Like it or not, ethanol is in the mix

opinions

November 13, 2013 - 12:00 AM

In 2005, a bushel of corn sold for $1.95.
This fall, it fetched $6.21 a bushel, down from $7.31 earlier this year.
The federal mandate established in 2005 under President George Bush requiring U.S. oil companies to add ethanol to their gasoline is the root of the surge in corn production.
In 2007, President Bush signed into law a renewable fuels standard to require 36 billion gallons of ethanol-blended fuels be in production by 2022.  At the time, it was predicted production would be at 15 billion by 2015. Corn then was selling for $3.77 a bushel.
When President Barack Obama took office in 2009, ethanol-blended fuels continued as a priority.
In 2010, ethanol became the No. 1 use for corn, eclipsing livestock feed.
In 2012, a 30-year-old subsidy of 45 cents per gallon for ethanol production expired. Corn surged to $6.07 a barrel.
The timeline is helpful in showing how in eight short years, the production of corn has skyrocketed in order to help the United States become more independent from outside sources of energy.
Today, our reliance on foreign oil and petroleum products account for less than half of the country’s supplies. In 2006, domestic production was 40 percent; today it is 55 percent.
We import most of our fuel from Canada, 29 percent, more than double what we import from either  the Middle East, South America, Nigeria or Mexico.
Ethanol production displaces about 6 percent of annual demand for gasoline made from crude oil; the goal is 10 percent.

THE AIM of ethanol production was to clean the air, reduce dependence on foreign oil and bolster agriculture.
The results aren’t quite that clean-cut.
Increased  production has come at a cost to the environment by turning grasslands into croplands and the energy required to convert corn into fuel.
It’s also a capricious market.
The drought of 2011, for example, forced ethanol producers to spend more in their search for crops.
That said, a good year like this year allows farmers to invest in bigger and better equipment and expand production.
Ample corn supplies also have put the development of cheaper fuels, such as cellulosic biofuels from grasses, on the back burner.
Elsewhere on this page is an in-depth report on ethanol, including a fear that increased production is to the detriment of native grasslands.
Allen County farmers have benefited from the ethanol industry  and it’s provided a needed boon to the county as a whole.
The criticism that farmers are focusing on the advantages to their pocketbooks at the risk of damaging the land, doesn’t give farmers the credit they deserve for being good stewards of their most precious commodity — the land.
By their very nature, farmers think in the longterm. We can trust them to take us — and the land — safely into the future.
— Susan Lynn

Related
October 18, 2019
October 4, 2019
September 5, 2019
August 14, 2012