Looks like
the EPA denied Texas' request for a waiver from the mandate to add more ethanol to the fuel supply. We spoke about this in a post entitled, "
Ethanol Industry Braces for EPA Decision on Its Future." We'll have to see how this plays out over the next year or so, but so far we've seen an unpleasant increase in corn prices, which has caused an unpleasant increase in food prices. I wonder when we will learn.
I have to quibble with you about the price of corn--it didn't rise solely because of biofuel, although it hasn't helped. Food prices rose due to a combination of drought in Australia, weird weather patterns in Europe, and production costs as a result of the high oil and fertilizer prices. Also, subsidies in the U.S. and other developed countries have kept food prices artificially low for a long time, which has not encouraged developing countries to be agriculturally self-sufficient.
ReplyDeleteBut biofuel has meant farmers planting lots of corn instead of other crops (which is not such a good idea ecologically or for long-term business) and in places better left unplanted--farmers make more money planting corn than taking payments from the USDA to conserve sensitive areas near stream banks (for example).
And some have found that while the burning of biofuels themselves is better than petroleum, biofuel production--the whole process, soil preparation to planting to harvesting to transportation--may actually cancel out any benefits. Paul Crutzen (of the ozone hole discovery) and others say in this article that the N2O release from biofuel production negates any CO2 reduction benefit from replacing petroleum with ethanol.
Crutzen et al think other crops, like switchgrass, would be a better idea. Certainly this is no excuse to keep on with the petroleum status quo.
Sigh. Why is everything so complicated?
You're right dh. I simplified the issue a little bit in that post. Perhaps I was even intellectually dishonest. But a good editor like you picks up on these things. Thanks for the quibble.
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