Food Supply & Alternative Fuel Sources
The connection between alternative fuel sources, our environment and our food supply.
As much as I agree that we need to decrease our dependence on petroleum based fuel, the rush to find alternative fuel sources may generate problems within our food supply. The uses of corn for ethanol and palm oil for biodiesel fuels have their own issues, environmentally and socially.
Currently farmers in the Midwest are sending billions of bushels of corn to refineries. This competes with corn that would go into our food supply, although I’m not convinced that we would suffer from less of the sweetener, high-fructose corn syrup. This competition for corn could lead to an increase in cost of processed foods since many processed foods contain various forms of corn. You’d be surprised to know how many fast foods are made with high-fructose corn syrup. But this is another subject for anther time. Right now, let’s focus on the efficiency and environmental affects.
What does it takes to grow corn and turn it into ethanol? Energy is used to plow, plant, fertilize and harvest, all require equipment that burns fossil fuels. Comparatively, it’s surprisingly efficient to pump crude oil from the ground and refine it. Then add the cost of transporting the corn to an ethanol processing plant where it goes through fermentation and distillation process that uses even more energy. From that point additional fuel is used for transporting the ethanol to a fueling station. It turns out ethanol is more corrosive than gasoline so it can’t be pumped through pipelines but must be transported via rail or tanker truck. The estimates are that it takes 3 gallons of ethanol to make 4 gallons of ethanol. I wonder what it takes to make pump and refine petroleum. I’ll have to look that up later.
To review the effects of growing corn, chemical pesticides and fertilizers (assume this most likely is not organic corn) cause soil and water pollution. The use of fuels for growing, processing and transport are huge.
Historically, corn farmers have been given government subsidies to grow corn and we have always had an endless and inexpensive supply of corn. That is why corn is so prevalent in our food supply. See Michael Pollan’s Botany of Desire for more facts about corn. Since the demand for corn has increased with the popularity of ethanol, corn prices have doubled the last year. Ethanol will only be profitable if corn is low in cost. The high corn prices are being felt in Mexico where the price of tortillas has risen. This is only the beginning. Animal feed is corn based, as consumers we will see the cost of beef, pork and chicken go up as the competition for corn heats up.
Now let’s look at palm oil. You may have noticed palm oil creeping into our food supply in greater amounts as we’ve transitioned away from trans fats also known as hydrogenated fats, the bad fats that our food processors have taken away to protect themselves against lawsuits, etc. for potentially damaging our health. Palm oil is becoming a main source for biodiesel fuel. As I write, more and more of the rainforests of Southeast Asia are being cleared to grow palm oil. I mentioned this in a earlier blog entry regarding the use of palm oil in our food supply. Now we have the demand for palm oil-based biodiesel threatening the ecosystem of elephants, rhinos, tigers and butterflies (oh my!). Biodiesel usage could also increase the demand for soy and canola. We need to look at the environmental costs of using biodiesel from these competitive food sources.
There is no obvious “best†solution for our energy woes, my goal to stay informed of the human and environmental costs of our fuel choices and lessen the impact.
Food should be our priority over fuel. Food is our fuel which we would be nothing without it. Let us find ways to decrease our dependence on fuels that will take away our quality of life and the damage the environment, for which we cannot live in without good quality food.
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