Ethanol craze affecting food supply

President Bush has gone on something of an ethanol kick, his response to recent reports warning about the verity and consequences on the horizon as a result of climate change. Yet a recent article in The Economist sides with Fidel Castro's take on "the sinister idea of converting food into fuel." The price of corn has already risen as a result of America's fuel needs. Farmers are dedicating more land to corn, which in turn is increasing prices of other crops which are losing land. On top of that, corn is largely used as animal food, so the price of meat has gone up as a result of ethanol fuel. Our need for independence from foreign oil comes at a cost.

The production of ethanol for fuel in America has only been around 3.5% of total fuel consumption, but the amount is expected to increase at a rate of 25% a year, which is causing a building boom in refineries in the midwest. Subsidized by government funds, ethanol is the only alternative energy source that has widespread political support, as farmers, carmakers, and the oil industry all benefit.

However, according to some studies, corn-based ethanol isn't as green as we might have thought, as it calls for almost as much energy to produce as it uses when burned. According to the International Institute for Sustainable Development, government funds for ethanol are costing $5.5 billion and $7.3 billion in taxes per year. Sugar cane based ethanol, on the other hand, creates much more energy than is required to produce it, and places where it is currently produced (Brazil's a big one) aren't affecting food supplies as there's sufficient land available for crops. Sugar-based ethanol could be a great export for many developing countries with tropical climates.

Ethanol produced from wood, grasses, and agricultural wastes which contain a great amount of cellulose is a more environmentally viable solution than both sugar and corn, but the process is quite expensive. With more development, this system would be most ideal, as it wouldn't affect food supplies and would create a constructive use for farm waste. I fear that it could lead to the gung-ho use of trees in the production of cellulosic ethanol, which wouldn't help in the fight against global warming.

America presently taxes imported ethanol, which is soon to anger taxpayers as they see the rise in food prices. Importing sugar-based ethanol would both help developing countries and allow us a much more significant impact against global warming, which is one of the reasons that brought the US to this spot in the first place. It seems to me that even when the country tries to do something right, we screw it up by choosing the most convenient option-- in this case "bad" corn-based ethanol.