An idea whose time has gone

With recent headlines blazoning food riots from Mexico to Bangladesh, governments stockpiling grains and starving Haitians eating mud, a new danger has been added to the litany of threats facing our overpopulated and overstressed planet: famine.

We in America may not have to resort to eating mud. But there is hunger and malnutrition here as well, and skyrocketing grocery prices combined with declining real incomes are making things rapidly worse. It is estimated that one in 10 of us will soon rely on food stamps.

The issue also hits close to home in a less obvious respect: it puts in grave question the viability of the ethanol plant being planned by the Wayne/Pike Farm Bureau in Texas Township, PA.

Although there are a number of issues contributing to the global food crisis, including climate change and speculation, there is a consensus that the massive global diversion of arable acreage to the production of biofuel, rather than food, is a significant contributing factor. About a quarter of the U.S. corn crop goes to fill ethanol demand. It has been estimated that to fill a 25-gallon tank with pure ethanol would take 450 pounds of corn, or enough calories for one person for a year.

In our November 15, 2007 editorial, we discussed the shortage of farmland as one reason why corn ethanol is a bad solution to the energy crisis. However, noting the Wayne/Pike Farm Bureau’s stated interest in switching to non-corn feedstock as the technology to refine it becomes available, we were willing to cut the idea of an ethanol plant some temporary slack.

But the crunch on global food supplies has hit a lot faster and harder than we anticipated, and it is clear that there will not be even a brief interval of time during which corn ethanol is a feasible alternative to gasoline. The same goes for any ethanol feedstock that is grown on land that could be used for feed crops. To do so means not only to impose starvation on people in developing countries, but to significantly reduce the standard of living for lower- and lower-middle-income Americans.

In light of these facts, world governments need to adopt policies right now to gear down corn ethanol production. Indeed, there is some evidence that they are already doing so: the European Environment Agency recently recommended that Brussels drop its target of 10 percent ethanol in the European fuel supply by 2020.

We have not heard similar recommendations in the United States yet, and are not likely to do so before the election, given the disproportionate power our electoral system gives to populations in the Corn Belt. But with consumer budgets being slammed hard by groceries, as well as gas, we believe it is only a matter of time before U.S. government support is withdrawn from the corn ethanol industry.

That being the case, rethinking the Texas Township ethanol plant is a matter of financial smarts and morality. It makes no sense to barge ahead with plans for a corn ethanol plant if the days of corn as a biofuel feedstock are numbered.

As noted in our previous editorial, the Wayne/Pike Farm Bureau is to be lauded for its forward-looking effort to think and act in terms of 21st-century industries like biofuel. But we implore it to reconsider the specific direction it has chosen. There is still potential in forms of ethanol based on alternative feedstocks, such as switchgrass or agricultural waste—anything that does not involve appropriating land that could otherwise be used to produce food. The technology does not yet exist to convert such materials, but experts expect it to be in place in about 10 years. Perhaps the bureau could spend the interim getting its ducks in a row to build such a plant as technology permits.

If that’s too long to wait, perhaps the bureau could investigate options like wind power, for which much farmland is eminently suited.

But forget about the corn ethanol plant. It’s an idea whose time has gone.

Dr. Punnybone

Game Face