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Don't believe the ethanol hype

By Times editorial
Published July 17, 2006

You can do a lot with corn: pop its kernels, add its syrup to soft drinks, feed it to cows or make a fuel from it that will save the Western World. At least that is the breathless message coming out of Washington.

Corn-based ethanol is all the rage nowadays. "Live green, go yellow," says an ad campaign by General Motors, promoting a fuel called E85 that is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. Nearly 2-million of the company's FlexFuel cars run on it, though that would surprise most owners, who were never told. Even if they wanted to fill up with E85, they probably couldn't because fewer than 600 gas stations nationwide dispense it.

On closer inspection, the ethanol story sounds as much like hype as hope. While Congress is sinking billions of tax dollars into ethanol production, it's not clear that this alternative to petroleum-based fuel is ready for prime time.

With all its tax subsidies, ethanol production has become the latest fad. As many as 39 ethanol production plants will be built in the coming year, according to a report by the New York Times. By 2008, ethanol output will reach 8-billion gallons a year. Sounds like a lot, but just to replace the oil we import from the Persian Gulf, ethanol production would have to increase another sixfold.

Some corn producers fear shifting so much of the crop to ethanol. "Unless we have huge increases in productivity, we will have a huge problem with food production," said Warren Staley, chief executive of Cargill, whose corn goes into food processing and cattle feed. The result, he said, could be higher food costs and overworked farmland.

Other questions need to be answered, too. Corn is not the best source of the high-proof alcohol, adding nearly a third more to the cost than ethanol produced from sugarcane (except in the United States, where sugar prices are kept artificially high through tariffs and price supports). And some scientists believe making ethanol from corn uses as much oil as it saves because it takes so many petroleum products to grow corn, turn it into ethanol and transport the fuel.

We're not likely to hear straight talk from Congress. Facing an upcoming election, members are under the sway of the corn industry, particularly Archer Daniels Midland, which makes nearly a quarter of the nation's ethanol. Buoyed by the lion's share of $2-billion in annual tax subsidies for ethanol, ADM has seen its stock price double over the past year.

There is promise in making ethanol from nonfood crops, particularly farm wastes and switchgrass, a weed-like plant that grows in all parts of the country, although the process hasn't been perfected. A thoughtful, balanced approach to alternative-fuel production would make more sense if tax dollars are to be spent wisely. But that would take a Congress that isn't too yellow to really go green.

[Last modified July 17, 2006, 01:58:41]