GoodFuels

Time Flunks Ethanol Fact Test

The same guy who brought us “The Clean Energy Myth” cover story in Time magazine last year has a similarly biased story in this week’s issue filled with inaccuracies and down-right falsehoods.

I hope that “Stress-Testing Biofuels: How the Game Was Rigged” by Michael Grunwald is supposed to be commentary, rather than actual reporting, since it clearly features the writer’s anti-ethanol bias and opinions.

Grunwald cites “Princeton scholar Tim Searchinger” as his primary resource for the evils of ethanol, the same environmental lawyer and author who was the basis of last year’s cover story, despite the fact that his theory of international land use change has been refuted by actual scientists. Grunwald writes as if Searchinger’s “work” is proven fact:

Yet the real problem with farm fuels, as Searchinger and others have shown, is in the indirect effects on land use: when an acre of land is used to grow fuel instead of food, an extra acre somewhere else is probably going to be converted into farmland to grow food. And that acre may well be an acre of wetland or forest that would otherwise store loads of carbon. So farm fuels become a lose-lose deal: exacerbating the deforestation that already creates one fifth of the world’s carbon emissions, and driving up global food prices.

More than 100 scientists and researchers disputed this assertion in a letter to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger earlier this year, saying the science of indirect land use is “in its nascent stage, is controversial in much of the scientific community, and is only being enforced against biofuels.”

Regarding deforestation, the letter from the scientists noted that “most primary forest deforestation is currently occurring in places like Brazil, Indonesia and Russia as a direct result of logging, cattle ranching and subsistence farming. Adding an iLUC penalty to biofuels will hold the sector accountable to decision-making far outside of its control (i.e. for decisions related to the supply chains of other products), and is unlikely to have any effect on protecting forests or mitigating GHG emissions as a result of land management practices.”

In blaming biofuels for driving up global food prices, Grunwald links to a February 2008 Time photo essay which paints a dire, heart-rendering picture of starving people around the world. The implication is that ethanol is responsible for children rummaging though garbage for food in Somalia. This goes beyond irresponsible reporting into downright lying, especially considering a recent Congressional Budget Office report found that ethanol was responsible for just 10 percent of last year’s increase in domestic food prices while oil prices were responsible for 36 percent. In addition, the U.S. exported a record amount of corn last year even with higher ethanol production, which belies the notion that because we are making food into fuel we are depriving the world of needed sustenance.

Renewable Fuels Association president Bob Dinneen has written a letter to Time magazine “objecting to the unbalanced and factually inaccurate reporting/editorializing on biofuels by Michael Grunwald” and attempting to set the record straight. We’ll see if it gets published.

Flood of Negative Headlines from Water Study

A University of Minnesota study on water usage and ethanol production is already generating a flood of negative headlines and it hasn’t even been officially published yet.

“Biofuel Production Threatens Water Supplies,” “Bioethanol’s Impact On Water Supply Three Times Higher Than Once Thought,” and “Ethanol Production Consumed 861 B Gallons of Water in ‘07″ are just a sample of the headlines from the report which is scheduled for publication Wednesday in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. However, the headline on the press release from the U of MN (which was supposedly embargoed until 12:01 a.m. Wednesday) reads more positively - “Midwestern ethanol plants use less water than western counterparts.”

The study is the first to compare water use in corn-ethanol production on a state-by-state basis - which they found ranges from as little as six gallons of water for each gallon of ethanol in Iowa - the number one ethanol producing state - to as much as 2,100 gallons in California, which produces very little ethanol. The authors used agricultural and geologic data from 2006-2008 to develop a ratio showing how much irrigated water was used to grow and harvest the corn and to process it at ethanol plants. The study “highlights the need to strategically promote ethanol development in states with lower irrigation rates and less groundwater use,” the authors say.

As always, the problem with this issue is perspective. Check out some of the EPA’s Water Trivia Facts, which includes this little tidbit: How much water does an acre of corn give off per day in evaporation? The answer is 4,000 gallons. Is that counted when determining water usage for corn ethanol production?

And how does ethanol production compare to gasoline production? According to the same trivia facts (converted to gallons from barrels) it takes at least 44 gallons of water to refine one gallon of crude oil. Does that count the water used to pump the oil out of the ground?

Here’s another little fun trivia fact. A typical 40-million-gallon-a-year ethanol plant uses almost exactly the same amount of water per as an average 18-hole municipal golf course. But then, golf courses don’t have to defend their water usage - only the people who are trying to produce food and fuel for our country do.

Attack of the Killer Turkey Prices

The cost of this year’s Thanksgiving meal is up almost six percent this year, with turkey prices leading the way, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.

The cost of a 16-pound turkey, at $19.09 or roughly $1.19 per pound, reflects an increase of 9 cents per pound, or a total of $1.46 per turkey compared to 2007. This is the largest contributor to the overall increase in the cost of the 2008 Thanksgiving dinner.

Some are placing the blame on the ethanol industry, even though the Renewable Fuels Association has calculated that only 1.4% of price for the typical holiday meal for 10 this Thanksgiving can be attributed to the U.S. ethanol industry’s demand for corn.

The Associated Press had an interesting take on the turkey prices in an article last week, which uses the National Turkey Federation as its source saying that “consumers will see good prices this year” for turkeys. At the same time, the article quotes the Farm Bureau survey, without noting the fact that turkey makes up the majority of the price increase for the meal!

The article included comments from Keith Shoemaker, chief executive of Butterball, blaming corn prices and ethanol - not for higher turkey prices for the consumer, but for lower profits for the companies.

”In 2008, it was kind of the perfect storm. Corn prices were high, there was oversupply and speculation helped to drive it more,” Shoemaker said. ”Ethanol helped to drive it more and the value of U.S. currency made it cheaper for other people to import grain, and also import turkey.”

The turkey industry has also had to reverse direction — after having a good year in 2006, producers ramped up production the next year and are now having a tough time scaling back, Shoemaker said.

What they are trying to do now is cut production in order to boost prices EVEN MORE! That means you might want to buy two turkeys this year and freeze one for next year.

Buis counters CNBC ethanol bashing

National Farmers Union President Tom Buis appeared on CNBC last week to address ethanol as an alternative fuel to gasoline.  Despite the anchor repeating anti-ethanol talking points and smirking several times, Buis defenended ethanol as a clean, renewable fuel that reduces our dependence on foreign oil.

Take a look:

Time Magazine Got it Wrong

Time Magazine got it wrong this week when they called ethanol a myth of clean energy.  The piece was inflammatory, written with a clear agenda and factually inaccurate.

“The most stunning piece if misinformation I have seen published in a major news outlet,” said Harold Wimer, CEO of the American Lung Association of the Upper Midwest.

Wimer went on to provide clean energy facts about ethanol, something Time seems to have missed:

• There is a clear scientific consensus that vehicles using E85 or biodiesel emit significantly less air pollution than those using traditional fuels.
• A typical E85 user prevents 4 tons of lifecycle carbon dioxide (CO2) and other harmful pollutants from entering our air every year.
• The National Renewable Energy Laboratory reports that biodiesel (B100) use reduces lifecycle carbon dioxide emissions by 78%.

via: Food and Fuel America