What is the True Price of Ethanol?

Leave it to London’s The Guardian Unlimited to put into perspective the issue of corn-based ethanol.

In a Jan. 26 story headlined : "The new gold rush: how farmers are set to fuel America's future," Ed Pilkington reports from Churdan, Iowa. The article is timely because of Pres. Bush’s SOTU speech in which he sang the praises of ethanol. He said that his goal is to cut use of gasoline by 20 percent over the next decade and to ramp up production of alternative fuels to 35 billion gallons a year during that time frame. This means that alternative fuel producers would have to produce seven times what they do now.

Pilkington’s article reviews how this "gold rush" is being greeted warmly by Iowa farmers and some ag conglomerates. Small towns in the corn belt envision a new lease on life as ethanol-producing plants rise like, well, healthy summer corn.

But not everyone is happy.

David Waskow of Friends of the Earth US said this about the new ethanol rush:"It is critically important that we don't replace a system of waste of fossil fuels with a similar waste of biofuels." He notes that "ethanol reduces emissions of global warming gasses by 13% compared with petrol, and if production plants use coal to heat the corn in the process of extracting its sugars, as many now do, there is no net benefit." He advocates that a "cellulosic ethanol" be brewed from sugars extracted from native perennial plants such as switchgrass. "It could reduce emissions by as much as 90% with fewer environmental costs, though the technology required to mass produce it is in its infancy."

The Iowa Environmental Council notes that corn uses tons of fertilizer, most of which washes off into the Mississippi River watershed. And continuous corn crops are susceptible to pests and diseases. Either farmers will have to spray more pesticides or turn to genetically modified strains that could be more expensive. And greed could dismantle the time-tested process of crop rotation, which could lead to soil depletion and erosion, maybe even a new Dust Bowl.

So all is not rosy with corn-based ethanol. Pilkington barely mentions the fact that using a homegrown form of fuel beats paying Saudi sheiks for their precious oil, which in turn is funneled to various Islamic fundamentalist groups.

That’s my main reason for switching to ethanol. It’s a terrorless fuel, at least for now, and it does support those farmers that The Guardian quotes in its article. If I was using regular unleaded right now, I’d be paying a penny less a gallon that a do for ethanol ($1.99). Gasoline prices will rise again come summer so I will be saving money again.

I grudgingly admit that I am pleased, at long last, to be on the same side of an issue as the president. I plan to remember this the next time Dan, my diehard Republican brother, baits me with this question: "Isn't there anything you like about Pres. Bush?"

Last time he asked this, all I could come up with were those tax rebate checks we got back at the beginning of the century. And I admitted I liked Laura, his wife, for her support of reading and books. I now have something else to add to the plus column, although the list of minuses is long and continues to grow.

I thank Mr. Bush for pushing the issue to the forefront of the energy debate. But the question remains: what is the true price of ethanol?