Corn (and Hemp) Biofuel...Eco Friend or Foe?
Corn, switchgrass, and hemp's high cellulose content make them ideal candidates for liquid bio fuel creation. Or at least that's what midwestern corn growers, ADM, George Bush, would like you to think. I was surprised to learn that ethanol's actual net energy ratio is hotly disputed. In a much publicized study released by professors David Pimentel (Cornell) and Tad Patzek (Berkeley) in 2005, concluded that: "Turning plants such as corn, soybeans and sunflowers into fuel uses much more energy than the resulting ethanol or biodiesel generates."
Realize that there's big, big money vested on the perception that ethanol production is a good thing. Between a massive annual subsidy (some $1.4 Billion in 2005) to corn growers, oodles of ethanol processing dollars spent with Archer Daniels Midland and the like, a desire for energy independence since the 1970s, have all contributed to an artifcially buoyed market for ethanol.
Along those lines, it's funny how many web-based resources claim industrial hemp (as a feedstock for ethanol) as an environmentally friendly and economically viable alternative to imported oil. If you're looking for a balanced perspective on the web to form your own opinion, forget it. Even the Wikipedia entry for ethanol has been flagged as "biased". The meta discussion of the "ethanol" Wikipedia entry is a fantastic microcosm of the debate as a whole.
There's also a bit of tension between the biofuels and the ethanol camps (read on)...
In a recent letter to the EPA, the head of the Californian Biodiesel Board notes:
In the fall of 2006, EPA plans to propose regulations that will establish the credit value for biodiesel and the credit-trading program rules for all renewable fuels. The credit value for biodiesel and the credit-trading program will have an enormous impact on the biodiesel industry. It is imperative that the rules be established in a fair and scientific way. We understand that EPA is under strong political pressure to favor ethanol in this process.
As the excerpt notes, there's serious --ethanol favoring-- politics at play. However, in the longer term large processors (Cargill, ConAgra and ADM) win regardless of where the subsidies land...ethanol or biodiesel. We'd all like to think that industrial hemp will make a positive contribution to the energy crisis. However, there is substantial evidence that generating liquid biofuel from cellulose-rich crops (such as hemp) is neither economically viable nor energy efficient.