A study carried out in 2007 at the request of Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., documented that the conversion to biofuels is even more aggressive than what's currently mandated by the Energy Independence and Security Act: 20 billion gallons of corn ethanol and 1 billion gallons of soy biodiesel annually by 2016. Even that Herculean effort would not achieve "energy independence," displacing only 13 percent of our current gasoline consumption and less than 2 percent of diesel. This would be achieved with the long-term cultivation of almost 100 million acres of corn, with 47 percent of the nation's crop going straight to ethanol plants. Under that scenario, fertilizer and pesticide use would increase substantially across the Corn Belt and in the High Plains as well. Toxic nitrates in groundwater would rise accordingly, by 11 percent in the states around the Great Lakes and 8 percent in the southern plains; areas where a critical need to lower, not raise, nitrate levels already exists. As we seek “energy independence”, we are depleting our sustainable life support systems.
A recent study found nitrate pollution to be worst in those aquifer-dependent regions of Texas where irrigated sorghum and corn are now grown. This acreage use will expand as ethanol plants demand increasing supplies of grain. University of Kansas scientists found that pollutants have been concentrated in that state's portion of the Ogallala by "evapotranspiration, oil brine disposal, agricultural practices, brine intrusion and waste disposal," as well as nitrates, chlorides and sulfates. We’re creating ecological insecurity in a false quest for energy security.
Riding this roller-coaster of boom/bust agricultural economics, farmers learn to “get whenever the getting is good”. The common refrain is “Make hay while the sun shines”. Biofuel mania is the latest trend in a long history of short term schemes designed to squeeze quick cash out of a rural ecology that's only suited to slow, steady sustainable use. To make money in this boom/bust structure, you must use more water. We are wasting irreplaceable water in the name of "energy independence," The real result is increasing dependence of agribusiness on federal and state governments by subsidies granted on every gallon of biofuel produced. The consumers pay both at the pump and through an increase in everyone’s tax burden. There is no free lunch.
An exhaustive report on the complex web of past and current biofuel subsidies, prepared for the International Institute for Sustainable Development, concluded that "government subsidies for liquid biofuels started out as a way to increase the demand for surplus crops. Now such subsidies are promoted as a way to reduce oil imports, improve the quality of urban air-quality, reduce carbon dioxide emissions, raise farmers' incomes and promote rural development. The unstated goal is to ensure a huge return on investment for agribusiness. ADM, Cargill and other giants invest huge sums to lobby policy makers to keep this cash cow alive and growing.
The biofuel boom may make it possible for a farmer to produce more, but it does not necessarily increase net farm income. "With a cost of $800 per acre for anhydrous ammonia fertilizer and $4 diesel fuel for the tractor, farmers still will not get ahead. The rural treadmill just moves faster, as no real progress is made.
Donald Worster, professor of history at the University of Kansas and author of Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s (1979, Oxford University Press), sees only a very limited time for agriculture in the High Plains to survive. He states; "It is basically a mining economy wherever groundwater is the resource to be extracted, and the ultimate result of such an economy is always a ghost town. We should reserve the remaining groundwater supply for human and animal consumption during the desiccated future that seems likely to develop with climate change."
As the Plains region dries out, it would require a large government program to deprivatize a lot of farm acreage and put it into the best vegetation cover to avoid massive soil erosion. It will be very difficult to farm much of the southern plains within another 50 years, unless global climate change is arrested very soon. Deprivatized, former agricultural land will have little economic value, except for national parks and light grazing.
As noted, the above information about the depletion of the water resources of the Great Plains was provided by Stan Cox of Salina, Kansas. For further information, I refer you to an excellent book recently authored by Mr. Cox; Sick Planet. www.sickplanetbook.com
If the process of burning food for fuel as biofuel is an unmitigated disaster, then what will happen as we start chopping up our last natural forest habitats for cellulosic ethanol biofuel? The biofuel missionaries tout the bright future of “second generation biofuels”. To achieve any significant volume, such fuels would be based largely upon woody biomass. This would be an even larger ecological disaster than cropland-based biofuel. It is a myth that enough unused forest and agricultural waste, and a surplus of land to grow various grasses and wood, exists to base a viable alternative energy industry. As noted above, our present petroleum consumption is equal to 400 years of all biological matter produced on the entire surface of the earth. Humanity must stop seeking easy answers to perceived energy shortages and build a post-petrol, energy efficient new paradigm.
Biofuels are heavily promoted for climate benefits and pursued at much expense, yet have been catastrophic to the world's food security, habitat, water and climate. We are already trading the quest for “energy security” for global food insecurity. This is insane, and can only lead to massive social unrest all over the world. We are already trading blood for fuel, now we trade food for fuel. The same will be true of ethanol production from trees. Cellulosic ethanol will be the ultimate deforestation biofuel. Such action is equivalent to dismantling and burning your home to keep warm. Cellulosic biofuel from trees is a pending disaster. The promise being made is that wood can produce fuels to run our cars. We are presently told that corn, rapeseed, sugar, oil palm, soy and various other crops can be grown for biofuels while providing energy security and reducing greenhouse emissions. The reality is far different; with surging global food prices, loss of rainforests and other important habitats, further depletion and poisoning of aquifers, and rampant human rights abuses, all this for little or no greenhouse gas emission reduction.
No real economic security has been derived from the biofuel boom. So called "second generation biofuels", including the use of woody biomass, is now being sold with the same illusory, ecologically bereft hype. This deception must end. Creating cellusosic ethanol is more difficult than our present biofuels. Cellulose is much more difficult to break down, so it will be even more costly than our present petroleum and biofuel sources. In addition to the direct cost of production, the huge social and ecological costs are ignored, deferred to future generations. Second generation biofuels produced from woody biomass will bring increasing ecological disaster. As with agricultural biofuels, a cellulosic ethanol industry will indirectly destroy forests and lead to more costly food by increasing land pressures upon natural forests and agricultural crop lands.
Again, we are sold the idea of an “energy miracle’. Fuel from waste! Forest waste is a euphemism for the materials left over when industrial forestry decimates a native forest. The branches, bark, saw dust, etc. represent nutrients that are best returned to virtually mined soils to make new forests. There is certainly not enough such "waste" to power even a tiny fraction of an industrial society. The use of wood biomass from natural forests is already occurring on a limited scale and will be ramped up as long as the global demand for transportation fuel keeps growing. The “miracle” of ellulosic ethanol is an empty promise. It’s only purpose is to prop of the inefficient car-centered culture a few more years. Natural forests and other habitats provide a very thin layer of biological life that shields life and acts in concert with other aspects of the Earth Life Support System to make advanced life possible.
Given the global scale of human energy demands, impending climate chaos and the present dismal state of global ecosystems, this final step in the mad quest for more fuel may prove fatal to the human experiment. It’s time to use our large brains for actual intelligent action. The planetary biosphere is perilously close to systemic collapse. The biosphere cannot stand more intensive human resource consumption. The global economy is seeking an energy panacea that allows endless economic growth. None are available. There is a finite amount of energy that can be taken out of the system and a limit to the pollution that we put into the global biosphere before it becomes uninhabitable. We are fast approaching a tipping point in this planetary disaster.
It is imperative that the global human community embrace a sustainable, ecological economic paradigm based upon what is actually needed for a low consumption, high value life. Growth for the sake of growth is not intelligent in our current global historical cycle. We need a massive global movement to maintain and restore the ecological systems upon which all life depends. It is already far too late to put our efforts into anything less than a total paradigm shift. We need a new way of thinking and acting that will bring about societal and personal change necessary to maintain human life on earth. This will take place with a global, grassroots groundswell. Our present leaders are totally enmeshed in the status quo. This change is up to you.
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