Ethanol, mainly an alcohol-based gasoline additive and more rarely an alternative fuel, has become a controversial topic when discussing clean alternatives to petroleum products. Ethanol additive helps gasoline burn slightly cleaner and mildly reduces carbon emissions.

For many farmers, ethanol production has helped create another income source. Despite some evidence that ethanol as a gasoline additive doesn't achieve higher fuel efficiency than pure gasoline, for people who want independence from oil, ethanol holds some promise.

Or does it?

Because ethanol is manufactured out of biomass, or agricultural byproducts, mainly from corn or sugar cane (but also sorghum, wheat, and potatoes), it comes with built-in problems. Higher prices of land and corn and other food products are being attributed to ethanol. Recent bouts of steep food inflation have also been linked to ethanol. The pressure to get into ethanol leads farmers to more intensive farming and water usage that depletes both soil and water supplies. Labor power is diverted from food production.

But these changes are not innocent market phenomena. Indeed, in the short period of time that ethanol has become a panacea for alternative fuels, a drive to monopoly has been led by Archer Daniels Midland, the largest agricultural company in the world, which controls about one-quarter of all ethanol production. Major finance capital firms like Goldman Sachs are also getting into the ethanol game.

Castro's Right

High costs of food products like corn and sugar cane and water shortages hit developing countries hardest. Despite his recent illness, Cuban leader Fidel Castro has followed the issue closely and has sharply criticized the notion that people in developing countries should have to give up food in order to put fuel in North American cars. Castro calls it "international genocide" and a "massive euthanasia on the poor."

Cuba is a major producer of sugar cane, a key source of biomass that can be made into ethanol. Because Cuba would stand to benefit from higher prices, it is clear that Castro's remarks are based primarily in a concern for broader development in poor countries, especially Caribbean countries who rely on sugar cane.

Aside from resultant food and water shortages, an ethanol dependent economy (and inextricably tied to the North American market) has little chance for diversified development, says Castro. He has even challenged one of Cuba's largest trading partners and closest friends, Brazil, for its growing role in ethanol production.

While it did not share Castro's stark language, The Economist magazine, that left-wing rag, concurred: "As more land is used to grow corn rather than other food crops, such as soy, their prices also rise. And since corn is used as animal feed, the price of meat goes up, too. The food supply, in other words, is being diverted to feed America's hungry cars." Notably, writers for pro-capitalist publications ranging from Business Week, Foreign Affairs, and the eco-friendly Globalist have expressed similar viewpoints.

Critics of corn-based ethanol production have even argued that its positive affect on carbon emissions might not be worth the trouble. According to a recent News.com article, a Natural Resources Defense Council study shows that on average, corn-based ethanol additive reduces greenhouse gas pollution by a mere 18 percent for every gallon of gasoline displaced.

Alternative to Corn: Trees

Projects underway in Michigan and Georgia to manufacture cellulosic ethanol might provide an alternative to corn-based ethanol. According to News.com, cellulosic ethanol is produced using what proponents call "forestry waste" or biomass found in forests like tree branches, wood chips, and non-food plants.

The Georgia project headed by a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and partially subsidized with state funds and US Department of Energy grants ($76 million worth) called Range Fuels is on the verge of beginning production of cellulosic ethanol. The project is in a testing phase to determine its feasibility.

In her weekly radio address on Aug. 10, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, who has spearheaded the formation of a growing diverse alternative energy industry in her state, praised Michigan's Mascoma Corporation for opening similar studies on cellulosic ethanol. Like Range Fuels, Mascoma's project is being funded by state tax subsidies, federal grants, and private capital. (Granholm's efforts sharply contrast with Michigan Republicans who want more oil drilling in the Great Lakes and low fuel economy standards.)

Are there advantages to using "forestry waste" over corn and sugar cane to manufacture ethanol? How do we avoid consuming entire forests to make fuel for cars?

Upside

Proponents of cellulosic ethanol, according to the News.com article, insist that water, labor, and land usage problems are eased by using forestry waste to make ethanol. Because they grow on their own, forests do not need constant attention by agricultural workers or irrigation systems. But the biggest advantage, some studies suggest, may be that ethanol made from sources other than corn might reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 75 percent, three to five times higher than corn ethanol. Though these studies appear to be inconclusive at best.

According to proponents of the cellulosic process, forest materials used would be limited to waste produced by existing logging, natural disasters and forest fires and non-food plants. As one might expect, some of the most fervent supporters of cellulosic ethanol probably overstate their case by insisting that cellulosic ethanol production would be "good for forests."

A spokesperson for Georgia's Range Fuels sourced in the News.com article said the Range Fuels project could make as much as 20 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol each year and might be able to expand to 5 times that sometime down the road. Using optimistic estimates, Georgia thinks it might be able to produce a total of 2 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol each year.

Advocates of cellulosic ethanol also see it as a good source of alternative energy that could help energy manufacturers meet new government mandates on alternative energy production. They see it as a more efficient, food-supply-friendly substitute for corn ethanol.

Downside

Other than the fact that cellulosic ethanol appears to be more costly to make than corn- or sugar cane-based ethanol and hasn't been proven feasible yet, the glaring problem with both types of ethanol is that because both are right now made by profit-driven ventures, excesses will be inevitable - no matter how many promises to avoid them are made at the outset.

If cellulosic ethanol proves viable, how long will it take to deforest the country (and other countries) to put fuel in our cars? How quickly will land speculation, already a growing problem, become a major source of corruption and economic destabilization? How fast will ecosystems and human food sources that rely on forests to exist be diminished? New problems that would arise are obvious.

Additionally, because, according to US government estimates, US consumers use about 400 million gallons of gasoline each day, the sustainable production of cellulosic ethanol would contribute literally a microscopic amount to reducing gasoline usage. There simply isn't enough corn or wood chips available to do the double duty of achieving independence from oil and providing for the food needs of the country.

Solutions: Diversity, Planning, Public Ownership

Alternative energy sources are a must. Gasoline (petroleum on the whole) has to be replaced soon. But profit-driven ventures into single-minded ethanol production cannot be the main solution.

Contrary to its reputation as a old economy state, Michigan is a positive example of what might happen in the alternative energy sector. It is becoming a leader in diversified alternative fuels production with 20 ethanol plants around the state (almost 18 percent of the country's total).

Bio-diesel, a biodegradable and clean-burning alternative to diesel made from soy beans (again a food product), is gaining traction in the state. Construction on NextDiesel in Adrian, Michigan began last week, and Gov. Granholm estimates that the company may soon be able to put out 100 million gallons each year. Other bio-diesel plants, including a joint effort of several dozen Michigan farmers and out-of-state bio-diesel distributors, are in the works.

Granholm also boasted about the launch of solar energy projects owned by United Solar Ovonic and the first commercial wind farm owned by John Deere in the eastern part of the state. United Solar Ovonic runs a factory that produces photovoltaic solar panels in Auburn Hills, Michigan and employees 500 people. The John Deere wind farm, when it begins operation in 2008, expects to produce enough electricity for approximately 15,000 homes.

These operations are publicly-subsidized, privately-owned projects that are valuable contributions to building a post-petroleum energy sector. But they have built into them the problems inherent in a system that allows private operators to control vast amounts of natural resources, land, food supply, water usage, and something as crucial to the well-being of society as energy. When it comes to basic needs like food, water, heat, transportation, and protecting the environment, profit should be the last concern.

Public-private partnerships can be a good thing, but when it comes to natural resources and energy policy, it makes more sense to reverse the ownership trajectory: start with public-private operations to launch new alternative energy projects that can then purchased by taxpayers and held in trust by public entities.

Carefully planned and highly regulated ethanol production (and other "biofuels" for that matter) that takes into account the need to stabilize and reduce global food staple prices, preserves global supplies of sanitary water, and restrains overuse of land to prevent soil erosion and deforestation provides a better basis for allowing ethanol to be a limited player among the many alternatives needed to replace gasoline.

As ill-suited to maximizing profits as such projects might be, publicly owned and controlled enterprises that look beyond the fad of "biofuels" to solar and wind power and carbon-neutral electric-powered transportation are better suited to the task of developing diversified alternative energy sources. Indeed, eliminating profit motive in ethanol production could save us from going down the road of "mass euthanasia on the poor."