Corn
Ethanol Will Not Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions
California regulators may rule that the biofuel is no better--and might be worse--than petroleum
for solving climate change
The Environmentalist Lobby and Liberals in the
Senate and House rushed to get corn ethanol out on the market, and by putting
30% of US corn production into making ethanol caused and international food
crisis. Starving Africans and those in
third world countries gave Liberals and Green Party members no pause in their
actions whatsoever. Revealing they do not care a wit for the poor and the
hungry but that this was all politics and seeking to force their fingers deeper
into the meat of free market commerce and to bleed it once again for the sport
of their lobby. So here now we see that biofuel pollutes even more than gasoline, or diesel oil in
trucks and automobiles. And with this
breaking news the President ran out today and declared he suddenly now wants to
drill for Oil and Natural Gas in the US
as there is no feasible alternative available to power this nation
cleaner and more efficiently than oil and natural gas. And we might add here clean coal as
well. One wonders how many billions the
liberal democrats needlessly wasted on the research, the development, the
building of plants and the layers of regulation that was created to make this
latest environmental fiasco.
News flash the global warming hoax will the a
30 fold magnitude of trillions wasted on anything and everything to alter the
worlds temperatures and climate – that in all reality man can not effect one
degree up or down globally.
Scientific America
By Matthew Cimitile
April 20, 2009
California regulators, trying to assess the true
environmental cost of corn ethanol, are poised to
declare that the biofuel cannot help the state reduce
global
warming.
As they see it, corn
is no better – and might be worse – than petroleum when total
greenhouse gas emissions are considered.
Such a declaration, to be considered later this week by the
If passed, the measure could serve as a model as other states and the federal
government tackle carbon emissions. But
The state must assess the full
climate change impact of corn ethanol under a
The proposal would work like this: If increased production
of corn-based ethanol in the
"Losing a carbon sink would defeat the purpose of this regulation to
reduce greenhouse emissions," Stanich said.
The regulation is part of
A regional low carbon fuel standard has also been adopted by eleven northeast
and
Federal law requires
But an overwhelming majority of ethanol mixed into gasoline today comes from
corn. By 2012, about a third of all corn produced in the
They fear
"We
strongly support the low carbon fuel standard," said Roger Salazar, spokesman
for Growth Energy, an ethanol advocacy group. "But the science behind (
More than 100 scientists researching biofuel production
agree, having signed a letter to California Gov. Schwarzenegger calling the
policy misguided and based on limited scientific models that improperly punish
corn-based biofuel.
"Results from the model have not been verified enough to be useful,"
said Harvey Blanch, a professor of biochemical engineering at University
This is the first piece of regulation to account for such so-called
"indirect land-use effects" of corn-based ethanol. But it is the
latest in an ongoing debate about the fuel's effectiveness to reduce greenhouse
gases.
Prior research has shown converting corn to ethanol leads to more clearing of
rainforests that would do little to slow global
warming. A recent study looking at the total climate
change and health costs from fuels found that corn-based ethanol equals or
exceeds the costs of gasoline. That study, published February in the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that the
combined climate-change and health costs are $469 million for gasoline, $472
million to $952 million for corn ethanol, and $123 million to $208 million for cellulosic ethanol.
Whereas corn ethanol is produced from the edible corn grain, cellulosic ethanol comes from wood, grasses and the
non-edible parts of plants. Cellulosic emits fewer greenhouse
gases than corn and has minimal impacts on deforestation rate, air
pollution and food prices.
"If we are going to be using corn-ethanol in any large quantities, we
really need to be sure it is having its intended effects," said Jason Hill,
a research associate in applied economics at the University of Minnesota and
lead author of the PNAS study.
Including indirect land-use change is essential, Hill said,
especially if policies aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But federal policy is moving in an opposite direction. Pushed by industry and
the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is
considering upping the percentage of ethanol in the nation's gasoline from 10
percent to 15 percent. All of that, at least in the near-term, would likely
come from corn.
"You can't really get to the ultimate goal of cellulosic
without this corn ethanol bridge," he said.
Hill countered that the ethanol industry has grown so fast that it has outpaced
the science. The need for precaution is necessary, he said.
"If we are going to have policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the
burden of proof should be on the fuels to fulfill that policy," Hill said.
"Right now, there is no clear data that shows corn ethanol has the effect
of reducing greenhouse gas emission."
This
article originally appeared at The
Daily Climate, the climate
change news source published by Environmental Health Sciences, a nonprofit
media company.