{"id":2917,"date":"2008-04-30T13:41:54","date_gmt":"2008-04-30T19:41:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/2008\/04\/30\/biofuels-part-i-corn-ethanol-isn%e2%80%99t-the-solution\/"},"modified":"2008-04-30T13:41:54","modified_gmt":"2008-04-30T19:41:54","slug":"biofuels-part-i-corn-ethanol-isnt-the-solution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/biofuels-part-i-corn-ethanol-isnt-the-solution\/","title":{"rendered":"Biofuels Part I: Corn Ethanol Isn\u2019t the Solution"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TurningWritten by Dr. Bill Chameides<\/a>, dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and lead author of the forthcoming blog The Green Grok.
\nThis post is Part 1 of a 2-part series on biofuels. Today\u2019s post looks at corn; Part 2 will examine the most promising biofuels.<\/em><\/p>\n

Who doesn’t want to be green? But beware of automobile ads claiming environmental benefits from home-grown ethanol. Almost all U.S. ethanol comes from corn and, as a fuel, corn just isn\u2019t as “amaizing” as they say.<\/p>\n

“What if we could live green by going yellow?” one TV spot<\/a> asks. “What if we could lower greenhouse gas emissions,” it continues, promisingly, “with a fuel that grew back every year?” Sounds great doesn’t it? Sorry folks, it\u2019s just not so.<\/p>\n

With corn ethanol, we are barking up the wrong stalk. This so-called yellow fuel is not green and the rush to it is misguided. The negatives of turning corn into fuel far outweigh the positives. First a little background.<\/p>\n

A short history of ethanol<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ethanol has been around for a long time. Some of the earliest forms of life on Earth \u2014 anaerobic bacteria \u2014 used fermentation to produce ethanol and in the process extracted energy to drive their metabolic functions. In prehistoric times humans fermented grains and other biomass to make ethanol. Most of you have encountered ethanol in your lives \u2014 in beer, or wine, or the harder stuff. Ethanol is simply alcohol.<\/p>\n

Using ethanol as a fuel dates back to the nineteenth century. It powered some of the earliest automobiles, including Henry Ford\u2019s first car, the Quadricycle. Interest in reviving and expanding the usage of ethanol in cars today has grown, in part, because of its perceived climate benefit.<\/p>\n

When we burn fossil fuel, excess carbon dioxide (CO2<\/sub>), the chief global warming pollutant, is released to the atmosphere. This, at least in principle, should not be the case for ethanol or other biofuels (fuels produced from plants and wastes). When ethanol is burned, its carbon is converted to CO2<\/sub>, just as in fossil fuels. But because the carbon in biofuels is pulled directly from the atmosphere via photosynthesis, it would seem that burning ethanol does not, in and of itself, represent a net source of new CO2<\/sub> to the atmosphere. (See the Department of Energy’s diagram below.)<\/p>\n

As it turns out, it’s not that simple.<\/p>\n

Why ethanol is not effective at fighting global warming<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"carbon<\/a><\/p>\n

To get the whole picture you have to consider ethanol’s entire life cycle \u2014 the energy inputs and global warming pollution arising from every step in the production process, such as:<\/p>\n