An article from TIME Magazine’s online news site points out that corn ethanol fuel used as a gasoline additive or replacement is not as environmentally friendly as proponents claim. TIME is correct.
Research shows that not only does the promotion of corn ethanol-blended fuel lead to land use and crop pricing issues, but it also may actually increase the emissions that climate activists are trying to reduce. [bold, links added]
The article, “Politicians Are Touting Corn Ethanol as a Climate Solution. The Truth Is More Complicated,” explains how hundreds of millions of dollars in the Inflation Reduction Act are going toward further investment in higher-ethanol content gasoline infrastructure.
TIME staff writer Alejandro de la Garza writes that “while ethanol proponents have touted the fuel as a way to lower gas prices and help tackle climate change, many environmentalists and scientists say those measures are just a way of locking in higher corn prices while actually making the climate situation worse.”
De la Garza discusses a short overview of recent ethanol mandates and funding, and the land-use issues pointed out by environmentalists.
Primarily, increased mandates for blending ethanol into fuel prompt farmers to plant more land with corn in particular.
This has the effect of raising crop prices, and has a potentially net-negative impact on emissions, De la Garza says.
These claims have proven true, and have been shown time and again in research going back decades.
Climate Realism has touched on this issue in multiple posts here, here, and here, for example, showing that it’s not just corn ethanol biofuel that has proven to be a problem for the environment.
In Brazil, for example, one study shows that demand for ethanol fuel has caused increasing encroachment of sugarcane and soybean plantations into once-protected Amazon rainforest and wetlands.
The study authors explain in the abstract that ethanol biofuel made from sugarcane, and biodiesel made from soybeans “each contributes to nearly half of the projected indirect deforestation of 121,970 km2 by 2020, creating a carbon debt that would take about 250 years to be repaid using these biofuels instead of fossil fuels.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said in 2007 that they expected corn prices to rise, and continue to rise, so long as the demand for corn ethanol biofuel keeps increasing.
Additionally, De la Garza writes about the failure of cellulosic biofuel—or biofuel made from woody stems and other plant materials—to develop economically.
It is true that, although the EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standards program demands increasing amounts of cellulosic biofuels to be blended into gasoline, the technology just has not worked out.
This has forced EPA to hand out waivers so fuel blenders are not fined for failing to incorporate non-existent cellulosic fuel into their blends.
What TIME misses, though, is the fact that the fuel itself is not very likely a lower-emissions fuel than normal gasoline.
A study done by The Heartland Institute, “Ethanol and Biodiesel: Few Benefits, Many Problems” shows that while ethanol produces less CO2 per gallon of fuel, ethanol also has a significantly lower energy density.
This means more fuel is required to go the same distance as a gasoline car. When emissions are calculated per unit of energy instead of per unit volume of fuel, ethanol produces about 4.05 kg of CO2 and gasoline produces about 3.30 kg.
The study also found that ethanol biofuels produce more ground-level ozone pollution, as well as other air pollutants like PM2.5, NOx, and SOx.
TIME is correct to question the motivation and science behind government corn ethanol mandates.
While Climate Realism is not overly worried about carbon dioxide emissions, it makes no sense for climate activists to throw their weight behind a net-higher emitter like corn ethanol.
The impact that mandates have on the price of a main food staple like corn, land use, and legitimate localized air pollution is reason enough to share some common ground.
Read more at Climate Realism
My personal experience with (mandated) ethanol fuels of 10% – car performance dropped – had to press accelerator harder and fuel consumption went up, so I have used only unlead fuel for years. I would never used ethanol fuels in stand along engines like water pumps or lawn mowers because it fouls spark plugs. Some manufacturers actually warn against using ethanol fuels. My 30 yo Mitsubishi Triton 4×4 has a label at the fuel filler – use only unleaded fuel.
Some work – rounds. For small engines, a small bottle of fuel
stabilizer, like Stabil, goes a long way . Running your gas tank to near empty before refuelling reduces the concentration of parafins. The only ethanol free fuel around here is premium, and only from Shell and CTC stations. Very expensive. Ethanol-free gasoline is not perfect either, as it is actually a stew of several distillates, some of them volatile. Why is there winter gasoline and summer gasoline?
Winter and summer gasoline is because a higher vapor pressure (RVP) is allowed in the winter time for cold-start characteristics, and typically this allows more butane to be blended into the gasoline pool.
Ethanol is high RVP component, and high ethanol blends cannot meet summer RVP specs so they need to have exceptions for these cases. So to have “environmentally friendly” ethanol blends in the summer you have to allow more to be vaporized into the environment. Makes sense, right?
I grow corn and soybeans. There’s nothing in this article that I disagree with. The genesis of the ethanol industry was the chronic subsidies given to farmers to keep them afloat. The government alluded to ethanol’s environmental benefits to sell the idea to the public. Environmentalists got behind the idea on cue. That was years ago, and now we know better. For example, ethanol has half the energy, per gallon, as gasoline . A 10% ethanol mix therefore delivers 5% less mileage. Supposedly, the single oxygen atom in ethanol acts as a catalyst for cleaner combustion. Whatever. Oxygen is free, air inhaled by your engine being 21% O2.
So now ethanol is entrenched in North America’s fuel business. It’s a huge political football. Pulling the rug out from under the farm economy would be an economic bomb. Won’t happen. Same with wind turbines ,solar farms and electric cars and umpteen other things that exist only because of bad policies. Once they’re established, everybody in those businesses will defend their livelihoods.
Well said Sonnyhill..!!
So this means that Government’s all-out war against petroleum is a war against farmers, making an interesting alliance.