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Ethanol’s Hidden Effects
By Mr Ethanol | February 15, 2008
The Register-Guard:
Skepticism about a heavy investment in ethanol as part of a national energy policy has long been justified by concerns that its production consumes more energy than is gained and, more recently, by the effects on world food prices and supplies that follow the large-scale diversion of corn and other staples from the supermarket to the gas station. But ethanol’s promoters found an important point in the alternative fuel’s favor: Burning ethanol produces fewer greenhouse gases than an equivalent volume of petroleum.
This advantage vanishes in a comprehensive accounting of ethanol’s effects on the global carbon cycle. Two studies published in the peer-reviewed journal Science took a comprehensive look at the environmental consequences of increased reliance on ethanol and reached troubling conclusions.
The studies suggest that the United States needs to choose its course carefully as it nourishes the fledgling biofuels industry, which is mandated by last year’s energy bill to expand to 36 billion gallons a year in 2022 from the 2006 figure of 5 billion gallons. More.
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