Comments on: California’s Land Use Choices

By: Rothy

Rothy — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 23:03:39 +0000

Corn yields 1/2 the ethanol per acre as a sugar cop. WHY is everyone pushing corn so much when it is a nutritional disaster to the soil and produces so much less ethanol than sugar?

By: Ed Ring

Ed Ring — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 17:41:00 +0000

Matt: First of all, in regions of the United States where abundant summer rainfall can provide 100% of crop irrigation, the economics of ethanol are not beyond debate. While even in a water rich area, ethanol requires subsidies, those funds are going back into the American economy, instead of being used to import oil. So dollar for dollar, the macroeconomic impact of subsidized ethanol may well be in the national interest.

Furthermore, while it is clear corn ethanol will not make a huge dent in oil imports, it is not a bad idea to have diversified sources of fuel and decentralized sources of fuel refining. In a national emergency, having the diversity of fuel options offered by decentralized ethanol refineries may make the difference between ambulances and fire engines doing their job, or sitting idle because there isn’t any gasoline.

While we are not necessarily 100% in agreement with corn ethanol - we certainly don’t think it makes ANY sense to grow it in a water stressed state like California, we do think it is better to send fuel dollars to, say, Iowa, instead of overseas.

By: Matt Schmidt

Matt Schmidt — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 09:29:36 +0000

Of course you have to support the EcoWorld site with paid advertising, but I’m perplexed by the appearance of GM’s “go yellow’ ads promoting corn-based E85 ethanol (including reference to reduced dependence on petroleum). This seems dissonant with your general tone about the relatively poor economics of ethanol. Does the need for revenue override principal, or have I misread the site’s position?

By: Ed Ring

Ed Ring — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 18:27:57 +0000

Chris: Indiana has 36,420 square miles, Illinois has 57,918 square miles - if you include parts of Lake Michigan. These two states together total 94,338 square miles. If you planted 100% of this area with corn for ethanol, and you got a yield of 5,000 barrels per square mile (a pretty high yield), you would have an annual ethanol production of 471 million barrels, which at 80% the energy density of gasoline, will displace 377 million barrels of petroleum per year.

Since the USA consumes about 20 million barrels of petroleum per day, planting 100% of the area of Indiana and Illinois in corn for ethanol would offset 19 days of US petroleum consumption, or 5.2%. Not much there.

I do think there is an argument in favor of corn ethanol if it is grown on land where summer rainfall alone provides sufficient crop irrigation, as is generally the case in Indiana and Illinois. There is even an argument for subsidies for corn ethanol (if it doesn’t require irrigation water in a water-stressed state such as California) insofar as it keeps the money in the US instead of purchasing imported oil.

In my opinion however there is no rational argument for subsidizing corn ethanol crops in California.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 12:59:54 +0000

I would have to agree with you on this point. I believe that ethanol is a poor alternative to gasoline. I don’t like gasoline or any petroleum products used for transportation or energy creation. I would much prefer solar power and all-electric vehicles. And if the country was really serious about corn-based ethanol than the states of Indiana and Illinois alone could produce enough corn to supply the whole country’s demand. And that could only be the excess that is not sold as food type products for humans or livestock. If the state wants to subsidize something useful, than go solar. Solar installations for power generation would be of much greater importance to the continual population growth of California and to the acceleration of solar power technology as a whole. To make solar competitive with fossil fuels the price must come down and that will only happen with greater solar efficiency and mass production to decrease per unit cost.