Biofuels are not Green

Diverting corn into fuel has led us down a path of unintended consequences

Photo by Steven Weeks on Unsplash

The corn-dependent biofuel industry has had a significant impact on the environment, and notably climate change. The production of corn for biofuels is highly energy intensive, emitting more carbon dioxide than its traditional use as an agricultural crop. Additionally, it has driven up the cost of food production, with corn prices increasing significantly since the introduction of biofuels in 2005. This has meant that people living in poverty, who rely heavily on corn-based foods, have had to suffer the economic burden of higher prices due to the biofuel industry. In addition, land formerly used to grow crops is now being allocated for biofuel production, destroying much better carbon sinks like forests and grasslands to create corn crop land.

The promise of biofuels

Biofuels were given a big boost during the Bush ‘43 Administration with an establishment of the biofuels program in USDA. (Biofuels is a type of fuel that utilizes energy produced from biological materials with carbohydrates and fats as the energy source, processed to be utilized by gasoline and diesel engines.) It was understandable to want to help out corn farmers with a new market, but the unintended consequences was to drive up the cost of corn for those who needed it around the world for a staple food. 

It was supposed to be green and sustainable, but it turns out it costs more in lost ecological resources like water and land depletion than it benefits in replacing fossil fuels — ecologically or economically. Further, the shift in demand for corn for biofuel drove up the price of corn for human consumption. This was particularly serious in regions where corn was a major food staple and regions of poverty. Yet it is a program that continues to be funded by the U.S., even on the precipice of a world wide food shortage to come.

Biofuels seemed like a good idea at the time— or did it?

The concept of biofuels was initially attractive because of the renewable and sustainable aspect of biological reproduction. You harvest the crop and grow another one, year after year. Many of the early promotions of biofuels featured a spokesperson discussing the renewable aspect of growing crops that would replace fossil fuels, and make us independent from Middle Eastern oil.  However, the use of biofuels relies upon the carbon stored in these renewable biological producers and the carbohydrate and oil stored energies. When we think of corn as food, we think of energy measured in calories. (Just as a reminder, a calorie is the heat produced by raising one gram of water, one degree Celsius.) Further, one gram of carbohydrate provides 4 calories of energy; while oils and fats provide 9 calories per gram, making oils a superior source of energy.  Now, thinking of corn as a fuel, it is measured in BTUs, the measure of the amount of heating units produced by a fuels.

The question arises, however, whether it takes more energy to produce the crop, than can be gained by using it for fuel?  Studies from the USDA and their analyses show that 1.23 units of energy is produced as ethanol for every fossil fuel BTU used to produce it.¹ There is disagreement with the government analysis by the former Chair of the Committee appointed by the U.S. Department of Energy to evaluate the ethanol process.  He concluded that it takes about 70 percent more energy to produce ethanol than the energy captured for use in the ethanol.  He points out that one gallon of ethanol has an energy value of  77,000 BTUs, but it takes 131, 000 BTUs to make it.  In another computation, he finds than an acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn which yields 328 gallons of ethanol.  But planting, growing and harvesting an acre of corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $347 per acre, which means that even before processing the corn into ethanol, the feedstock costs $1.05 a gallon! ²  The Corn Producers Association, who has successfully lobbied for ethanol production, and has enjoyed soaring corn prices for its members since the demand for corn for ethanol has grown, disagree with the study.

Not only have some scientists agreed with these findings that it take more energy to produce ethanol than it yields, but that the environmental impacts from burning biofuels are far more severe than the burning of fossil fuels. Because plants trap carbon as they grow, incorporating carbon into the plant structure, the burning of the plants, releases the absorbed carbon. Previous studies had considered only this release of carbon factor in contributing to greenhouse gases, but when the factor of land use changes is factored into the environmental impact, ethanol becomes a net loss in benefit to energy or the environment.

Land use change triggers an increase when corn prices increase, and this results in clearing more forests and grasslands to convert to farm land. This process destroys carbon sinks for capturing carbon from the atmosphere by trees and grasses. It has been estimated that it would take 167 years for corn to replace the carbon sinks in plant capacity.³ The increasing amount of atmospheric carbon contributes to increasing climate change. This is so severe that greenhouse gas emissions are double that for corn-produced ethanol compared to production of gasoline over a thirty year timespan.⁴

So switchgrass was proposed to replace corn as the biofuel feedstock. But even using switchgrass, a non-crop renewable, would still cause emissions in carbon to increase 50% more than fossil fuels.⁵

In 2014, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the United Nations collective body that has three group reports on the status of climate change periodically, wrote:

 “Increasing bioenergy crop cultivation poses risks to ecosystems and biodiversity” (WGIII).

In 2021, at long last, the National Academies finally produced a report to showing the reality that biofuels are not green and in fact, increase the impact on climate, contradicting the USDA report. The National Academies found a 24% increase in carbon emissions for the corn-based ethanol process, over that of burning fossil fuels.

Yet, biofuels production and consumption continue to grow.

Biofuels Consumption⁶

This graph⁷ shows the steep increase in the production and use of biofuels, both ethanol and biodiesel. The United States and Brazil are the leading producers in the world, and any attempt to roll back the biofuel industry will be met with serious resistance.

In the big energy picture, biofuels would not be missed if we did the right thing and rolled back their use.

Human cost of biofuels

Further exacerbating the net loss to energy and the environment is the indirect consequence of making food more expensive due to the rise in demand for corn.  The price of corn since 2013 to Dec 2022 below⁸ shows the recent surge in price for corn, also driven by 40 year record inflation and a deepening economic recession in 2022-23.

In 2019 when biofuels continued unabated, the projected price of corn ten years ahead was fairly accurate. The USDA prediction in 2010 for 2019 corn prices was very accurate.⁹ Fortunately, the effort to reduce the price of corn from $7 dollars to $4 dollars a bushel was successful as you see in the chart that follows for December 2022.

Continuing federal subsidies for biofuels¹⁰ has not resulted in changing behavior or economics. Even more subsidies exist over the last 40 years in incremental programs that have evolved since the 1970s energy crisis.¹¹ Subsidizing an industry for more than 40 years without evolving into being self-sustaining probably indicates ending the program unless it has an impact on national security. It appears that the biofuels program actually has a negative impact on our national security for ensuring a food supply for the U.S..

USDA’s projected corn prices in 2010

However, after the 2012 drought, the pandemic, deepening recession and Ukraine conflict has sent corn prices soaring back slightly above the high of $7 a bushel in 2013.   

So the projections of corn prices made in 2005 when biofuels was implemented as a policy are no longer accurate and should be re-evaluated as to whether to continue with biofuels as part of our national energy policy. The severe drought of 2012, ¹²the war in Ukraine (a major grain producer) and the pandemic have all changed the economics of corn in the world and this cannot be ignored.

Together with rice and wheat, maize provides at least 30% of the food calories to more than 4.5 billion people in 94 developing countries. They include 900 million poor consumers for whom maize is the preferred staple.¹³

Humans who consume corn must pay higher prices for it, creating the potential for the exacerbation of poor and starving populations, already at risk.  The International Food Policy Research Institute, noted that the global shift toward converting more land to renewable crop production could increase food prices by up to 80 percent. The increase in corn prices led the U.S. to announce that it would shift focus to new technologies to make biofuels from switchgrass and other non-food renewables.  Even the use of bacteria to produce biofuels, by converting light to energy, and then being used to more efficiently produce ethanol, is being studied,¹⁴ to reduce pressure on the rising price of corn for ethanol production.

Hopi and the relationship with Corn

Corn is considered to be sacred among the Hopi Nation, and farmers talk to their corn and consider them like children. Respect for corn as a food that helps the survival of humans is a good starting point for a discussion about biofuels. Perhaps if consultations with Native Nations had been a part of the biofuels initiative discussions for the U.S. Energy Policy, the problem of driving up the cost of food might have come from the lack of respect for corn as part of the human existence. ¹⁵

FI cannot speak for the Hopi, but from my own indigenous background view, everything in nature has a role, and so it does not mean biofuels should not be researched, but maybe another part of the ecology (without a role as a human food) would be a much better balance. Switchgrass was an early candidate. But switchgrass took more energy to convert to biofuel than corn which is relatively easy, making it much less attractive for profit. But more research should be done¹⁶ to find the right fit in nature for this kind of conversion of plantlife to biofuels.

Conclusion

The promise of biofuels has not been reached from its inception as a federal program in 2015. Corn is too important as a food to use as biofuel when other plants could be used, and driving up the price of corn exacerbates the costs to the impoverished regions of the world that rely on corn. If a food shortage is looming, as predicted, this is all the more reason to reconsider a pause for the U.S. biofuels program.

1. http://www.ncga.com/public policy/issues/2001/ethanol/08 22 01b.htm.

2. Pimentel, Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences and Technology (2001).

3. Cornell News, Ethanol fuel from corn faulted as unsustainable subsidized food burning in analysis by Cornell scientist, (Aug. 6, 2001) at  http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug01/corn-basedethanol.hrs.

4. Searchinger, Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change, Science online edition (Feb. 7, 2008) abstract at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1151861.

5. Searchinger, Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change, Science online edition (Feb. 7, 2008) abstract at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1151861.

6. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-stacked

7. https://sites.google.com/site/natscirel/ethanol-debate/data

8. https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Agricultural_Prices/pricecn.php

9. https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/outlooks/37806/8679_oce101_1_.pdf

10. https://afdc.energy.gov/laws/5831

11. https://www.taxpayer.net/energy-natural-resources/understanding-u-s-corn-ethanol-and-other-corn-based-biofuels-subsidies/

12. https://www.allaboutfeed.net/animal-feed/raw-materials/half-the-us-corn-crop-in-poor-to-very-poor-condition/

13. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12571-011-0140-5#:~:text=Introduction,maize%20is%20the%20preferred%20staple.

14. Don Bryant, Science, use of Chloracidobacterium termophilum to make energy (July 2007).

15. https://www.americanindianmagazine.org/story/heart-hopi

16. https://www.card.iastate.edu/products/publications/synopsis/?p=1083