Corn, Incorporated: The Ethanol Scam

At first glance, it seems like common sense.

Unless you're delusional or in the pay of the energy industry, you know that the burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of global warming and destructive climate change that is already wreaking havoc around the globe. Not to mention that fossil fuels are a limited resource, costly to extract and refine, and increasingly sought-after by competing nations.

So if a more environmentally friendly fuel could be derived from renewable plant-based sources, wouldn't it be logical to make the switch?

This is the justification for the recent boom in biofuel production in the U.S. and around the globe. Since biofuels (which can be made from corn, sugar cane, soybeans or other organic sources) are produced from "renewable resources," goes the argument, they can go a long way to helping break America from its 21-million-barrels-a-day oil habit and provide a more environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels.

Biofuels -- especially, in the U.S., corn-derived ethanol -- are being promoted as the savior of both the planet and humankind.

Think that's an exaggeration? Check out the National Corn Growers Association's online comic book adventures of "Captain Cornelius," who uses his corn superpowers to "protect the environment." Or the association's online promotional video, a Star Wars parody in which "ethanol" is depicted as a wise Yoda-like figure, and "gasoline" is Darth Vader.

Rolling Stone quoted Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa -- "the king of ethanol hype," the magazine pointed out -- as saying "Everything about ethanol is good, good, good." But if you scratch a bit beneath the surface, ethanol stops looking quite so "good, good, good."

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For one thing, although biofuels are promoted as a cure-all for an ailing environment, many scientists say that they aren't necessarily any better than traditional fossil fuels. As National Geographic reported in October:

Biofuels as currently rendered in the U.S. are doing great things for some farmers and for agricultural giants like Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill, but little for the environment.

Corn requires large doses of herbicide and nitrogen fertilizer and can cause more soil erosion than any other crop. And producing corn ethanol consumes just about as much fossil fuel as the ethanol itself replaces. Biodiesel from soybeans fares only slightly better. Environmentalists also fear that rising prices for both crops will push farmers to plow up some 35 million acres…of marginal farmland now set aside for soil and wildlife conservation, potentially releasing even more carbon bound in the fallow fields."

According to research reported last year by a team led by Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen, ethanol derived from corn may generate up to 50 percent more greenhouse gases than gasoline, because up to twice as much nitrous oxide may be released by the production process due to increased use of nitrogen fertilizers on corn (one of the most fertilizer-heavy crops).

In addition, in the U.S. and across the globe, forests, grasslands and other fragile ecosystems are being cleared to make way for production of corn, soybeans or other biofuel crops, causing further environmental harm.

According to one study published earlier this year in the journal Science, using a worldwide agricultural model to estimate emissions from land-use changes, researchers found that corn-based ethanol, "instead of producing a 20 percent savings in greenhouse gases, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years."

As Nature Conservancy researcher Joe Fargione told Science Daily, "If you're trying to mitigate global warming, it simply does not make sense to convert land for biofuels production. All the biofuels we use now cause habitat destruction, either directly or indirectly."