by Gregory Wrightstone
The expansion of ethanol use – triggered by President Biden’s lifting of a summer ban on 15% blended fuels – is a bad answer to high gas prices and its refusal to acknowledge the failures. failure of fuel additives made from corn. Reuters described the president’s action as a victory for the corn lobby, but all others appeared to be losers.
The existence of ethanol as an alternative to gasoline has been consistently reported since at least 2007 when the US government expanded the requirement that distributors mix ethanol with fuel to reduce dependence on foreign oil. . This additive is also considered a way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
“There is a great danger to the right to food due to the development of biofuels,” says United Nations human rights advocate Jean Ziegler said at the time. “It (the cost) will probably be paid because hundreds of thousands of people will die of hunger,” A year later, he called the redirection of food crops to fuel production a “Crime against humanity. ”
In 2011, Dr. Indur Goklany writes that the “iron law of supply and demand” that ethanol production “virtually increases global food prices” and exacerbates poverty. He calculated 192,000 deaths from the feed-to-fuel transition in 2010.
More recently, a YouTube video claimed in its title, “America was wrong about Ethanol. ” The narrator announces, “We are going to explain why ethanol made from corn is a stupid idea.”
Video based on a University of Wisconsin The study states: “We found that RFS (Renewable Fuel Standard Requires Blending of Ethanol) increased the price of corn by 30 percent and the price of other crops by 20 percent, thereby expanding the U.S. corn acreage increased by 2.8 million hectares (8.7 percent) and total arable land increased by 2.1 million hectares (2.4 percent) in the years following the policy’s enactment (2008). to 2016). ”
The National Wildlife Federation opposes RFS because the expansion of cropland encroaches on natural habitats. Dairy industry trade groups and bakeries protested RFS’s pressure on corn prices and supplies. Scores of organizations representing millions of people wrote in support of RFS reform.
As expected, increased farm size has resulted in more agricultural pollution. The Wisconsin study – published in February by the National Academy of Sciences – reported an increase of 3 to 8% in water pollutants.
The expansion of RFS promises only much of the same, according to the Wisconsin researchers: “Our estimates imply that for every billion gallons per year ethanol demand expands, we expect corn prices to rise. 5.6%; 1.6 and 0.4% increases for US corn and cropland, respectively; while increasing emissions (greenhouse gases), nutrient pollution and soil erosion. “
And yet, President Biden’s multiple cents expanding ethanol production reduces current pump prices – if any – the overall impact of the RFS is to increase fuel costs by nearly 30 cents a gallon, according to testimony last month. Two before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. by Lucian Pugliaresi, President, Energy Policy Research Foundation, Inc.
Contributing to the higher cost of fuel production is the price of credit that refineries would have to buy if they didn’t add ethanol to their product. Since purchasing the Trainer Refinery near Philadelphia in 2012, Monroe Energy has spent more than $1 billion on RFS compliance — more than the refinery’s purchase price and more annually than nearly all costs. other operating costs combined.
Credits that once cost a few cents each are expected to grow this year to more than $2, a difference of hundreds of millions of dollars annually for refineries like Monroe. Several smaller refineries have closed because of the economic pressures of the RFS.
One paradox of the program is that third parties, including Wall Street banks and hedge funds, are allowed to buy and sell speculative credits, increasing demand for them. In short, speculators make money from the support of producers and consumers.
“We have raised concerns about this practice – and about many other questionable aspects of RFS program design – but so far, the Our call to reform the program has fallen on deaf ears.
The expected result of this move is a reduction in the price of the pump, but it is only 2,300 150,000 gas stations – or about 1.5% – sell gasoline E15, follow for a White House fact sheet. In addition, ethanol is less efficient than gasoline, which reduces gasoline consumption and, as a result, costs consumers more gasoline than regular gasoline per mile.
In his testimony, Mr. Pugliaresi said, “We are entering a largely unexplored world rife with enormous energy security and price risks… Expect setbacks. , cost overruns and the unexpected.” He recommends RFS be shaped to “withstand the many challenges of the future.”
With the show’s record, it’s better to end it.
Gregory Wrightstone is a geologist, executive director of the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Va., and the author of “Inconvenient Facts: The Science Al Gore Didn’t Want You To Know”.
This comment is First published at Townhall May 27, 2022
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