Can we admit corn ethanol is a mistake?

Here in Illinois there are signs by the road touting the value of corn ethanol.  But there are a lot of reasons why hardly anyone outside the corn lobby thinks it’s a good idea to make fuel from food.  One is that it screws up food markets around the world.  Uber-conservative high-energy technologist Cajun skewers the unintended consequences of food-to-fuel economics: 

“...And people will starve… Doesn’t that make you want to go find your nearest E85 pump?“

But there’s another way that corn ethanol screws with food markets, which Cajun doesn’t mention and which directly affects his neck of the woods in Louisiana - record high corn prices equals more marginal land being pushed into corn production, with more nitrogen runoff. Which leads in one short step to the Gulf of Mexico dead zone, an ever-growing anoxic region of the Gulf where there’s no shrimp, no crab, no fish.  Just algae and bacteria.

Chris Mooney, writing on science policy vs. the corn lobby, says:

“We Need Sound Policy Before the Science Gets Hijacked…The future of biofuels does not lie in corn, even if the future of many U.S. companies and politicians might.“

Politicians have never been able to tell the difference between a lobbyist and a scientist.  But here’s a hint: the scientist usually doesn’t try to bribe them; they don’t make enough money. 

No Illinois politician dares to question corn ethanol.  But it’s a bad idea, and a good example of why it’s also a bad idea for the government to be pushing specific technologies instead of specific results.  Funding research is fine, even essential.  But the government ought to be pushing for specific outcomes - carbon neutrality, energy independence, clean water and so forth.  You put a tax on carbon emissions, levy fines for water pollution, and fund research into alternatives, and corporations will figure out what to do from there.  It might help us go down fewer blind alleys like corn ethanol.

Posted by George on 03/14/08 at 05:57 AM
Science & Technology • Energy • (6) Comments • Link
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