Many critics of the gasohol industry point to increased pollution, pollution based cancers and respiratory problems, as well as the threat to the food supply as major reasons to examine the nation’s commitment to the gasohol industry. Grass roots opposition groups continue to rise and network, hoping to gain support from other like-minded groups.
Some think gasohol is a way for us to “grow our way out of dependence on Middle Eastern oil” but, unfortunately, that is not the case. Experts say if every grain of corn currently grown in the United States were used to manufacture gasohol, we would still not have enough to eliminate our need for Middle Eastern oil.
Although this is disputed by the industry, opponents to the industry maintain that, with current technology, gasohol production starts out in the hole, and may actually require more energy to produce than it supplies. Although this is a point of dispute between proponents and opponents of the industry, not one can deny that it takes a ferocious amount of energy and corn to produce the ethanol product.
To generate enough gasohol to full a car gas tank requires enough corn to feed one person for an entire year. Imagine, that if you use a tank of gas a week, you’ll be using enough corn in a year to feed 50 some odd people.
Neither gasohol, nor pure gasoline, or even electricity comes without side effects. Years ago the federal government banned lead as a gas additive. The elimination of lead has contributed to a dramatic drop in environmental lead and has led to a decrease in lead based defects in children.
Gasoline, as well as other carbon-based fuel processes, including coal-fired electricity plants, generates billions of pounds of atmospheric pollution, some of which eventually finds its way into our rivers and streams. Around the country, coal fired plant pollution and automobile exhaust contributes to increased levels of environmental mercury and other dangerous pollutants in our water, so much, that pregnant women are advised to curtail their consumption of fish. Mercury pollution of the nation’s rivers, streams and lakes has led to the ban of fishing in many of the nation’s waters.
Now, we’re adding to the pollution mix with a process, which is touted as a clean fuel—provided you don’t count the process, which manufactures that fuel.
Many of the nation’s Corn Belt farmers, governors and legislatures see gasohol as the savior of the American farm industry. This is an industry, which has the potential to bring jobs, economic development and billions of dollars to the nation’s economy, particularly the economies of the Rust Belt and Corn Belt states. With increased demand for corn and the economic development spurred by the construction of untold numbers of alternative fuel plants, farmers are able to charge more for their product and increase their bottom line, but again, there is a cost, particularly to the environment and to the food supply.
This infant industry will become a lightening rod, a major point of contention between the nation’s farmers, bio-fuel developers, municipalities and environmentalists. The battle lines are being drawn. Both sides are marshalling resources. Only time will tell which group will be victorious.
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