Under the Influence of Ethanol

In February 2006 Energy Secretary Sam Bodman showed up at ADM's Decatur, Illinois, headquarters to pose with CEO Allen Andreas and announce that the Department of Energy would offer $160 million for the construction of three biorefineries for ethanol production. "This funding will support a much-needed step in the development of biofuels and renewable energy programs," declared Bodman. "Partnerships with industry like these will lead to new innovation and discovery that will usher in an era of reduced dependence on foreign sources of oil, while strengthening our economy at home."

This is the same ADM that made it to number 10 on the University of Massachusetts' Political Economy Research Institute's "Toxic 100" list of America's worst corporate polluters, the same ADM that in 2003 was assessed $351 million in fines by the EPA for Clean Air Act violations at 52 plants in 16 states, the same ADM currently slugging it out with the state and feds in 25 judicial and administrative proceedings regarding its contamination of air, soil and water.

ADM is just one of many offenders. Another example: in June 2006 Ace Ethanol LLC of Stanley, Wisconsin, and John S. Olynick Inc. of Gilman, Wisconsin, (an excavating company) agreed to pay $61,000 after they'd been cited for filling wetlands adjacent to a tributary of the Wolf River. And Ace has been ordered by Wisconsin's attorney general to pay $300,000 in fines for Clean Air Act violations.

"I've been following this ethanol development very closely," says Iowa Fish and Wildlife's Kalishek. "And I have one hope--biomass ethanol. If we can get plants shifted over to biomass [cellulosic ethanol derived from wood chips, straw, hemp, crop stalks, etc.], we could have farmers growing something like switchgrass [one of the native prairie covers approved for CRP enrollment]. Then we wouldn't have to worry about erosion. There'd be many benefits for fish and wildlife and water quality. But it looks like the demand for corn for ethanol is going to continue to increase. Every prediction I've seen, and the most recent one came out of Iowa State University, is that demand for corn is going to outstrip Iowa's ability to produce corn. If you've ever driven across our state, you'd scratch your head and say, 'Huh? All that corn is not going to be enough to feed the ethanol plants?'"

The National Wildlife Federation shares Kalishek's hopes and fears. "We're working on a program for the next Farm Bill that would try to advance the whole next generation of technologies like switchgrass ethanol," says Sibbing. "A couple [cellulosic] plants are being built now--one in Iowa and one in Idaho. If we get to cellulosic ethanol, we can produce something like five times more per acre. It would be a lot better for land and water and a produce a lot more bang for the buck."

Switchgrass is certainly attractive to burn directly as a biomass fuel; and one day, perhaps, it will be an ethanol source. Because it is harvested in early spring or late summer or fall, declining ground-nesters such as quail and bob-o-link that fledge their broods in late spring would benefit. Switchgrass requires essentially no fertilization; and it's a perennial, which means there's no tilling, reseeding or erosion.

But, warns Cornell's Pimentel, cellulosic ethanol is far more difficult to produce than corn-based ethanol, which itself isn't practical or economical. "There are only about half as many starches and sugars in woody material and straw as in corn," he explains. "There are also extra steps. You have to use an acid or enzyme to release the cellulose from the lignin--the stuff that holds the plants up straight. If you use acid, you have to stop the acidity process with an alkali. So that's another step. You hear stories from pro-ethanol people that the lignin (about 25 percent of the wood) can be used for fuel, but that's if it's dry. It's dissolved in water, and to dry it takes a good deal of energy."

Ethanol rendered from crop stalks is no less problematical. And any major commitment to that source could be even more environmentally hurtful than corn-based ethanol by spiking already gross erosion rates.

So, until we figure out how to make ethanol cheaply and efficiently from native prairie perennials like switchgrass, where are we going to find the fuel to run our cars? Berkeley's Dr. Tad Patzek makes the point that corn is merely one way of converting solar energy to fuel. Solar cells, far more efficient, could make hydrogen fuel. That's where the subsidies need to go, he contends. But technology for practical, affordable hydrogen fuel, like technology for practical, affordable ethanol fuel, doesn't exist yet.

We do, however, possess the technology to build fuel-efficient automobiles. In the current charade designed by and for agribusiness we're allocating 18 percent of the corn we grow to ethanol, thereby cutting our petroleum consumption by one percent. But Patzek has calculated that if we doubled automobile fuel efficiency, we'd cut petroleum consumption by 33 percent or, put another way, we'd increase our petroleum supply by a third. It's a revolutionary concept that America has never tried. Fish-and-wildlife advocates are calling it conservation.