The ethanol wars
July 24, 2005
With Congress hammering out final details of a comprehensive energy bill, it's remarkable how desperate the supporters of an ethanol mandate have become. Science has long cast doubt on ethanol's alleged benefits. But at stake in the debate are subsidies to agribusiness worth more than $3 billion a year.
Take for example criticism leveled by several Colorado- based researchers at a recent study conducted by Cornell University's David Pimentel and University of California-Berkeley professor Tad Patzek. Based on new research, their study renews the claim that corn ethanol is an energy loser - that is, it takes more energy to produce it than is released when it burns. But an engineer at the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden denounced the study as based on "old data" and asserted that Pimentel "has some agenda that he is trying to promote."
The National Corn Growers Association, whose members stand to benefit mightily from a congressional windfall, not only attacked the study, it accused Patzek of shilling for the oil industry - even noting Patzek is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.
In fact, Patzek's associations are all disclosed on his Berkeley Web site. But none of them discredits either his or Pimentel's charge that ethanol production results in a net energy loss.
To be sure, both men are among a minority of scientists who argue that ethanol is a net energy loser, although plenty of others dispute the claim that ethanol is good for the environment. Pimentel, for example, has long faulted Department of Agriculture studies because they assume farms producing corn for ethanol operate under ideal soil and water conditions, and use best practices to maximize yields.
Purporting to look at real- world conditions, the Pimentel-Patzek study shows that the production of corn ethanol consumes 29 percent more energy than it produces. Soybean-based fuel requires about 27 percent more energy than it renders at the pump, while sunflower plants need 118 percent more. To arrive at their conclusion, Pimentel and Patzek considered almost every conceivable energy input needed to produce ethanol.
The irony is that Pimentel and Patzek, in their separate ways, are environmentalists who believe the process of making and distributing ethanol causes more air, water and soil pollution than it prevents. Pimentel is an entomologist. Patzek is particularly concerned about the sustainability of industrial farming in developing countries where sugarcane and trees are grown for ethanol and other biofuels.
Meanwhile, Patzek says his university has received a number of letters criticizing him for doing research debunking the cost-effectiveness of ethanol. He has also received "hate" email. "An important reason I'm looking at this issue is because I'm concerned about my children's future," he said.
What really galls the ethanol lobby is that the fuel's efficacy is still contested science. As long as that is the case, taxpayers have every right to worry that ethanol is indeed a boondoggle
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