Turning Food Into Fuel While Families Go Hungry
Government Subsidies Encourage Planting Corn for Ethanol
by Max Ajl - Dec 23rd, 2009
America produces a lot of food. So much food, in fact, that it is one of the world’s major food exporters, and so much grain and soy that we turn much of it into ethanol to power our cars.
Even excluding the calories that we export or turn into agro-fuels, per-capita caloric availability was 2,700 calories per person in 2007. That’s plenty of food. [Excel link]. No one should be hungry in a country that produces that much food.
But that doesn’t mean that many aren’t going hungry. The latest USDA survey results show that 14.6 percent of the American population — 17 million households — was food-insecure at some point in 2008. “Food insecure” means that the food consumption of one member of the household, or more, was reduced because they lacked for money or other ways to access food. That number shot up from 13 million households in 2007, 11.1 percent of the population.
For one-third of the “food insecure” households, things were much worse: 6.7 million households were “very” food-insecure, up from 4.7 million households in 2007.
Many of those who are just “food insecure” as opposed to “very food insecure” were able to get enough food most of the year by scrounging, going to food pantries or receiving food-stamps, eating a less varied- or less-nutritious diet, and the like. It’s unpleasant that people struggle to get enough to eat, although the United States is not at the level of eastern Africa. There’s plenty of food. It just isn’t distributed properly.
But why should this be the case at all? And what does it have to do with climate change?
Here’s the connection:
The USDA calculates food calories as those that are actually available for people to eat. It doesn’t include those contained in crops diverted for other purposes — like ethanol production. Ethanol production takes up a great deal of U.S. staple-crop production, over 25 percent of the United States’ corn production and a similarly large percentage for soybeans.
This would be one thing if ethanol could be produced efficiently, or if it helped alleviate global climate change, but it doesn’t do either.
The first point, as energy researcher Robert Bryce points out, is that both corn and ethanol production are extremely heavily subsidized. He characterizes corn subsidies as “a handout that has cost American taxpayers billions of dollars during the last three decades, with little to show for it,” and ethanol subsidies as shoveling “yet more federal cash on the single most subsidized crop in America, corn.” From 1995 to 2003, direct subsidies for corn-growers were $37.3 billion dollars.
Subsidies for ethanol production likewise go to corn growers but are tabulated differently, based on different standards. But they represent a growing pile of money. As subsidies researcher Doug Koplow comments,
"The $9.5 billion of subsidies in 2008 increases six-fold to $60 billion by 2022, due both to more production and to a shift to more heavily subsidized cellulosic fuels. In total, between 2008 and 2022, taxpayers will have paid out over $400 billion to the biofuels industry.
"Were Obama proposals for 60 billion gallons per year to be realized, subsidies would top $120 billion per year by the end of the period, for a cumulative subsidy during the 2008-30 period of more than $1 trillion."
Forty percent of that money goes to corn growers. So we see that ethanol production gets a great deal of state support. That’s not necessarily a problem in and of itself. Lots of socially beneficial programs receive state support. The problem is that the state isn’t paying for anything socially beneficial with ethanol.
According to the most recent research from the National Resource Council, even not taking into account climactic damage, ethanol is more polluting than non-ethanol-based fuel. When the total life-cycle of ethanol production is taken into account, it does nothing to diminish anthropogenic CO2 emissions
.
Indeed, as a team of researchers led by Cornell ecologist David Pimentel argues,
"Manufacture of a liter of 99.5% ethanol uses 46% more fossil energy than it produces and costs $1.05 per liter. The corn feedstock alone requires more than 33% of the total energy input.
"Even if we completely ignore corn ethanol’s negative energy balance and high economic cost, we still find that it is absolutely not feasible to use ethanol as a replacement for U.S. oil."
The U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard, established under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, sets a goal of 13 billion gallons of biofuel in use by 2010 and 36 billion gallons by 2022, with an increasing percentage shifting from corn-based to advanced biofuels. According to the latest Energy Outlook 2010 from the DOE's Energy Information Administration, the biofuels supply won't reach the 2022 target. One DOE study suggests the RFS requirement would outstrip U.S. production by 2015 and that close to a third of biofuels would have to be imported to meet the 2022 target.
So, ethanol production doesn’t reduce our energy needs, it doesn’t alleviate CO2 emissions, it makes food more expensive, and it reduces the food available to the U.S. population. This is strange, because clearly, the U.S. population doesn’t get as much food as it needs.
One could say it’s not the government’s job to supply food to poor people, but then, why is it the government’s job to subsidize ethanol production? It’s a bit of public policy that doesn’t make sense. Money to subsidize food needs so that everyone in the country has enough to eat, or money to subsidize turning corn into motor fuel. Is it even a choice?
See also:
Subsidies Worth Billions at Stake in Battle Over Biofuel Rules
Want to Save the Amazon? Try Looking Closer to Home
Without Functioning Ecosystem, There Is No Economic Growth
Organic Farming Yields Far Better Crop Resistance and Resilience
To Reduce Climate Change, Reduce Consumption
Life Expectancy, Carbon Footprints and a Happy Planet
Max Ajl is a writer living in Brooklyn, N.Y. He has written on Latin American politics and economics for the Guardian, the New Statesman and Society, and is a research associate for NACLA.
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The Solution!
The solution for the energy problem has been determined.
First the cause: Too many people.
Now the solution: Get rid of most of them.
This solution appears in numerous webs and even in some respected movies (Aaron Russo for one) on the subject of who is really in control of us "we the people", even globally--and what they plan to do with this excess population.
Follow the money is the old saying, and assuredly, you will find the real power and subsequent resolve on their minds.
As for energy, we might rather be directing our own towards ferreting out how to get back in control, or at least how to get out of their control. Move to the South Pacific is one solution.
Face the real problem, not the reflection. It is hidden behind the scenes and controls even your TV.
E30 NOW (reduce dependance of Foreign oil)
OKAY, Lets look at some facts.
Ethanol has a higher octane than gas. Ethanol has less BTUs but due to the higher octane it can produce more "work" in an engine than gas can. A typical gas engine has 75% waste heat and only 25% work, whereas an engine designed to run ethanol has only 60% waste heat and can produce 40% work. This is a good way to save fuel and could be considered a good ROI.
The 1,596-cc Sigma engine launches flexible-fuel here (Brazil) for Ford, initially to power the Focus. It pumps out 114bhp at 5,500rpm on ethanol and 107.8bhp at 6,200rpm on petrol; torque is 117.8lb ft and 111.4lb ft, respectively
This engine produces more horsepower at lower RPMs using Ethanol!! Higher horsepower at less RPMs = better fuel economy. The engine gets a lower fuel economy using gasoline. Detroit purposely makes low compression engines so that they can have a selling point "this car can use regular gas".
The corn that is used to make ethanol is dent corn that people can't eat anyway, so it is grown as an animal feed. After the corn is processed into ethanol there is a product called distillers grain, which is a much better animal feed after the carbs are removed to produce ethanol. Nothing is wasted. So the food for fuel argument is non sense.
The next generation in ethanol production will be cellulosic ethanol which will produce even more ethanol by using all of the corn plant and other materials like wood chips, grass clippings from you lawn (all yard waste) and switchgrass. Switchgrass is usually planted on farms where the owners are being paid not to grow crops. It can also be planted on the sides of the roads up and down our vast highway system, harvested, baled and used locally. Switchgrass is also used for erosion control.
Ethanol is way cleaner than gasoline and does not leave the gummy deposits in your fuel system. It burns around 40 degrees cooler than gasoline and everyone knows that heat is bad for an engine so a engine that runs on ethanol should in theory last longer than one that runs on pure gasoline. Cleaner engines run better and last longer with less repairs and reduced maintenance. Go to youtube and type in "non flex fuel". You will see where a tech school took a 2001 chevy tahoe and ran mostly E85 for over 100k. Then the took the engine completely apart and compared it to vehicles that burned regular gas. Ethanol won out in a big way.
If we want to reduce pollution in this country we need to be concerned with the NOx, SOx, heavy metals and particulate matter in the fossil fuels that we burn to produce energy. We can start with outlawing RED DYE DIESEL used by off road, farm and rail roads. This stuff is nasty and causes much pollution. While we are at it lets stop using #2 diesel. Quit crying about CO2, it causes crops and trees to grow faster and once all of the glaciers are gone we will solve the problem of not enough fresh water. It is locked up in ice, that is why there is not enough.
Everytime you fill up you can add a gallon of E85 to your tank. If the average fill up is 15 gallons of gas. First add a gallon of E85. (85 + 140 (10 x 14 = 140)) = 225/15 = 15% ethanol. I have used E30 in my non flex fuel vehicles for years and have driven tens of thousands of miles if not a few hundred thousand miles on blended fuels and have not experienced any problems in my vehicles. My current vehicle has over 140k and runs like a champ.
There is between 18 to 19 gallon of gas in each barrell of oil. So if you added a gallon of E85 per fill up you can reduce the amount of oil we import as a country.
One last thing. Slow down. People drive too fast. Fast starts and speeding to your destination waste gas, especially those in SUVs who drive like they are trying out for NASCAR. Plan your day and leave in plenty of time so that you do not have to drive 10, 15, 20 or 30 miles per hour over the limit. BTW, NASCAR got its start by running moonshine (ethanol) and will be burning almost pure ethanol by 2011. All formula one racecars use pure ethanol (indy 500), pure ethanol. So stop believing all of the lies that ethanol is bad.
Inexcusable reporting
Max,
I don't know where you get your education and facts to find a way to blame ethanol and biofuels for hunger of the poor but I suggest you go back to school and understand reality before you write your next blog, article or whatever you want to claim you are doing.
1. You fail to recognize that Pimentals data is very dated and not respected for it's scientific merits. When was the last time you pulled up recent analysis.
2. Do you have any concept regarding the Carbon cycle and the length of time it takes to recycle agricultural carbon from farming versus fossil carbon extracted from the earth and placing into the atmosphere.
3. I think our farmers and or the producers would be elated to see the blenders credit go into there pockets. The blenders and oil companies are the recepients of that credit. Do your homework Max and you might understand the real economics!!
4. During the past two years the key factor holding down pump pricing at the station (outside of the economic downturn) has been ethanol blended at 10% at many locations. Otherwise you and others would be crying the blues on US prices similar to pump prices in Europe.
Max, I would like to make this challenge to you. If you are so smart with all your wonderful facts why don't you offer some solutions or take some time to understand the industry, climate change, and food supply. I have commited my entire career to just that and professionally find your blog totally irresponsible and not helping to educate the public on the real issues.
I suggest you look inward and start to work toward solutions and quite laying blame. Maybe you should consider a political career.
Good luck with whatever you do but I trust you will start to educate rather than obliterate. I must leave you with one FINAL thought. You spent many words harping on farmer subsidies. Do you have any idea on how much has been spent on oil and gas subsidies as well as tax credits. I think not. Do your homework sir. You might be surprised at how those numbers dwarf those going into US agriculture. Note I said US agriculture.
Food for fuel
Even in our "advanced" society, we still have not determined how to bring the poor into the mainstream. Blaming this fact on ethanol is to deflect failures of other well meaning public policy.
To quote Pimental's false claims that it takes more energy to produce ethanol than is produced is just recognition that you too have been sucked in by Big Oil's campaign against their competition. No one in the ethanol industry even claims that ethanol is the whole answer, but it is here and now to help us in the right direction.
The "ethanol subsidy" you claim goes to our farmers is probably the blender's credit which go directly to Big Oil. I can only assume that you too are on Big Oil's payroll. It is generally recognized that 15% of corn prices is the result of 1/4 of the crop going to ethanol. Not one of you apologists for Big Oil even mention the causes for the other 85% of the corn price inflation. Because of slightly higher corn prices, farm subsidies have not been necessary - a point apparently lost because it does not support your distorted view.
If we stopped producing ethanol tomorrow, we would spend billions importing more oil at higher prices, have to return to subsidizing farmers to keep them from going broke, and release more CO2. The surplus corn would pile up and probably have to be burned to get rid of it.
Both the blender's credits paid to Big Oil and farm subsidies ultimately end up being consumer subsidies, American's enjoy the lowest food prices in the world with no exception.
Reducing oil consumption is one of our greatest challenges. Figuring out how to bring the poor into the mainstream is certainly another. Bashing ethanol in favor of your apparent support for Big Oil is a step in the wrong direction.
Food
HI,
I think if you are looking to save the conventional energy resources then you have to explore the next one. This is true that most of the people are not getting the good food and proper food and government are going to make fuel through the plants.
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