There maybe some ethical issues with biofuels. If you go back in time before biofuels existed, you’ll see there was famine and hunger in those times too. I don’t think you can make a case that starvation has increased in proportion to biofuels ramping up into production.
The issue with food is the distribution of supply is uneven with the location of demand. Too much food is grown and available in some areas of the world and too little is grown where hunger and starvation are prevalent. The fuel used and costs to ship food stuffs long distances are more the issue than the impact of biofuels on the cost of food.
The problem of hunger has been with us since the advent of man. It is complicated by wars, erratic weather, politics, tribal mistrust, and perhaps selfish men withholding food from their fellow man. The increasing use of biofuels is a new complicating factor in a long standing complex problem.
You would think that with all our modern technology a truly world wide unified effort could tackle this problem and hunger could be eliminated, but so far there is not the will to do so. Terrorist, health care, and seemingly more pressing problems take higher priority than hunger in parts of the world we feel disconnected from. When hunger was a problem in New Orleans after Katrina, the mobilization of resources to combat hunger there was newsworthy. Both the successful programs and the flops made the nightly news.
I won’t fault kids either. I went from 6 to 16 in the 50s and most kids were bean poles (and count the ribs) all through grade school. Getting diabetes because of your diet was unheard of. Now it’s rampant for kids and adults.
There is no reason to use food for fuel when we can so easily grow the most prolific product that is easily converted to fuel of various kinds. Algae. Follow this link to someone who can explain it better than me.
Personally, I find the fact that our human society is only able to burn stuff for basic energy (exception nuclear/solar/etc) disappointing. Much more if we resort to burning food for fuel. Not that there is plenty to go around, but distribution, etc, is disappointing also. Burning stuff simply adds to climate change. My view at this point is concentration on hydrogen fuel cell, combustion technology, it’s clean and simple. One can actually produce hydrogen with solar/wind/etc energy, and then use H for power storage/use/etc. Most hopefully, looking for one of those new discoveries to revolutionize…you know their out there just hidden. In any event, doing my best to conserve, looking to the future with optimism…for other reasons too…
Most people think that the bushel of corn goes into the ethanol plant and completely disappears. Think about it from an energy content viewpoint.
That bushel of corn has about 1 million BTU while the 3 gallons of ethanol made from it has about 180,000 BTU.
Where does the rest of the energy go? Probably one of your favorite places, a nice meaty steak – unless you guys went the tofu route and I did hear about it.
The brewers grain is a high protein feed and better for the cows. Making ethanol uses up the starches that are really bad for the cows’ tummy. The cow takes another 150,000 BTU or so of the energy.
Better yet, the operations that are doing this best take the ‘cow dodo’ run it through a biodigester to make methane which is burned to power the ethanol plant. It also keeps the methane – 22 times more powerful GHG than CO2 – out of the atmosphere.
Making ethanol from corn is better than just feeding corn to cows. It makes better use of the energy in the corn and reduces methane released from cow manure.
It starts the wheels rolling to get us to non-food based ethanol.
Enough food is already produced to feed the worlds population, but much of it is wasted? so until we figure that one out might as well advert some of the potential ecological disasters by making ethanol.
By the way corn is not the best out on the market, the corn lobby has successfully blocked the far more effective switch grass (grown in South America). The only reason its not in wide use here is because of the steep tariffs we slapped onto it. Otherwise it is far cheaper and MUCH more efficient then corn.
The biggest lesson one can glean from bio-based fuels is how much it takes to replace just a fraction of the free energy you get from fossil fuels. That’s how much petroleum and coal are under valued. You don’t produce one lick of the btu’s that are contained within them, you merely pump or mine and process them. The complexity of our whole modern society is sustained by cheap (free) energy. It allows so much productivity in other consumption to sustain all kinds of things that are hardly essential.
To give you another thing to ponder. Do any of you think that CAFE has anything to do with fuel economy …or saving petroleum? I’d say that it allows increased consumption in the form of steel and other materials by the forced creation of so many more units to meet the quotas. More parts …more assemblers …and more cars on the road. All those people spend money (parts man/assembly worker/sales/etc…etc…etc…etc…etc). So is it really about any truly beneficial economy of merit …as in conservation? Not by a long shot.
The production of ethanol passes the cost:energy balance. It does have secondary and tertiary effects on food prices and that’s an added tax. But it’s a domestic tax from a domestic product so it’s not like you’re bleeding money off shore in the process.
Our ag subsidies have driven many third world nations out of producing their own food …forcing them to industrialize to get the U$D needed to pay their petroleum bill (which is still traded in U$D). It’s one of the reasons why every nation trades with the USA. For the westernized nations it’s to balance books. For the 3rd world it’s to pay for their gasoline.
No, they are not ethical. I believe that more energy goes into the growing and harvesting of corn and the production of ethanol than the energy produced by burning it in automobile engines. We are cultivating more land for growing corn resulting in harm to the environment. The price of corn has gone up which causes the price of any foods made from corn to go up also. This has made it hard on hog producers, since hogs eat corn. If we are putting foodstuff into the making of fuel for our cars while people are starving, then we have our priorities wrong.
Ethanol is used in American Autos for one reason and one reason only. That is that there are about 20 grain producing states which have 40 senators who base their re-elections on grain prices. They belive that if we “burn” corn in addion to “eating” it, prices will go up and farmers will vote for them.
There are many reasons to not use corn ethanol. The biggest reason is that it costs 2 to 3 times as much as gasoline or natuaral gas. It also results in lower fuel mileage. Oh, and by the way it will cause starvation. Of course, starvation is a self solving problem since it results in reduced population for gererations to come.
The starvation arguement has been foisted on us by big oil. They’re afraid of losing their gravy train. We can use sweet poatoes and other sugar rich tubers that can be grown quickly and efficiently in many temperate staes and in large greenhouses
"The starvation arguement has been foisted on us by big oil. "
Nonsense, it’s based on skyrocketing grain costs as the ethanol mandate went into action. And please get us a link on the ‘potatoes are the future for ethanol’. I’ve seen no suggestion that’ll work. If ethanol from grain (the only significant source in the US) was such a good idea, why have/are dozens of ethanol plants going bankrupt? That’s a plain demonstration that the idea makes no real sense.
“ALCOHOL CAN BE A GAS” by David Blume Chapter 8. This book and this chapter give examples of so many different “trash” crops that can be used for brewing and then the brewing mash can be used to either feed livestock or to spray on growers fields to provide natural and nutrient rich fertilizers.
This is a tough question, there are many factors that come into play when pouring over such a controvercial question.
First, the american public has been duped into believing that bio fuels are the answer to our ever increasing thirst for fuel. There are many alternatives to combustion type fuels. We should invest in these technologies and increase efficientcy.
Subsidies given to farmers cost the public more than the supposed benifits. Increases in taxes and food prices and increased protectionism cause wide felt implications. Americans could be paying thousands of dollars extra in taxes and externalities to produce a product that is not much better than what it seeks to replace.
Millions and millions of acres of land are being put into production for biofuels, the increase in pressure on the land is creating an unsustainable climate and ecouraging monocroping. CRP lands have really taken a hit, these lands are meant to support wildlife are now being reconverted to farm land.
Is it ethical to subsidize the distruction of our country so that someone can make a profit, I’m not saying people shouldn’t make a living, but when you do it at the expence of someone else and the future of your childrens children…you be the judge.
There are real questions about ethanol, however food vs. fuel simply is not one of them. People are starving because of [u]access [/au] to food, not because there is not enough. The main reasons for limited access are generally related to politics and economics. Even with ethanol’s explosive growth during the last half of this decade, US grain exports have not decreased. The food vs. fuel controversy was driven to a media frenzy primarily by multi-million dollar campaign waged by the Grocery Manufacturers Association beginning in 2007 to defend the sky rocketing increase in retail food prices.
While some focus on a couple negative energy balance studies (usually published by researchers with dubious education on the topic and financially tied to petroleum companies like Dr. Pimental) the vast majority of peer reviewed data confirms ethanol has a positive energy balance. Fact is Argonne National Lab found the energy balance of ethanol to be much lower than gasoline! People forget it takes a lot of energy and water to make gasoline.
The real questions facing ethanol are related to the use of fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and perhaps the biggest issue of all genetically modified organisms.
So I urge everyone to do the math and their own research and remember that nearly every news outlet is driven by $$ which means that they will choose sensationalized topics which grab the most emotions over clear concise unbiased reporting.
“There are real questions about ethanol, however food vs. fuel simply is not one of them. People are starving because of [u]access [/au] to food, not because there is not enough. The main reasons for limited access are generally related to politics and economics. Even with ethanol’s explosive growth during the last half of this decade, US grain exports have not decreased. The food vs. fuel controversy was driven to a media frenzy primarily by multi-million dollar campaign waged by the Grocery Manufacturers Association beginning in 2007 to defend the sky rocketing increase in retail food prices.
While some focus on a couple negative energy balance studies (usually published by researchers with dubious education on the topic and financially tied to petroleum companies like Dr. Pimental) the vast majority of peer reviewed data confirms ethanol has a positive energy balance. Fact is Argonne National Lab found the energy balance of ethanol to be much lower than gasoline! People forget it takes a lot of energy and water to make gasoline.
The real questions facing ethanol are related to the use of fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and perhaps the biggest issue of all genetically modified organisms.
So I urge everyone to do the math and their own research and remember that nearly every news outlet is driven by $$ which means that they will choose sensationalized topics which grab the most emotions over clear concise unbiased reporting”.
My best advice for right now, is to shut up before you say some thing stupid, or contradictary.
you want a gas substitute, but you dont want anybody using this fuel that works for them (very much the midwest).
you want dirt cheap food, but you dont want people to starve. cheap food = poor farmers = no food for them = they get a “real” job = no food for us.
suppose we shutdown ethanol plants. boom, people out of jobs. use the fields to grow food. how the heck do you (economicly) get a truck of corn from Iowa, to washington? it happens. sometimes you cant get food places. there will always be problems. anybody who thinks they can solve it, will be picked up by a van with nice people in white jackets
the people that say its “un-ethical”, are messing with things they dont understand.
there is algae diesel, but to fuel the US, the factory would be the size of new mexico. you gotta use several fuels.
If you analyze this question the answer is kind of self-evident. Of course it would be unethical, not to say counterproductive, to use crops to produce fuel if it would take food out of peoples’ mouths. But it’s really a practical matter rather than an ethical one, if that makes any sense. I’m absolutely certain that we could not produce enough biofuel to replace fossil fuels if we devoted all the cropland on earth to producing it, and it would be pointless in any case because we’d all starve.
To me it’s clear that what is actually going to happen in the not to distant future is that we, as a civilization, are going to revert to a more primitive way of life that, by and large, does not depend upon fossil fuels and petroleum products. Quite simply, we’ll go back to life as it was before petroleum was used and people drove cars and flew in airplanes and used motorized water craft.
People lived that way once and we’ll have to do it again-with a drastically reduced population, of course.
The answer to transportation of fuel is to have smaller scale local operations country wide. Small businesses are the life-blood of our economy. Family businesses that grow end up helping the local economy and… VOILA…growth in the national economy. No…it’s not simple, but I believe it’s doable.