The ethanol mandate, at best, trades greenhouse gas reductions for massive damage to waterways

.


Our heavily subsidized clean fuels are reducing our greenhouse gas emissions but depleting and poisoning our water supplies, a new study finds. These results point to the trade-offs that often get ignored when the government intervenes in the name of the environment.

Ethanol is an alcohol fuel derived from plants. In the United States, it is almost entirely made from corn. Biodiesel is typically made from soy. Together, these are called “biofuels.”

DIVERSIFYING OUR CRITICAL MINERAL SUPPLY CHAINS IS KEY TO THE ENERGY TRANSITION AND NATIONAL SECURITY

Biofuels are generally more expensive than the fossil fuels they replace, gasoline and diesel, and so the biofuel industry has always relied on subsidies. Most significant these days is the Bush-era Renewable Fuel Standard, also known as the ethanol mandate. The ethanol mandate effectively forces fuel refiners to blend ethanol in with gasoline. This is why the gasoline you buy at the gas station is often 10% ethanol (which is why it harms your lawnmower or motorcycle).

Ethanol burns much cleaner than gasoline, but the process of producing it involves all sorts of inputs that are not environmentally friendly. Most notably, growing the corn involves an immense amount of irrigation, and it requires huge amounts of fertilizer. This depletes water supplies and causes eutrophication (or the poisoning of waters with nitrogen through fertilizer runoff). Producing ethanol and biodiesel also emits some greenhouse gases because tractors and ethanol distilleries use fossil fuels that produce emissions.

A team of scientists led by mechanical engineer Jack P. Smith of Colorado State University conducted an in-depth study of the sustainability of corn ethanol and soy-based biodiesel in the U.S. What’s new about this study is that the authors account for the differences between corn and soy production (and biofuel production) in different parts of the country.

For instance, corn ethanol produced in central Nebraska depletes water at a much higher rate than corn ethanol produced in Iowa. Soy biodiesel that is produced in Appalachia has a much higher greenhouse gas intensity than soy biodiesel produced in Illinois.

Crunching all the numbers, here’s what the scientists found: America dedicates 5% of U.S. farmland in order to reduce national greenhouse gas emissions by about 1%. At the same time, biofuels deplete water supplies at 36 times the rate (depletion per energy produced) of fossil fuels, and they poison water with nitrogen runoff at five times the rate.

As the authors put it: “Emissions reductions are achieved through biofuel production but include a considerable opportunity cost in terms of water and nitrogen intensity.”

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Other recent studies have concluded that ethanol doesn’t actually help mitigate climate change because ethanol use “caused enough domestic land use change emissions such that the carbon intensity of corn ethanol produced under the RFS is no less than gasoline and likely at least 24% higher.”

Given the unclarity of ethanol’s environmental effects, it seems terribly unwise that our government is forcing people to put it in their cars.

Related Content

Related Content