Leftist NGOs like Rainforest Action Network and Food First are sounding the alarm on ethanol, claiming that it will increase greenhouse gas emissions and starve millions of people.
They are correct regarding corn-derived ethanol. Industrial corn production in the United States is inefficient and causes topsoil loss and groundwater depletion.
However, they are dead wrong on cellulose-derived ethanol. Cellulosic ethanol can be produced from any type of plant matter as it relies upon the chemical breakdown process of cellulose-to-carbohydrate-to-sugar that cows and other herbivores use for digestion.
Environmentally, switchgrass is tremendously better than corn. Since switchgrass naturally thrives in the North American prairie, it requires little water and no fertilizers or pesticides. Hence, switchgrass cultivation avoids the environmentally destructive effects of corn.
Corn-derived ethanol can never make a significant dent in our oil consumption, as corn ethanol contains only 1.25 kilojoules of energy for each kilojoule of energy expended to produce it. Cellulosic ethanol, on the other hand, contains six times more energy than is expended to produce it.
Anti-ethanol NGOs correctly contend that there will be pressure to take land out of food crop production to plant bioenergy crops. They paint apocalyptic pictures of millions of people starving because land is being used to produce ethanol instead of food. Reality check: Most of the world's poor are farmers who are barely surviving because crop commodity prices are so low.
A transition to ethanol could induce a beneficial shift in geopolitics. No longer would nations fight bloody wars (Iraq) to control dwindling fuel supplies fixed in the soil of a handful of countries. With ethanol as a major source of fuel, each nation would be able to grow its own fuel supplies, negating the political and military value of controlling the global oil supply.
For all its promise, however, current production techniques are not sufficiently advanced to allow ethanol to compete with gasoline.
The National Resources Defense Council estimates that an investment of $1 billion in research will cut the cost of cellulosic ethanol in half, clearing the way for cellulosic ethanol to replace 50 percent of our current oil consumption by 2050. We must develop policy proposals now that prohibit genetically modified bioenergy crops, require strict environmental guidelines in ethanol production and promote decentralized methods of ethanol production that support small farmers instead of massive corporations.
Despite the hubbub ethanol is causing on Capitol Hill, D.C. is woefully underserved when it comes to ethanol. There are no E85 (i.e. 85 percent ethanol, 15 percent gasoline) vendors in D.C. proper, and only four gasoline stations sell it in Virginia or Maryland, compared to the over 1,000 E85 sites in the rest of the nation. AU is taking a step in the right direction by adopting biodiesel as a fuel for its shuttles, although bioenergy crops, such as soybeans, are too limited to enable large-scale adoption of biodiesel, so a switch to ethanol is advisable.
We have a golden opportunity to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve farmers' incomes and favorably rewrite the rules of geopolitics. Blockheaded NGOs insist on throwing this opportunity away. These "advocacy" organizations are so blinded by their rigid ideologies that they wouldn't know a solution to global warming if it bit them where the sun doesn't shine. Let us ignore them and accept cellulosic ethanol as a part of the solution to global warming.
Travis McArthur is a senior in the School of International Service and a D.C. politics columnist for The Eagle.
