The disadvantages of ethanol

By: Adam Testa/Online News Editor

Posted: 10/19/06

This is the fourth article in a five-part series regarding ethanol and its potential as a fuel alternative. A proposed ethanol plant in Charleston has made the topic an important issue in Coles County.

The evaluation of ethanol's potential as a fuel alternative has presented several disadvantages to the product's use.

Ethanol production damages the environment, produces lower fuel economies than gasoline, brings higher transportation costs than petroleum, and is unable to completely replace our oil supply, according to opponents of ethanol.

David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agricultural sciences at Cornell University, thinks the disadvantages of ethanol outweigh the benefits.

"Ethanol production in the United States does not benefit the nation's energy security, its agriculture, the economy or the environment," Pimentel said in a 2005 study addressing ethanol's potential as a fuel alternative.

Environmental harm

The main cause of environmental damage that production of ethanol causes comes from ethanol created from corn, Pimentel said. Several factors cause this damage.

"First of all, corn production causes more soil erosion than any other single crop grown in the nation," Pimentel said.

Mark Phelan, manager of the Coles County Farm Bureau, said Pimentel's claims of damages caused by corn are inaccurate or outdated.

"As far as erosion," he said, "we have enormously reduced soil erosion through conservation efforts."

A 1998 study conducted by the World Wildlife Fund supports Phelan's claim. The study addressed how soil erosion has been reduced during nearly 75 years.

In 1932, 2.75 metric tons of corn were produced per hectare per year. At this time, soil erosion totaled more than 37 metric tons per hectare per year.

Fifty years later, erosion rates decreased to 19.5 metric tons per hectare per year, according to the study.

By 1992, the Conservation Reserve Program removed 18 percent of all farmable land from production, including the areas with the highest erosion levels. After this action, corn production levels increased to 8.6 metric tons per hectare per year, and erosion levels decreased to 14 metric tons per hectare.

Other environmental damages stem from ethanol production from corn, including pollution, Pimentel said.

"It uses more nitrogen fertilizer than any other crop in the nation," he said. "About 25 percent of that nitrogen leaks off into our streams and lakes."

Farmers do use nitrogen-based fertilizer to grow corn, but if handled properly, the chemical is not dangerous, Phelan said.

"It's a harmless nutrient when handled properly," he said. "Farmers have to be trained and certified to handle that."

Other chemicals used to grow corn also affect the environment, Pimentel said.

"Corn uses more herbicides and pesticides than any other crop grown in the nation, and these pesticides are causing major problems in polluting our streams and lakes," he said.

Pimentel said that the nitrogen runoff is the prime cause of the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico.

"Seventy percent of the nitrogen delivered to the Gulf came from above the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers," according to a 1995 study by the World Wildlife Fund.

A 2001 study from the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that 90 percent came from non-point sources, primarily agricultural runoff and atmospheric deposition.

Another effect that ethanol production has on the environment is its impact on global warming, Pimentel said. Ethanol production affects global warming in three ways.

First, the claim that ethanol requires more fossil energy to produce than it produces contributes to global warming.

Also, when corn is fermented in the ethanol production process, the yeasts release large amounts of carbon dioxide into the environment, Pimentel said.

The third contributor to global warming is that every gallon of ethanol produced causes 12 gallons of sewage effluent that then is dumped into sewage system, he said.

Converting coal would be a much better option environmentally, Pimentel said.

"In converting coal, if it was done soundly, it would reduce the amount of environmental pollutants by about 10-fold," he said.

Fuel economy

Another disadvantage to the use of ethanol as a fuel alternative is that ethanol has a lower fuel economy than petroleum.

"The one difficult intricacy is that E85 fuel will give you lower fuel mileage," said Paul Wikoff, TITLE HERE. "In a car that would typically get 20 miles per gallon, you might get 16 or 17 miles per gallon on the E85."

An October 2006 report from Consumer Reports studied the fuel economy of a 2007 Chevy Tahoe, a flex fuel vehicle that can operate on E85. The study found a decrease in fuel economy for all categories.

"Overall fuel economy on the Tahoe dropped from an already low 14 mpg overall to 10," the report read. "In highway driving, gas mileage decreased from 21 to 15 mpg; in city driving, it dropped from 9 mpg to 7."

The report also found that the fuel tank of a flex fuel Tahoe depletes sooner than that of a non-flex fuel Tahoe.

"It (Consumer Reports study) found that it (Tahoe's driving range) decreased to about 300 miles on a full tank of E85 compared with 440 of gasoline," the report concluded. "Motorists using E85 would have to fill up more often."

Logistical issues

John Ferrell, technology lead for feedstock and conversion for the U.S. Department of Energy (Office of Biomass Programs), said there are other problems and potential disadvantages to the use of ethanol.

Ethanol and other biomass energy sources use a distributed system rather than a concentrated system used by oil refineries, he said.

"Biomass is a dispersed product," Ferrell said. "The costs of transporting, hauling and collecting are fairly significant."

However, there are some benefits to having this system.

"There are some strategic advantages to having a distributed system," Ferrell said. "From an energy security standpoint, having it in many places as opposed to one or two has its major advantages."

The transportation of ethanol also produces a potential problem, Ferrell said.

"I would say the relatively low bulk density of biofuels compared to some of the fossil fuels like oil or coal, it is harder to transport and move around," he said. "There is an issue with using existing oil pipelines with ethanol."

Some people see one downside of ethanol being that it will not be able to completely replace petroleum in fuel, said Mark Lambert, spokesperson for the Illinois Corn Marketing Board.

"We can provide a significant amount, and I think there is a lot of potential left to be tapped," he said, "but I think it is a fact of life that there is no one energy source out there by itself that is going to replace petroleum."

"Some people look at it as a downside because they are looking for a silver bullet that is just going to come in and give them cheap fuel and replace all their oil," Lambert said. "Life's not that easy, and it's not just going to happen."