Ethanol and bio-diesels: car-fuel solutions,
or new threats to food security ?

Najma Sadeque

 

Strange as it may seem, the grocery from where we once bought only foodstuff and other kitchen needs may soon be selling car-fuel in cans. In America, at least, that won't be unusual. Urban people have seldom given it much thought, but the fact is that almost anything of plant nature that we eat can be converted into fuel for cars, mostly mass-produced food such as sugarcane, corn, rice, soybeans and wheat, The line between the food and fuel is vanishing.
Food we eat, whether its only plant food, or livestock that has been raised on plant food, has always been the source of energy and life and health for humans. Not any more. The staples we eat are already in the process of being grabbed by - of all things - road vehicles. Those who can afford a car are obviously well off enough not to have to worry about food.
But even a car in a developing country may be consuming what was meant to be food for people or livestock. It's already happening in the US. Previously in America, the cows ate more corn than the people. They won't be any more. American cars and other road vehicles will be taking over that slot. Just as the so-called HYV (High Yield Variety seeds of the 60s), chemical fertilizer, and today genetically-modified crops were nothing more than monopolistically-intended profiteering investments, ethanol has become the same even though it was not intended to be by researchers seeking cheap, renewable fuels. The northern countries were actually taking a cue from the South.
Countries in Latin America, especially Brazil which is rich in rainforests and other green resources, found it didn't have to depend on imported oil that were finite and would run out some day while their prices kept soaring in the meantime. It was going to be cheaper and easier to produce one's own fuel from agriculture - once again, agriculture, not industry or the industrialization of agriculture comes to the rescue at a moment of crisis!
But as far as western investors go, it was yet another money-making venture to latch onto as oil prices soared with threats of oil scarcity. As expected they placed their bets on bio-fuel. It is said that biofuels have caught on so fast, more by investors than farmers, that hardly a day goes by without another ethanol distillery or bio-diesel refinery being set up or planned somewhere in the world.
Ethanol distilleries in the US have tripled their use of corn for ethanol in a mere half decade to about 55 million tons this year. Not to be left behind, America's three biggest car-makers plan are planning to produce 2 million biofuel-capable vehicles on the road by 2010. In some corn-growing states of America, the ethanol distilleries are taking over the corn supply, rather than going to factory farms. In fact, livestock and poultry producers are beginning to worry that there may not be enough corn to produce meat, milk, and eggs as well.
It can seriously affect US food exports as well, especially their so-called 'food-aid'. The US supplies 70 percent of world corn exports, so countries dependent on corn imports, especially those agricultural countries that have been neglecting their food security in spite of the ability to be self-sufficient, have reason to worry.
That may be a good thing after all -- it may force authoritarian governments who sell their loyalties to the US to the extent of allowing their agriculture, food security and sovereignty to be compromised, to re-think their self-serving priorities. Because, a population already suffering from farmlands growing cash crops without attending to food needs as well, and further deprived by the addition of a high-demand ethanol cash crop, will not take it kindly, and even more anti-government uprisings and violence can be expected.
The higher the price of oil climbs, the more profitable -- and therefore the more tempting -- it will become to switch not only from large-scale growing of foodcrops, but perhaps also from other non-food commodities such as cotton or tobacco. - While the latter choice would be no loss to public health, the former would be damaging because already western countries are mopping up most cotton supplies although the hot, developing countries need cotton for wearing much more than Northerners do, also for skin health.
The real danger however, is that the price of oil may become the determinant for food supply. Whenever the value of a plant food commodity drops below plant-fuel value, the market will switch farmlands to growing fuel plants.
Brazil leads the world in sugarcane-based sugar production and sugar exports. It is now converting half its sugar production into ethanol. Rain-rich Brazil can afford to do so. Currently it is producing over 4 billion gallons of ethanol, the same as the US. But whereas Brazil uses sugarcane as the raw material, the US uses grain, mostly corn. This year, the US is putting nearly one-sixth of its grain output into ethanol. Yet this huge investment will produce only 3% of its vehicular fuel. So the US has to reconsider whether it's really wise or worth it to convert so much food into fuel.
Although, so far, only 10% of the world's sugar output goes into ethanol, the price of sugar has already doubled. If even more sugar goes into fuel, sugar may become prohibitively expensive worldwide. At the same time, that may not be a bad thing either for an obese America and a diabetes-ridden world spurred by junk food.
Runners-up in the plantfood-into-fuel game are western Europe, China and India. Europe however focuses on bio-diesel rather than ethanol. In 2005, the European Union produced almost 1.6 billion gallons of bio-fuels. More than half of it was bio-diesel produced from vegetable oil while just under half of it was ethanol, made mostly from grain.
China and India are focusing on ethanol. Last year, China converted about 2 million tons of grain, mostly corn, but also some wheat and rice. In India, most ethanol is produced from sugarcane. But if Pakistan thinks it should jump on the bandwagon, it will be mistaken. Sugarcane is a thirsty crop and has already caused problems for our agriculture. It may cost us more in water to pay for the ethanol it produces. It is safer to import high-priced petroleum, and better to seek other renewables.
There are currently 800 million car-owners today in a world population of 6.5 billion. Most car-owners are in the wealthy Northern countries that tend to have very small families. Sometimes each working family member has his or her own car so that a family may own two or more cars. Even if we calculate four persons served for every car in the world, it comes to about 3 billion persons, or half the world's current population which leaves an equal number of pedestrians in the world who have to worry more about food than cars.
Already wheat and corn prices in America have risen by one-fifth. If the trend continues unabated, not only will there be food shortages, it will pit the car-owners of the world against the pedestrians of the world, and not just over transportation which everyone needs. Most of the world's 2 billion poorest people spend half or more of their scanty income on food, which makes conversion of food to fuel a life-threatening issue.
The point is, is it really worth America putting one-sixth of all its corn harvests into ethanol, when the 3% gain it gets in fuel can be achieved many times over by simply improving car fuel efficiency? It has already been demonstrated that such efficiency can be raised by as much as 20% , and that too at a fraction of the cost. Too many cars in too many cities in the world cause so much traffic jam, that it takes longer to reach destinations so that many have abandoned using cars in inner-cities, and prefer public transport instead. In fact, greater investment is needed in public transport of all kinds to resolve the problem.
To fill a 25-gallon vehicle tank one a fortnight requires enough ethanol that in its original grain form would feed one person for a whole year. At a minimum of 650 gallons of ethanol per year, the amount of grain needed to make enough to fill the tank every two weeks could feed 26 people for an entire year. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the US will be harvesting 20 million tons of foodgrains of all kinds this year (2006). Of this, 14 million tons will go into making fuel for cars in America, and only 6 million tons will be available for humans or livestock to eat.
Then there is some very bad news from the US National Academy of Sciences. Their research shows that corn-based ethanol generates less than a quarter more energy than is required to make it. Corn is only slightly better than petroleum in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions -- by a mere 12%. When used at higher concentrations in car fuel, corn ethanol produces more smog-causing pollutants than petroleum per unit of energy burned.
The same conclusions are being echoed by a new University of Minnesota study which found that a better alternative is soybean which outperforms corn. Soybean bio-diesel provides 93% more energy than the amount required to produce it. Soybean biodiesel is more environmentally friendly, say the researchers. It leaches 99% less nitrogen, 93% less phosphorus, and 87% less pesticide into the water compared to corn ethanol. Its greenhouse gas emissions are only a third of what corn ethanol releases.
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences warned that that neither soybeans nor corn can replace much petroleum without impacting food supplies, and noted that global food would double within 50 years, while transportation fuel would double in about three decades if current consumption rates remained unchanged. They have clearly stated that turning a food crop into energy when food needs are rising around the world, is not a wise policy.
Why then did the US government go for ethanol when the country does not have the climatic and geographical advantage for it, and when its farmland suffers severe degradation from a century of chemical monoculture? The Bush administration was responding to consumer grumblings against high petroleum prices, a public that equates economical mobility by car to 'freedom'. For the US, loss of mobility by car is considered a lowering of 'standard of living'. Boasting the world's largest number of cars, the US consumes the most petroleum too (the biggest bill going for its military).
The production of ethanol from corn was first developed in 1908, but was displaced, like other plant-fuels, by cheap petroleum. To help counter rising oil prices, the US sanctioned an ethanol subsidy of 51¢ per gallon which will remain in effect until 2010. Ethanol production has suddenly become popular now, not so much because petroleum is running out - that will happen but not in the near future - but because it conveniently offers huge economic subsidies for corn agribusinesses as well as ethanol distilleries of which a hundred are already running in America, and will be added to by a third more by the end of the year.
Alarmingly, this is happening at a time when world grain stocks are at the lowest level in 34 years and when there are a billion hungry in the world to which 76 million mouths are being added each year. Biofuels may be resorted to temporarily in the short run, but researchers say they are simply not a practical long-term solution and would have a devastating impact on agriculture. The National Corn Growers Association therefore dispute the warning that ethanol could threaten food supplies, claiming instead that there was no shortage whatsoever of corn. In fact demand for corn had reached a plateau - until the ethanol solution appeared as a saviour for corn-growers.
Nothing can bring instability faster to a country of modest means than widespread, unaddressed hunger. While there are no alternatives to food for people, there is an alternative source of energy including fuel for cars. There is still solar, wind and other sources of power. If they have not become mainstream yet, it is only because their development and spread has been blocked by the northern oil-industries and their government backers who would have lost their profits had they been displaced by cheap, renewable sources.