As each day passes, the drum beats louder for increased production of biofuels. From the president down, many of the nation’s politicians have become cheerleaders of various plant species to fuel our vehicles.

Whether it is ethanol from corn or switchgrass, biodiesel from soybeans, sunflowers or canola, there are environmental costs that must be weighed against the economic benefits. No one has examined the environmental costs of biofuel production more than David Pimentel and his colleagues at Cornell University. Let’s look at some of their concerns and the concerns of others.

Soil erosion

American agriculture is clearly not sustainable and nothing illustrates this more clearly than soil erosion. With current farming practices we are losing soil 10 times faster than sustainability. Corn, for example, erodes soil 18 times faster than it can reform. Great hope has been placed on developing techniques that would produce ethanol from cellulose plant parts that are currently unused. For example, we might use corn stover to produce fuel, but Pimentel points out that without the protection of crop residues, soil loss may increase 100-fold.

Ethanol supporters tout Brazil’s success with sugarcane, but soil erosion associated with this plant species is greater than for any other crop grown in that country. Increasing soil erosion also intensifies global warming and other problems associated with it. Energy. Pimentel claims “There is no energy benefit from using plant biomass for liquid fuel.” For example, his research indicates corn required 29 percent more fossil fuel energy than the fuel produced. The inputs for corn production such as herbicides, pesticides and fertilizer all require a fossil fuel component. Likewise for other biofuel crops.

Water

Many claim our current wars are being fought over oil, but in the very near future our wars may be fought over water. Usable water is becoming more scarce as each year passes. Here in the U.S., the great Ogallala aquifer will soon run dry and here in the land of 10,000 lakes, water tables are falling many times faster than recharge. We are currently surviving on fossil water that was deposited millions of years ago. According to Pimentel, when you count the water needed to grow corn, one gallon of ethanol requires a staggering 1,700 gallons of water.

In 2004, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency conservatively estimated that the production of 400-600 million gallons of ethanol yearly would require 1.6 to 2.4 billion gallons of water. Most of this water would come from groundwater.

Pollution

In a June 6 special publication entitled “Fueling Iowa’s Future”, the Des Moines Register looked at how biofuels pollute. Iowa has cited 11 biofuels plants for sewage violations. They found the concentration of chloride and other suspended solids, mainly salts, from ethanol plants were the highest of any industry in the state. They concluded the environmental impact on air pollution is wide.

In addition to carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas (which hasn’t been measured yet), the “biofuels plants emit compounds and particles that can irritate eyes, lungs and nasal passages.” Over the past 6 years, the paper reported that biofuel production “led to 394 instances in which the plants fouled the air, water, or land or violated regulations meant to protect the health of Iowans and their environment.”

Overall benefits

It seems clear that the contribution of biofuels to solving our energy crisis is going to remain small. Ethanol now provides about 1 percent of our fuel use, and even if the proposed 5 billion gallons are produced annually, it would supply only 3 percent of our needs. And cellulose conversion to ethanol is still in the infancy stage.

Rising food costs associated with the biofuels surge have put a strain on U.S. consumers, and for the 800 million worldwide who attempt to survive on a daily budget equivalent to the cost of a Sunday newspaper, the increased costs have been very difficult. Pimentel believes the primary beneficiaries of ethanol production are multinational agro-chemical giants like Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill and A.E. Stanley. The losers are the “American taxpayers and the ecological life-support systems of Spaceship Earth.”

In a Oct. 17 editorial the Wall Street Journal called corn based ethanol “heavily subsidized and absurdly inefficient.” It seems a waste to put all our efforts into something that is clearly not sustainable.