BC-ETHANOL:TB – business, world (1270 words)
Ethanol’s benefits still unsettled
LENA, Ill. – The sweet, musty reek of fermenting corn and pure alcohol hovers over the towering distillery here, one of a rising number of farmland factories turning food into fuel.
It sounds like the perfect answer to rising gas prices.
And indeed, ethanol is a growing business for Midwestern corn farmers, who can make more money growing an additive for gasoline than raising food for people and animals.
But even as corn-laden trucks rumble into the Adkins Energy LLC plant, and tanker trucks bearing the colorless liquid roll out, destined for gas stations, scientists have never fully settled the question of whether ethanol is a good business for the nation.
Some wonder if cars powered by a mix of gasoline and ethanol really spew fewer pollutants, as backers claim.
One Cornell University researcher argues it takes more energy to make ethanol than it gives off as fuel, creating a drain on the nation’s energy supply, though that is a minority view. There is also the issue of its cost.
But the financial benefit to farmers from ethanol is substantial and its political appeal is undeniable, which is why the number of plants in operation will rise. There are 88 ethanol plants around the United States, and 16 more under construction. Industry observers expect 50 to 70 new plants to open by 2012.
Motivating the boom is President Bush, who signed a comprehensive energy bill in August requiring refiners to increase their use of ethanol from 4 billion gallons a day now to 7.5 billion by 2012. The cost will be at least $3 billion a year in government money given to the ethanol industry, a subsidy needed to make the price of ethanol competitive with gasoline.
There has to be a subsidy
“Nobody could buy ethanol without the subsidy,” said David Sykuta, executive director of the Illinois Petroleum Council, which represents the state’s oil refiners. “We have argued we could make a much cleaner fuel without it.”
The government has propped up the ethanol industry for years, with advocates saying it cuts vehicle emissions when added to gasoline. Typically the blend at the pump is 10 percent ethanol, 90 percent gasoline.
One political attraction of ethanol is that represents a domestic substitute for imported petroleum. But no one asserts the United States could ever grow enough corn and distill enough ethanol to completely replace gasoline. Today ethanol makes up about 3.5 percent of the gasoline sold in the United States.
The primary interest in ethanol is centered in farm states like Iowa and Illinois, both large producers of both ethanol and corn.
Ethanol’s supporters range from Decatur, Ill.-based giant Archer Daniels Midland, the nation’s largest producer, to small family farms. Midwestern politicians are staunchly behind ethanol, which is seen as supporting the price of corn.
This it has done, at least for some farmers.
Ronald Lawfer can stand on a rise in his cornfield and view the Lean plant in northwestern Illinois, which turns out 40 million gallons of ethanol a year. The plant is owned by a cooperative made up of Lawfer, 350 other farmers and other investors.
“It has added to the price of corn in this area anywhere from 10 to 20 cents a bushel,” Lawfer said. He said that could double a farmer’s profit on his crop.
Others put the figures lower, perhaps in the range of eight to 15 cents a bushel, but in any case members of ethanol co-ops do make money.
“Farmers are looking at some way to improve their income,” Lawfer said. He said ethanol does that for him.
Beyond ethanol’s political attraction, the environmental benefits are somewhat hazy.
Ethanol contains oxygen, which improves the efficiency of combustion in auto engines. This means tailpipe exhausts are fouled with less carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds and other substances that create ozone, which aggravates lung disorders.
Monte Shaw, spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, which represents ethanol producers, argues the virtues of ethanol in gasoline.
“Even in the most modern cars, there is a beneficial impact on ozone,” he said. Ethanol also reduces or eliminates the need for toxic octane enhancers like benzene, Shaw said.
When refiners make gasoline, they must use additives to increase octane, a measure of fuel efficiency. Ethanol works well and can replace benzene, which is implicated in disorders ranging from respiratory irritation to leukemia.
Ethanol also is a relatively benign substance in its own right. It is biodegradable, not particularly toxic and does not persist in the environment.
But ethanol is stained by one environmental drawback.
It increases the volatility of gasoline, meaning that in summer more gas evaporates from vehicles into the atmosphere. That actually worsens the ozone problem, although refiners reformulate their gasoline to minimize emissions.
Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health programs for the American Lung Association of Metropolitan Chicago, is unimpressed by the benefits of ethanol.
“If you used that reformulated gasoline without ethanol in the summer, there would be less ozone,” Urbaszewski said.
Ethanol does reduce emissions from old cars that lack computerized engine management systems, but those vehicles are ever diminishing in numbers.
“It’s questionable what kind of benefit you get from ethanol in the modern fleet,” Urbaszewski said.
So is ethanol good or bad for the environment?
“That’s a real hard question to answer,” Urbaszewski said. “The truth may be that it is a wash.”
But Urbaszewski has no illusions that corn-belt politicians will ever drop their support for ethanol.
“It’s a juggernaut that is impossible to stop,” he said.
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Ethanol was sold to the public in part on the idea that it replaces imported oil.
But a few researchers argue that ethanol requires more energy to make than it gives off as fuel. They reach that conclusion by adding up the energy needed to grow, harvest, transport and distill corn, and other factors.
“The deficit is 1.3 gallons of oil equivalent to produce 1 gallon of ethanol,” said David Pimentel, a professor at Cornell University who has studied ethanol for years.
Pimentel said ethanol’s subsidy would be spent more wisely on renewable energy sources like wind and solar power, which indisputably produce more power than they consume.
Much research leads to the opposite conclusion, however, finding ethanol gives off more energy than required to create it.
Michael Wang, a fuel systems analyst at the Argonne National Laboratory, recently studied the issue and concluded that ethanol’s net energy surplus amounts to 26 percent.
“Ethanol has energy from solar,” Wang said, referring to the energy imparted to corn by the sun. “That is why you have positive energy.”
And the ethanol industry is growing more efficient.
The plant in Lena, built in 2002, sometimes extracts as much as 2.8 gallons of ethanol from a bushel of corn. An output of 2.5 gallons used to be considered good.
The plant is highly automated, which holds down the cost of the ethanol it makes.
Meanwhile seed companies are developing new corn varieties that will yield more ethanol, which would cut prices and make it more competitive with gasoline.
John Urbanchuk, an agricultural economist with the LECG consulting firm, said if gasoline prices remain high and ethanol continues to grow cheaper, it will some day need no government money.
“That time is on its way,” Urbanchuk said.
He could not say when it would arrive.
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(c) 2005, Chicago Tribune.
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PHOTO (from KRT Photo Service, 202-383-6099): ETHANOL
GRAPHIC (from KRT Graphics, 202-383-6064): ETHANOL
AP-NY-09-01-05 0618EDT
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