Corny

I guess I've been stuck on environmental issues lately but I can't help it. Here in the Texas Panhandle some ethanol plants have been announced. There has been a big push lately for the expanded use of ethanol which is primarily made with corn. This push seems to come mostly from the automobile manufacturers as well as politicians and corn producers. The marketed cause of the big push - the concern over dependency on foreign oil. I'm a little concerned that not only is Ethanol not environmentally friendly but takes us in a direction we really shouldn't be going in.

Some may consider ethanol a good renewable energy resource but lets think about that for a moment. We only have a certain amount of farmable land to produce the corn that is used to produce the ethanol. Increased farming does put a stress on the land. There is only so much corn we can viably produce. So ethanol production can only reach certain levels and those levels may not be maintainable over time.

Another concern is that the production of corn itself is energy and resource intensive. The planting, maintaining, harvesting and transport of corn uses a lot of energy. In addition, the production of corn and ethanol uses a lot of water which is a resource that in many areas is not in unlimited supply in consumable form. Sure, there are ways to keep the impact of the energy and water usage down. Locally, most of the ethanol plants are going to be run using energy produced from cow manure (readily in supply here with all the feedyards and dairy farms). Water can be obtained from secondary sources (water that has been treated after use).

I still have a lot of question regarding ethanol and really don't feel comfortable in getting on the ethanol bandwagon just yet. I don't think ethanol is a viable alternative to reducing our foreign oil dependency. Ethanol may be a distraction from what we really should be doing - going truly renewable in what fuels are vehicles. How much production will we actually be able to accomplish and how much can the environment handle? Will we actually be able to get to levels that noticeably reduce our dependency on foreign oil?

I think the best thing to do is completely change how we make our vehicles go. Hydrogen and fuel cell vehicles are showing some promise and are getting closer to reality with Honda and GM getting ready to roll out some vehicles, while mostly on a test basis it is a first step. There is no current infrastructure for fueling hydrogen vehicles but it looks like home based fueling will be part of that infrastructure. Yes, it will take energy to produce the hydrogen but if our homes are going to be getting more power from renewable sources such as wind (a fourth wind farm is going to be built near where I live), solar, nuclear (newer technologies will greatly reduce waste) and etc. that may not be so bad.

So, I have some concerns about ethanol and I'm not done looking in to it. I guess I'm also concerned about the price of corn increasing as demand for it increases. That is good for farmers but not so much for consumers. I like corn, especially corn on the cob!