of corn was greatest in North and South Dakota, Minnesota and the Mississippi flood plain.
In addition, less cropland was moved to natural conditions under the Conservation Reserve Program commonly known as “CRP.” And normal crop rotations were shifted toward corn, again increasing nitrogen fertilizer usage and nitrate leaching. Calculations show that 68 percent of increased corn production was on preexisting fields and 32 percent was in expanded croplands.
This PNAS article has drawn heavy criticism from ethanol proponents throughout the Great Plains and Midwest, all providing their economic counter-arguments and asserting that ethanol serves to decrease greenhouse emissions. But they mostly fail to address the new data. Nor are they peer reviewed. And they fail to consider the new world food shortage that has exploded with the Ukraine war.
The United States is by far the largest user of ethanol, having produced over 15,000 million gallons of ethanol in 2021, or 55 percent of world ethanol production and nearly all produced by corn kernel starch.
The other large producer is Brazil that in 2021 produced 7,500 million gallons (27 percent of world production) mostly from fermenting bagasse, the dry pulp left after crushing sugarcane. The Brazil crop is different from American corn ethanol and avoids some of the problems noted in the PNAS report.
For a short time, even China fell for the ethanol plan to provide “green” energy. In 2017, a surplus of 200 million tons of corn had resulted in a plan to move to nationwide use of a gasoline blend containing 10% ethanol. China produced 860 million gallons (3 percent of world production). But on January 8, 2020, China suspended its ethanol plans. Their corn surplus had fallen to only 56 million tons by 2020. With the largest number of cars of any nation in the world, to continue to provide ethanol would have required 16 percent of their corn crop. So China reversed its policy, realizing that their arable land needed to go toward food production. In addition, while China has the most cars, they are converting to electric vehicles faster than any other country in the world.
In China, food security comes first. But not in the United States. Even in the face of a rapidly growing world food shortage due to the destruction occurring in Ukraine, the other breadbasket to the world, President Biden extended the availability of higher ethanol blends during the summer to lower fuel costs and reduce reliance on foreign energy. He ignored the science, placing American self-centered political concerns at home ahead of the looming need of millions of starving people across the world.
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John Richard Schrock has trained biology teachers for more than 30 years in Kansas. He also has lectured at 27 universities during 20 trips to China. He holds the distinction of “Faculty Emeritus” at Emporia State University.