The Ethanol Question

Louis Egbe Mbua

This writing is in response to Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Senior fellow at Hudson Institute and former chief economist at the US Department of Labour. Writing on http://www.american.com/, 22 April 2008, the new American magazine, she advocated the immediate ban on ethanol subsidies in the United States; and by implication attacking the wisdom of growing crops for Biofuels at this time of soaring food prices; that the present production of ethanol is not viable; and that production of ethanol produces "more harmful emissions of greenhouse gases than it prevents".

While one believes the Senior Fellow touched salient points on this matter, she however, it appears, failed to converge the economics of production of ethanol and the crucial need for technological advancement in relation to safeguarding renewable and sustainable fuel for the future. There has never been recorded, any new technology that starts with a "viability". It took more than 40 years from 1903 for Air travel to become economical ; more than 20 years before Henry Ford discovered mass production of the T-Model for profitability. If this were the case for early technologies, it would not be different for Biofuels. Biofuels production would become more and more cheaper as the technology advances to fit mass scale production and at the same time obey market forces for it to survive. Furthermore the transportation of ethanol petrol blends for distribution purposes would be possible with advanced funded research in relation to pipelines and fluids -- possibly near ambient gasification followed by cooling.

Diana Furchtgott-Roth went further to attribubte, in advance, the imminence of more harmful world pollution on ethanol production based on publications by the eminent Professor Timothy Searchinger at Princeton University. While one has hardly read the paper, it is safe to assert that there is no known method of producing fossil and biologically based fuels without some kind of pollution. If we go by their argument then we must stop exploiting crude oil as well since crude oil drilling is also energy intensive and therefore produces harmful GHG. Further, we must stop running machines with fossil fuels since they pollute the environment. We know these assertions to be obvious impossibilities in this day and age.

While the Professor and his researchers may be right in their research goals, their work ,as far as I can see, appears to have failed to take technological advancement to reduce GHG while producing ethanol into consideration. Consequently, it would seem to me that their 167 year extrapolation of harmful emissions from ethanol production is not valid unless they would have to prove that the technology for Biofuels production will remain unchanged for more than a century and a half; and that ethanol would be produced only from land conversion to grow corn and other Biofuels food crops.

The Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute also insinuated the cause to ethanol production from crops: the sky high rocketing global food prices that have, unfortunately, sparked riots in developing countries like Haiti. While, it is right that food sufficiency must balance availability of fuel for any kind of human survival to materialise, there is little evidence that Biofuels production is responsible for this debacle. The most likely cause is the relentless upward rise in crude oil prices that today stand at about $119 per barrel. Fossil fuel is the main fuel for farm and plant machinery for the food industry. It follows that the high fuel cost will be passed onto the consumer. For oil prices to stabilise, supply for fuel has to outstrip demand which means we must produce alternative fuel.

Today we have Biofuels as both renewable and alternative and possibly sustainable in the future. And unless we can find an alternative that can be considered of superior qualities than Biofuels, all we have to do is develop the technology so as to eliminate or drastically curtail their disadvantages to humans in terms of emissions, enhanced viability and competition for food. This calls for funded research and development. Ethanol subsidies are important for the advancement of this technology to produce Biofuels to eliminate or drastically cut these drawbacks.