Crescent-News.com - There are two sides to every story and ethanol is included

By BECKY MARTINEZ

bmartinez@crescent-news.com

To every story there are two sides -- ethanol is no exception.

Though it has been praised as being environmentally friendly and a solution to our dependency on foreign oil, doubts are beginning to surface.

Opponents are saying ethanol can't lead the United States to energy independence, it actually adds to air pollution, high corn prices are going to negatively affect consumers and livestock farmers, it's not economically competitive, and is not viable as an alternative fuel because a gallon of ethanol only goes 75 percent as far as a gallon of gas.

Those are all legitimate, and to a degree factual, concerns. Still, there is one point that must not be overlooked: "Ethanol is a part of an overall solution. Everybody is trying to find a silver bullet to current energy prices, there is no silver bullet. Energy costs, sources, emissions, all these things can only be reached by a combination of many things," said Dr. Matthew Roberts with the department of agricultural, environmental and development economics at Ohio State University.

Roberts expanded on the above concerns circling ethanol starting with the fact that ethanol produced by corn cannot make the U.S. "energy self-sufficient." However, producing ethanol from cellulosic material along with corn "would get us pretty close," he said. "Cellulosic material includes switch grass, wood chips, and municipal organic waste such as grass clippings, food and waste paper."

Currently, "the technology for converting cellulosic material to ethanol is not well enough developed to create it at a low enough price to be competitive," said Roberts. Still plants are preparing for the day it is feasible to use cellulosic materials to make ethanol. "The plant in Leipsic is being built to have a cellulosic process put into it when the technology becomes efficient enough. This is very common in the newer plants."

Arguments say there isn't enough corn in the nation to meet both food and ethanol demands. The Ohio Corn Growers Association states, "There is plenty of corn for all uses...corn demand for human food use, including high fructose corn syrup, comprised just 9.2 percent of total corn supply in the 2005/06 marketing year." Ethanol utilized 12.2 percent and feed and residual use comprised 45.3 percent.

To meet the growing ethanol demands, many producers are planning on growing more corn than they have in the past.

There have been various concerns about pollution with production of ethanol, Roberts admits. Ethanol does emit CO2 which is a green house gas. "However, CO2 from ethanol is different than the CO2 from oil. Oil CO2 is older, it's been part of the ecosphere since the dinosaurs roamed. The CO2 released with ethanol was pulled out from the atmosphere while the corn grew, six months earlier. Ethanol reduces net carbon emissions."

The National Corn Growers Association added, "Ethanol-blended gasoline is cleaner than conventional gasoline, it emits less hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and hydrogen."

Corn prices have indeed gone up to the delight of corn farmers who believe it is about time. Eric Rager of Payne said in December the increase was needed considering the hike in input costs.

A down side does exist, "Corn prices, if they stay high, they will affect food prices," said Roberts. Mainly because feed costs for the producer increase.

"If meat increased by 25-30 percent, this would create an actual increase in consumer spending of one tenth of 1 percent. So little of our money we actually spend on food ends up with the farmer, most goes to the processing of the food. This is less true with meats, still it doesn't make up a massive portion of consumer spending. Looking at an entire budget, a very small portion (will be affected)" said Roberts.

"In 25 years, I don't expect us to be making ethanol from corn, we will be using other sources."

With current corn prices where they are, "margins are certainly slimmer. Are we economically competitive? Sort of," continued Roberts.

He explained that typically people take the price of gasoline as a baseline of competition. "Complaints are that ethanol is heavily subsidized, so not competitive. Oil itself is also heavily subsidized. If oil were priced in line with true economic cost, including cost of pollution, full cost of production, ethanol would be competitive."

Because ethanol holds less energy than gasoline, there will be a reduction is miles per gallon. At www.gm.com, they report "Vehicles running on E85 ethanol may have a cruising range that is about 25 percent shorter than the same vehicle operating on gas."

The same site lists an upside, "Using E85 ethanol can help improve your vehicle's performance. It has a higher octane rating than gasoline which allows for more horsepower and torque."

One other grunt when it comes to ethanol is with distillers grain, a byproduct of ethanol production.

Though distillers' energy value is equal to that of corn, they are higher in fat and have less protein.

"Distillers grain has been studied at low to intermediate usage levels (10-20 percent of feed use). It's been produced from breweries for a long time, brewers grain has been around for as long as we've been brewing alcohol. It's been fed historically...and has been researched for many, many years," said Roberts.

He continued saying distillers grain does have higher phosphors and sulfur contents which could cause a problem with manure.

Cattlenetwork.com elaborated on this: "Distiller's grains, either wet or dry, can make a valuable contribution to beef cattle diets, regardless of the animals' stage of production. However, there are various factors which need to be considered when determining their potential value in your production system. The phosphorus content of distiller's grains may require the addition of more calcium in order to maintain a proper calcium to phosphorus ratio. Excess phosphorus in the diet will also result in increased excretion in the manure and the associated need to dispose of this phosphorus.

"Sulfur content of distiller's grains may limit their potential use because excessive sulfur in the final diet may cause trace mineral imbalances, health problems, reduced intake, and possibly death. The fat content of distiller's grains is beneficial to growing and finishing cattle as a concentrated energy source. But excessive fat in the diet of forage-fed animals can reduce forage digestibility resulting in lower net energy consumption and lost body condition...if rations are properly balanced, distiller's grains can contribute to high-performance, low-cost production for beef producers."

Whether for or opposed to ethanol production, it is going to continue to increase across the nation. President Bush wants to elevate the significance of ethanol and renewable fuels to the nation's energy future by calling for 35 billion gallons of alternative fuel use by 2017.