The ethanol option: 'quick, easy route' to combating energy crisis is not sustainable, many say

[ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED]

Travelers on state Highway 141 just east of this central Iowa town learn to heed the road sign: "Caution--Trucks Turning."

In fact, 150 to 200 trucks a day turn onto or off the road leading from 141 to the POET ethanol plant less than a mile away. Many are taking corn, of which there are more than 13 million acres in Iowa, to the plant for making ethanol fuel. Others are hauling away the finished product or byproducts. On a recent rainy day, the parade of tarp-covered corn trucks and tanker trucks seemed endless.

"There's a lot of truck traffic this time of year," said Coon Rapids Councilwoman Geraldine Thacker, who believes the ethanol plant has been a boon to this town of 1,300 people on the banks of the Middle Raccoon River.

Iowa is the nation's top producer of biofuels, with 22 ethanol plants in operation and two under construction. Similar to how other plants have affected local communities, the Coon Rapids plant has provided 55 new jobs and raised corn prices and land values. Though operated by POET, which with 124 plants bills itself as the largest ethanol producer in the world, it is majority-owned by local investors, many of whom are corn farmers. Overall, the plant, which produces 54 million gallons of ethanol a year, has been a benefit to the community, says Thacker.

Coon Rapids-area residents may believe the ethanol plant, which opened in 2002 at a cost of $50 million, is a benefit, but many Americans believe ethanol production is an ill-conceived answer to the fossil-fuel problem.

Energy crisis

"Is it really a solution to the energy crisis?" asks Robert Gronski, policy coordinator for the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa. Corn is such a poor source of ethanol that researchers at the University of Minnesota estimate that converting the entire U.S. corn crop into ethanol would replace only 12 percent of our gasoline consumption.

Gronski also wonders whether raising corn for ethanol is sustainable for farmers and communities like Coon Rapids.

Iowa State University agricultural economist Robert Wisner says factors surrounding ethanol production are changing quickly as production increases, affecting many aspects of the food industry. One of the principal debates centers on the ultimate benefits of ethanol production: Ethanol may have some limited immediate benefit, some observers say, but is it delaying a more comprehensive approach to the energy problem?

"It's the low-hanging fruit," says Mark Winne of Santa Fe, N.M., communications director for the Community Food Security Coalition. American farmers know how to produce an incredible amount of grain, so "we take the easy, quick route" toward a solution instead of the obvious route of conservation, "which seems to be anathema to American policymakers."

Denise O'Brien, head of the Women, Food & Agriculture Network, based in Atlantic, Iowa, agrees.

"We can't put all our corn in one bushel," she says. "We need to plan to determine what our food and fuel crops are going to be used for. Right now, the focus is on profit. We need to explore all the possibilities."

For people who consider her advice "central planning," as in the former Soviet Union, O'Brien points out that U.S. farm legislation, which has created ever larger farms and ever fewer farmers, amounts to the same.

Critics like O'Brien worry about many issues surrounding ethanol production. Supporters say those worries are misplaced.

Food versus fuel

Critics say ethanol takes food out of people's mouths by making it less available and more costly. A September article in The Washington Post declares that prices for food, including beef, milk, cereal, eggs, chicken and pork, are up, and blames ethanol. Though down, to around $3 by mid-autumn, corn courted $4 a bushel earlier in the year, up from "a historically stable $2." The article blamed that on the extra demand created by ethanol production, saying that producers of food that use corn--everything from soft-drink manufacturers who use corn sweeteners to cereal makers--are paying more for it. The result is evident in higher prices at supermarkets and restaurants.

Livestock producers, and presumably their customers, have been especially hard hit, according to the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. Its Web site has a position paper that, pointing to a tripling of the use of ethanol in the past five years, blames "recent surges in corn-based ethanol production" for livestock producers' concerns about "the availability and price of feed grains and other feedstuffs."

The National Corn Growers Association, on the other hand, says in a brochure the record demand for corn is being met with record supplies, and corn demand for ethanol has no noticeable impact on retail food prices. That's because only 19 cents of every consumer food dollar results from the cost of grain. The bulk of the cost is attributable to labor, packaging and transportation. POET, the ethanol plant operator, says in a publication that the recent increase in food prices is most likely due to increased energy prices, just the problem it is trying to solve.