Editorial Comment

	Vol. 227 No. 9
PERRY A. FISCHER, EDITOR

Cogito ergo, spud. I’ve noticed that comedians often use the name Kimba to describe a hungry child. I suppose it’s the emblematic name for starvation . . .

It was the aid worker’s first gig, feeding the hungry in some far-flung impoverished country. They had just received a shipment from Toys For The Needy, and she was handing out the toys to the children. It made perfectly good sense to her. She was from a huge, wealthy country, with purple mountains and amber waves of grain. What child doesn’t want American toys? Made in China.

She handed Kimba his toy. It was a Mr. Potato, the idea being to dress up a potato into a man: push on the arms, the glasses and a top hat – although nowadays, there’s also a Darth ‘Tater version – you get the picture. The generous donor was kind enough to include a real potato to play with. Even though the child had eaten his cup of rice that morning, he just could not grasp the concept.

“No, this is not for eating, it’s a toy,” implored the aid worker, “You’re supposed to play with it.”

“But Kimba want potato!” he pleaded . . .

Using food to make motor fuel has become extremely popular. I wonder, if Descartes were alive today to witness this ethanol frenzy, would he have changed his famous line to the title of this column: “I think, therefore, I yam?”

Whenever I’m presented with a subject as complex as ethanol, I make a “T” table, with “Good” on one side and “Bad” on the other. This is the only way one can arrive at the net, net, net – yes, ethanol is that complex a subject – effect.

If food-based ethanol catches on in all of the food-growing nations on Earth, how much food and fuel are we talking about? World ethanol production has soared from 5 billion gallons in 2001 to well over 12 billion gallons this year. That’s roughly 2 million barrels a day in equivalent oil production. Ethanol production appears that it will easily double in less than a decade, and after that, who knows? Triple? Over the last 25 years, the world has produced well over 3 billion barrels of ethanol. The cumulative cost is easily in the range of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Meanwhile, for just this year alone, there will be another 76 million more people to feed. The US Dept. of Agricultural says that world grain consumption will grow by 23 million tons this year. Of this, at least 14 million tons will go to make fuel just for US consumption. Even more will go elsewhere.

Simply put, grain grown for fuel is increasing by 20% per year; most of the world’s increase in grain output, if any, will go for fuel, not people. Worse, we have not yet perfected the weather or politics. World grain production has been falling for the last three years, and the difference between production and consumption, namely, storage, is falling quickly, now at a 26-year low. Ethanol farming is growing in India, China, Saudi Arabia and more than 20 other countries. All of this means higher food prices, especially for importing nations.

Making fuel from food began as an undeniably odd, but nifty, idea. Some farmer, town or island started converting food into alcohol fuel, and it worked. Although not economically competitive, it offered some unique advantages for the locals and their politicians. But it is not a global solution, and it is probably not sustainable, long-term, even at just the 5%-of-supply level. Realize that as fuel demand increases, just a 2% growth rate means doubling the volume every 35 years to maintain that 5%.

For now, the situation is tolerable, but what started out as a neat idea will get completely weird if taken to its logical extreme – and it looks like that is where we are heading. There are many alternatives for motor fuel; I know of no alternative to food.

Eric G. Holthusen is a Fuels Technology Manager for Shell Global Solutions. In a recent speech, he said that using food crops to make biofuels is “morally inappropriate” as long as there are people in the world who are starving. Thanks, Shell, for having the gumption to allow Mr. Holthusen to say what, until now, I could not.

Shell is the world’s largest marketer of biofuels, virtually all of which are now made from food crops. Holthusen said the present situation was driven by “economics or legislation,” but if “...we had the choice today, then we would not use this route.” He went on to say that it is “because we are more wealthy that we use food and turn it into fuel. This is not what we would like to see.”

Everyone – well, almost everyone – now knows that cellulosic ethanol makes a better “T” table. President Bush got this one right in his last State of the Union speech, when he referred to ethanol from “wood chips and stalks or switch grass.” It is much more CO₂ friendly (85% less CO₂ compared to gasoline), uses waste or underutilized plant leftovers, and I believe it will someday come from genetically improved crops, perhaps from an obscure twiggy seedy genus, that can be grown on much less water-dependent, and poorer quality soil. In general, it uses less energy and has better inputs than its starch- and sugar-based cousin.

Iogen Corp. has partnered with Shell and Petro-Canada and is now selling cellulosic ethanol through a pilot plant. Genencor, Novozymes and Dyadic International are firms that are taking an enzymatic route for cellulosic (not food-based) ethanol production, while Abengoa is using SunOpta’s cellulose process to make the fuel. All of these firms are making outstanding progress. Pilot plants are beginning to proliferate. Public monies are well-spent in this area, since the proverbial shot-in-the-arm is justified in emerging technology, unlike the mature food-based ethanol technology.

Twenty years from now, in some neglected corner of the world, whether somewhere in Africa, Asia or North Texas – anywhere there is want for basic sustenance – there will be a truck, full of potatoes, en route to an ethanol plant, that will break down near a refugee camp. Within minutes, its cargo is discovered and sacks of potatoes start to be pilfered. But management is on the scene and quickly restores order. The sacks are marked “for ethanol production only” and are returned to the truck. Off in the corner, an aid worker – perhaps the child of that brave, kind, naive soul who came this way 20 years ago – is arguing with a hungry kid:

“No,” she implores, “That is not to be eaten; it’s to make the fuel that goes in the trucks that bring the toys!”

“But KIMBA WANT POTATO!!”

Besides food, there are other pluses and minuses to ethanol. Ethanol has 67% of the energy content of gasoline, so a gallon won’t take you as far as gasoline. You would really notice the difference in fuel mileage at the E85 (85%) ethanol blend pumps, because you would have to fill up a lot more often when driving on this stuff (1.5 gal. of ethanol = 1 gal. of gas). Fortunately, most gasoline is in the E10 to E20 blend range.

The emissions benefit for ethanol is questionable and complex. When compared to the crummiest grades of gasoline, ethanol is a clear benefit to air quality. When compared to the best grades of gasoline, the benefit is questionable. There are other issues, such as decreases in carbon monoxide versus increases in nitrogen oxides and volatile compounds.

Food-based fuels net out as slightly bad for the environment, which is why it irks me so much to see advertising, the general public and starry-eyed “greenies” all holding the pro-environmental banner for food-based fuels. River siltation, agricultural runoff, and the enormous “Dead Zone,” – an oxygen-free, lifeless area off the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico – can only worsen.

Massive sugar-cane farming is extremely difficult to do in an environmentally benign manner. In Brazil and Indonesia, vast swaths of rainforest are being cut down at an ever increasing rate, to make room for sugar cane, soybean, palm oil and other fuel-crop farming, with no end in sight.

Three of the largest energy inputs to food-based ethanol are hydrocarbon fuels: Natural gas is used for the considerable fertilizer inputs and petroleum for pesticides, while coal is usually used to heat the mash. This prevents the biofuel from being CO₂ neutral, despite claims to the contrary, although they are more CO₂-friendly than fossil fuels (say, 12% to 19% less CO₂than gasoline).

Subsidies are common and hefty. The US is paying over $0.51 a gallon of taxpayer money for ethanol. The US goal – politically misnamed a “mandate” – is to produce 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol a year, or about 5% of supply, by 2012. Europe has a similar 5.75% goal for biofuels in general, with France and Germany leading the way, primarily with rapeseed (canola) oil, but also with sugar beet production. Government subsidies are very popular there, too.

It takes good, arable soil and large amounts of water to grow food. There are experts saying that water will be the next major world crises. So, the question becomes, how much cropland, rainforest, water, fertilizer and money are we going to commit to growing food for fuel?

. . . Remember Kimba? Unlike an adult, he could not be fooled so easily. At a visceral level, he understood food, and knew that there was just something odd about using food as a toy, or for fuel. Try to picture Kimba: his outstretched arms, his distended stomach, his dark, watery eyes, the poster child for hunger, pleading for simple food.

Now imagine that Kimba’s name is John.