Arguments about ethanol reignite

Issue: Does making fuel use more energy than is produced?

BEN SHOUSE
bshouse@argusleader.com

Published: 08/1/05

South Dakota’s growing ethanol industry got a major boost Friday with passage of a $12.3 billion energy bill, but critics are renewing a longstanding claim that making the alternative fuel consumes more energy than it produces, harming the economy and the environment.

If those critics are right, the new mandate to more than double the use of ethanol by 2012 will increase U.S. reliance on fossil fuel and increase greenhouse gas emissions.

The debate is intricate and involves calculating how much energy is used in corn farming as well as ethanol manufacture. Instead of digging into the numbers, many in the debate have turned to questioning the ability and integrity of the researchers with whom they disagree.

Ethanol is popular in South Dakota, but there are a few skeptics who want more focus on the hard data.

“Unfortunately, there isn’t a politician, except on the East and West Coasts, that’s going to say anything negative about ethanol,” said Arnie Berkeland of Sioux Falls, who closely follows ethanol research. “Nobody dares speak up against it.”

He said he believes the studies that claim ethanol is a waste.
“If you’re just going to spin your wheels and get out exactly what you put in, or get out less, then why spin the wheels?” he said.

The controversy boils down to estimating the amount of energy it takes to produce nitrogen fertilizer and farm equipment.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture offer lower estimates and conclude that making ethanol from corn generates more energy than it consumes.

But research published this month by scientists at Cornell University and the University of California at Berkeley says those estimates are too low and concludes that making ethanol wastes energy.

Both sides seem convinced, but a closer look at the reasons for disagreement gives little cause for certainty.

One disparity involves how much energy it takes to make nitrogen fertilizer.

USDA research led by Hosein Shapouri assumes it takes 24,500 British thermal units of energy to make a pound of nitrogen and bring it to the farm. Research by Tad Patzek of UC Berkeley assumes it takes about one-third more energy.

The Washington, D.C.-based Fertilizer Institute gives the efficiency of American fertilizer plants as 20,000 BTUs per pound, not including transportation. The U.S. imports almost one-quarter of its fertilizer, but assuming importation and transport consume relative modest amounts of energy, the USDA number is closer to the institute’s.

Another major debate about numbers concerns the energy used to make farm machinery. The USDA research does not include any estimate at all, and Shapouri says he doubts Patzek can make a reliable estimate.

“I would like to include the amount of energy used per pound of machinery and equipment, but I do not have a good way to estimate the number. I believe the number is small,” Shapouri said in an e-mail message.

Patzek, on the other hand, says growing an acre of corn requires about 49 pounds of steel. Making that steel adds nearly as much energy to ethanol production as fertilizer.

Patzek, along with Cornell researcher David Pimentel, published the latest version of his research this month. He says many ethanol advocates have unfairly questioned it.

“I cannot understand for the life of me how the poorest science the DOE (Department of Energy) and USDA has offered in decades is accepted with no questions by the people who for the most part have never read any of the reports and have no science or engineering backgrounds,” he said in an e-mail.

Few corn farmers have the time or inclination to evaluate the studies themselves. But they cite other reasons to support ethanol.

David Gillen of White Lake, president of the South Dakota Corn Growers Association, said it’s important to consider the benefits to corn farmers, rural economies and air quality.

“If you take everything into account,” he said, “using ethanol is a no-brainer.”

He says the new energy bill will mean higher prices for corn farmers and possibly more ethanol plants.

“It means more for South Dakota than for any other state.”

Reach Ben Shouse at 331-2318.