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From the New York Times

January 5, 2007
Rise in Ethanol Raises Concerns About Corn as a Food
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
CHICAGO, Jan. 4 — Renewing concerns about whether there will be enough corn to support the demand for both fuel and food, a new study has found that ethanol plants could use as much as half of America’s corn crop next year.

Dozens of new ethanol plants are being built by farmers and investors in a furious gold rush, spurred by a call last year from the Bush administration and politicians from farm states to produce more renewable fuels to curb America’s reliance on oil. But the new study by the Earth Policy Institute, an environmental group, found that the number of ethanol plants coming on line has been underreported by more than 25 percent by both the Agriculture Department and the Renewable Fuels Association, the ethanol industry’s main lobbying group.

The Earth Policy Institute says that 79 ethanol plants are under construction, which would more than double ethanol production capacity to 11 billion gallons by 2008. Yet late last month, the Renewable Fuels Association said there were 62 plants under construction.

The lower tally has led to an underestimate of the grain that would be needed for ethanol, clouding the debate over the priorities of allocating corn for food and fuel, said Lester R. Brown, who has written more than a dozen books on environmental issues and is the president of the Earth Policy Institute. “This unprecedented diversion of corn to fuel production will affect food prices everywhere,” Mr. Brown said.

Bob Dinneen, the president of the Renewable Fuels Association, said the group had not intentionally tried to play down the number of plants under construction. “It has been a moving target,” Mr. Dinneen said in an interview on Thursday. “We are not trying to hide the ball. We are trying to keep up with a growing and dynamic industry as best we can.”

The Renewable Fuels Association has generally played down concerns in the food versus fuel debate over ethanol, saying that estimates showed there would be plenty of corn to meet the demand for both. “We can absolutely do that without having a deleterious impact on consumer food prices,” Mr. Dinneen said.

The National Corn Growers Association said Thursday that farmers were keeping up, noting that growers produced their third-largest crop in 2006 of 10.7 billion bushels. “All demands for corn — food, feed, fuel and exports — are being met,” Rick Tolman, chief executive of the corn growers, said in a statement. “Farmers have always responded to price signals from the marketplace and, historically, we have had much more challenge with overproduction than shortage.”

With spot prices of corn soaring to record highs of nearly $4 a bushel last month, farmers are expected to plant some 85 million acres of corn this year, an increase of 8 percent over 2006 and what would be the largest corn-seeding in the country since 1985, said Dan Basse, president of AgResource, an agricultural research company in Chicago.

Ethanol has raised the incomes of farmers and given new hope to flagging rural economies. But the reliance on corn to produce ethanol in the United States has drawn concerns from some economists, who question whether the drive to corn-based fuel will push up the prices of livestock and retail prices of meat, poultry and dairy products.

Mr. Brown is among those who believe the ethanol industry is growing too quickly. He called for a federal moratorium on the licensing of new distilleries. “We need a time out, a chance to catch our breath and decide how much corn can be used for ethanol without raising food prices,” he said Thursday.

Like many other experts, he advocates moving past corn-based ethanol into cellulosic ethanol, produced from plant waste and nonfood crops like switch grass.

For now, however, in the anticipation of high potential returns, ethanol plants that rely on corn are being built by everyone from farmers to Bill Gates of Microsoft to a mix of Wall Street investors. In addition to the 116 ethanol plants in production, and the 79 under construction, at least 200 more ethanol plants, with a capacity of 3 billion gallons a year, are in the planning stages.

In all, ethanol distilleries now running or in the works will pull an estimated 139 million tons of corn from the 2008 corn harvest, according to the Earth Policy Institute. That is about double the demand projected by the Agriculture Department and will require over half of the projected 2008 corn harvest of about 11 billion bushels.

Keith Collins, the Agriculture Department’s chief economist, did not respond to requests for comment. One reason for the department’s projection of just 60 million tons of corn used for ethanol is that it was released last February, before surging oil prices set off investor interest in ethanol plants. The Agriculture Department will release its new projections next month.

But the pace of plant construction may be slowing. Shortages of galvanized steel and backlogs for special tanks for the distilleries have pushed construction time back from 18 months to as much as 28 months for some plants, Mr. Basse said.

Some towns are also demanding environmental studies to better understand the impact ethanol plants can have on water supplies and quality of the groundwater, which has delayed permits for new processing plants.

XLR8R

"Raise corn, not Cain"

RustyJC

Too late - the horse is already out of the barn. With the ban on MTBE as an oxygenating agent, and with the EPA non-compliance programs already in place, our gasoline here in the Houston area has contained up to 10% ethanol for quite awhile. It seems that someone would have noticed that the common name for ethanol is grain alcohol before we headed down this road.

Rusty

DBLR

You all just keep up the force use of pure grain alcohol in gas so that our new plants coming on line over the next 12 months will not set idle. One other thing they need to do ASAP is figure out how to get better mpg from a 10% mix and not like it is now where we lose a few mpg from it being mixed in our gas. Heck even E85 sounds like a good thing until you see how much more it cost to use it due to the lower mpg.

RustyJC

Yep, I drive an Acura 3.2TL-S commuting back and forth to work in the northwest suburbs of Houston. In this service, it gave around 23.5 MPG before the fuel change. Since the 10% ethanol gasoline arrived, mileage has dropped to around 20.5 MPG.

Rusty

John Faughn

I'm making some conclusions from a lot that is said , and adding them to what I know & people that are there doing it , plant workers [ computer programers to machine opp. ] farmers growing ect.
There so missing info , that it borders on propaganda .
It seems that the corn humans eat is not the same as cows eat , that is made to make ethanol , one guy that has his boilers lic. & works at a ethanol plant , and shares a farm with his bother that grows corn for cows , says that after make ethanol , the mash is sutible for feeding cows ,
Next the so called leaders want to use the worst possible crops for ethanol - corn vs. switch grass , and hardest on the land , also biodiesel -soybeans , some deal , whats left over from making bio is still the meal for protein , and the worst crop to get the oil out of for bio .
More ranting .

infidel

The corn craze won't last long. I work in Ag research, we are finding that switchgrass produces almost ten times more ethanol per acre than corn. Switchgrass is a perennial, it lives for many years with no need to replant. This saves all the tillage, seed and replanting every year costs that also use fuel. It will also grow on soil that is too poor to produce most other crops and is highly competitive with weeds, no herbicides needed. The left over pulp is also good for cattle feed.
Switchgrass is where the future is.

We worked for several years developing Camelina for biodiesel. Varieties, cultural practices, etc. The stuff is almost a weed, very easy to grow. Finally got it to the the point where thousands of acres were planted in Montana last year, then guess what, none of it went to biodiesel. Seems the oil has many valuable attributes as a human feed, oil was going for $7 a gallon. Researchers are also finding that the Camelina pulp fed to cattle greatly increases the favor of the meat while also increasing the good for your health Omega Three fats.

hllbllyhellion

Corn prices have really been on the rise the last few months. The last gluten pellets we bought for cattle feed had increased $1.00 per hundred#'s in just two weeks. I don't know why for sure or what the prices have done since. But here is what I heard: My brother, a friend, and myself are partners on a few head of cattle we listed them for sale in the local classifieds. One of the potential buyers came by to look them over he and my brother got to talking about corn prices on the rise and his reply was that he "worked for an oil company and his company was buying corn harvesting it and selling it overseas at a loss to hurt the ethanol companies". If this is true it should be illegal that hurts everyone in the country except the oil company inthe long run and the corn producer whom I don't blame for selling his corn to the highest bidder.

linetrash75

Not to worry about the corn shortage, if the priceis right the farmers can grow way more than can be used. As to 10% ethenal producing less MPG I say B.S. I live in OK you cannot get 10% but in OK city, when I visit family in IA I always fill with 10% and only get better MPGs on the return trip home. Actully the best I've ever hand calculated was 18 and some change that beats 2nd best on regular of just about 17.

Begle1

I've figured out that there are scores of plants out there for "the future"...

Any research still going on with alginic oil production? Or has that been officially declared a pipe dream?

RustyJC

Energy content:

Gasoline - 115,000 BTU/gallon

Ethanol - 77,815 BTU/gallon

No BS there.....

Rusty

RAMRODD

Trust me ethanal is not good for all farmers. The decline in cattle prices is costing me $150 a head. And that doesn't take into account the higher cost of the feed I am feeding them.
As far as farmers will just grow more that is true to an extent where I live it is to dry to get a reliable corn crop. I would say the chances are 50/50. The big new acres in the long run will come from some rainforest in Brazil turned into farm land. Remember when CRP started in the US That was going to raise crop prices? Well Brazil just replaced those acres.

infidel

Production of biodiesel from algae has great potential but also has some severe limitations. To have a plant that produces year round it has to be in the far southern part of the country. Further it has to be in an area of the country with abundant sunshine. See where this is heading towards?
Southern Calif, Nevada and Arizona.
Now the problem is algae production also needs water, something these areas are lacking in. We just don't have the climate in the US for it, in Mexico and south it would be great.
I've read that a nuclear power plant in the mid-west is experimentally growing algae in the hot water that circulates for cooling very successfully.

DBLR

Well I live in IA and ½ mile from an ethanol plant so I do have some experience trying out fresh ethanol blended gas. Anyway in my wife’s 2001 Neon if we use the 10% blend we will lose 4 mpg Hwy then if we use 100% gas. Our test was done in both summer and wintertime and in both test we lost mpg with ethanol-blended gas. Now we did have an old 92 Dodge Sprit with a 4 cylinder that would get the same mpg no matter what gas blend you put in it and I use to think that if you would of put pee in the tank it would run. What it all comes down to is that not every car is the same so every car will get different mpg with the same 10% blended gas. One other thing I noticed is when we used ethanol-blended gas for a long period of time the car would run crappy until I run injector cleaner in it.

Don M

Ethanol will only be used as an additive, but will never take hold as a good 100% alternative to gasoline.

Ethanol will price itself out of the market soon enough

Electric will be the leader, but will take some time to sort things out.