Corn Ethanol and Its Consequences

Corn Ethanol and Its Consequences

By Juliette Anthony, M.A., M.S., t r u t h o u t, 20 December 2007


The Federal Energy Bill, with its fivefold mandate to increase ethanol production, is headed for the president's desk without threat of veto, now that all requirements to support tax credits for solar and wind systems have been removed. The impact of the ethanol mandate promises to be particularly severe on California.

Growth of the corn ethanol industry in California is fraught with unintended consequences, none of them beneficial to the state's economy or environment. They include deleterious effects on our overcommitted water resources, on our air quality, on the price of food, and on the financial burden to our citizens while private investors profit.

Those of us in California now need to be more active in fighting serious impacts by preventing ethanol entrepreneurs from getting permits from local cities and counties to use our already limited water supplies to build and operate their plants. Water is key in California.

All of the water systems upon which the state depends, to serve both agriculture and the urban sector, are oversubscribed. Ethanol requires large amounts of water, both to grow corn and to process it, putting corn into direct competition with our agricultural industry, which feeds half the nation with all of its fruits, vegetables and nuts. Corn ethanol requires 3.7 to 5 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol just in the manufacturing process. Corn ethanol is the only current market-ready product, as cellulosic ethanol from other plant materials is an indeterminate number of years in the future.

"The Rush to Ethanol," by Food & Water Watch, which should be required reading for those legislators swayed by ethanol lobbyists, illustrates that even the highly touted switchgrass is not without its soil and water use problems. Cellulosic ethanol requires six gallons of water for each gallon of ethanol in the manufacturing process, though the energy output is four to five times greater than for corn ethanol. For a state with such severe water difficulties, at a time when citizens are being asked to conserve, any additional intensive manufacturing water use is highly questionable.

States such as water-rich Minnesota and Iowa complain that the ethanol industry is mining their groundwater, causing some plants to be closed because the groundwater supply has been depleted. In many places in California, especially in the San Joaquin Valley, the ground has already subsided many feet because of groundwater mining. Approximately 14 percent of the US corn crop is irrigated. This irrigated acreage consumes almost 18 million acre-feet per year of water - much of which is overdrafted from the Ogallala aquifer in the Great Plains. To put this water requirement in perspective, the average annual flow of the Colorado River at Lee's Ferry is only about 14 million acre-feet per year.

Almost all of California's agriculture is dependent on irrigation. Diverting millions of gallons of water from California farms to produce ethanol will disrupt the nation's food supply. Corn is a very water-intensive crop, and it will also add to pesticide and fossil fuel fertilizer run-off, polluting our waterways. Shifting our valuable farmland from vegetables to mono-cropping corn is already happening in Kern County.

If all vehicles in California operated on E85 (the policy of the governor and legislature), the ethanol required would consume 70 percent of the entire US corn crop, but only 13.6 percent of the energy in the fuel would be renewable. Corn ethanol requires fossil fuel to fertilize, grow and harvest the crop, fossil fuel to manufacture the ethanol, and fossil fuel to ship by truck or rail, as ethanol cannot be shipped by pipeline because of corrosion.

Biofuels are not as clean as supporters would have us believe. In Iowa and Indiana, the Sierra Club has sued because ethanol plants have made neighbors ill from toxics in the air and water. Ethanol molecules are microscopic and can escape from gas tanks and hoses. Its use increases NOX by five percent, and for every 18 degrees Fahrenheit increase in temperature, evaporative emissions double.

Ozone is also increased. While the California Air Review Board is required by state law to ensure that emissions do not increase, plans for mitigation are years away from being implemented.

Corn is also a lousy raw material for fuel. It takes 10 gallons of ethanol to produce the energy equivalent of about seven gallons of gasoline, and greenhouse gas reductions are minuscule. This will not free us from dependence on foreign oil as its proponents claim.

Very much like the original backers of MTBE, who adamantly ignored the warnings regarding MTBE's ability to contaminate drinking water, these same people are avoiding the unintended consequences of diverting millions of gallons of water into ethanol plants. They fought to preserve the oxygenate mandate so that ethanol could replace MTBE. Only after many wells in California were contaminated did they support MTBE's removal.

Already, there are 235 ethanol plants under construction or in planning stages across the country, in addition to 111 operating plants. And there just isn't enough corn to go around. If all the scores of factories under construction or planned go into operation, they will gobble up no less than half of the entire corn harvest by 2008.

Even though last year's corn harvest was the third-largest ever, food prices are rising in supermarkets. Hog and cattle farmers are already bringing their animals to market early in an effort to save money on feed, because the cost of a bushel of corn has doubled since September 2006. As the price of grain goes up, some people will starve. There were riots in Mexico in June because people were not able to afford corn for tortillas.

State Senator Tom McClintock, a Republican, summed it up as follows: "The CARB regulations [to enforce the low carbon fuel standard] will undoubtedly hit Californians hard - but they will hit starving third world populations even harder. Basic foodstuffs are a small portion of the family incomes in affluent nations, but they consume more than half of family earnings in third world countries."

The federal government subsidizes major agribusinesses such as ADM, ConAgra and Cargill to grow corn, and the new Energy Bill mandates more such subsidies. The federal government and some states also provide funds to build plants. California granted Pacific Ethanol a $14 million tax advantage for its plants on December 13, 2007. Then the oil refiners are given 51 cents a gallon for blending ethanol into our gasoline. After all these subsidies, these same agribusinesses and oil companies want consumers to pay more at the pump and supermarket.

A gallon of ethanol is less expensive than gasoline, but we pay exactly the same amount for it at the pump. The oil companies profit by selling us a gallon of less-expensive fuel for the same amount per gallon that we now pay for gasoline. And we get less gas mileage from that gallon of ethanol, so we have to purchase more gasoline to drive the same number of miles. This is in direct contradiction to the raising of CAFÉ standards, which at 35 mpg are already outmoded by the 40 mpg standard achieved today in Great Britain.

Alternatives to biofuels do not have to be liquid fuel. Plug-in hybrid vehicles powered by PV solar panels will supply energy for twenty-five or more years with very little maintenance. Any crop that is grown for ethanol requires energy inputs annually for growing, processing and distribution, with its detrimental effects on greenhouse gas emissions. Support for solar and wind systems makes sense. That our representatives in Washington could not manage to include them in this Energy Bill is another sad commentary on our current government.


Juliette Anthony is an environmental research consultant, former twelve-year board member of The Coalition for Clean Air, and research consultant on MTBE for Communities for a Better Environment. For the past six years, she has worked on implementing the California Solar Initiative.

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