News

Nearly 40 new ethanol plants are expected to be built in the United States in the next year, which will push it past Brazil as the world's largest ethanol producer.

However, people like Jim Lemon argue that, for energy and environmental reasons, ethanol will never replace much gasoline.

The U.S. is using corn, among the more expensive crops to grow and harvest; Brazilian farmers produce ethanol from sugar at a cost roughly 30 per cent less.

The ethanol boom is taking place despite continuing doubts about whether the fuel provides a genuine energy savings, because large amounts of oil or natural gas go into making ethanol from corn, leaving its net contribution to reducing the use of fossil fuels in doubt.

And geographers like Lemon are concerned that large-scale diversion of agricultural resources to fuel could result in price increases for food for people, as well as the transformation of vast preserved areas into farmland.

Professor Lemon has had a long and distinguished career in the field of historical geography. He moved to the University of Toronto in 1967. Much of his work culminated in his book Toronto -- Since 1918: an Illustrated History (Lorimer, 1985), which was one of the finalists in the City of Toronto Book Awards of 1986.

His third and perhaps most important book is Liberal Dreams and Nature's Limits: Great Cities of North America since 1600 (Oxford University Press, 1996). It essentially argues that development is at an impasse at the end of the 20th century.

Vaughan: Lots of people are jumping on the ethanol bandwagon, but not you. You say there's no way ethanol can replace oil. Well, surely, ethanol can replace some of it. What's wrong with E10 (10-per-cent ethanol in gasoline) or even E85?

Lemon: Ethanol can replace some, yes. But how much? We don't know yet, but one can bet it will be a limited amount of liquid fuel -- maybe 10 per cent, hardly 85. Some sources are better than others -- sugar cane is better as Brazil has proven; corn is not good.

Vaughan: Let's talk specifically about grain-based ethanol, which usually means corn. You say this is a rip-off for the taxpayers.

Lemon: In the United States, the federal government grants 51 cents (U.S.) per gallon to producers.

Some say that subsidies aren't necessary, given the high price of oil and that corn-based ethanol can now compete, but the U.S. government is beholden to the farm belt.

The leading recipients are now not farmer co-ops, but the mega-agribusinesses Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland.

The basic problem with biofuels of all kinds, not least corn-based ethanol, is that the energy derived either exceeds the inputs or is only slightly positive.

Agronomist David Pimentel at Cornell has argued the former for years; U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers say ethanol delivers 1.3 times the energy expended. Even that net energy is very, very low.

Fundamentally, the reason gasoline and diesel from petroleum has been so cheap is that the net energy has been very high, especially from light sweet crude -- in the hundreds, if not thousands.

To be sure, synthetic crude from the Athabasca oil sands is estimated at only three-to-four-times inputs, though I have seen only a bare positive gain as well.

Why is oil great and corn poor? The power concentrated in a unit of oil is derived from millions of years of photosynthesis from ancient sunlight-fuelling plants. With corn, one is trying to make the same from one year's crop!

A survey in 2003 of U.S. demand points out that if the United States were to replace gasoline and diesel with biofuels of all kinds (crop waste and wood cellulose included) 3.5 times the current cropland and 1.9 to 2.5 forest land would be needed.

Food supplies would be seriously impacted -- driving up prices. Remember China and India are now importing food from the United States and other countries.

Vaughan: Is the net energy result any better with the cellulosic ethanol from straw, switchgrass or agricultural waste?

Lemon: Switchgrass is probably somewhat better than corn, but faces the same shortcoming. Assertions, such as I have read recently, that "it may be the answer to high pump prices and dependence on fossil fuels" are delusions. Maybe together with ethanol, cellulose-based could get us to 20 per cent. But think of the cost!

Vaughan: Is there any biomass that makes sense for ethanol production? What about waste streams?

Lemon: Certainly experiments are under way with cellulose. Sugar cane stalks and corn cobs can be used. But what about returning the waste of the fields and forests to the land to fertilize future crops?

Today, we are using synthetic fertilizers, from natural gas especially, to make nitrogen to boost farm outputs. Natural gas is becoming scarce like oil.

Often praised nowadays is Ottawa-based Iogen. I have heard that the firm touts its net energy at eight times. One should always be skeptical of company claims.

One can add that, for many years, burning waste has generated a small amount of electricity -- but only a small amount. And if our population were much, much smaller, we could heat with wood. But there are too many of us in Canada, let alone the United States and China.

Vaughan: Then what's your answer? Should we just keep using up the oil until it's gone and hope that hydrogen fuel cells are going to save the day eventually?

Lemon: Hydrogen will never be available in large amounts. The net energy liberating the gas from water through electrolysis is very likely negative. The only answer is to reduce or, to deploy the current jargon, the answer is "demand destruction." That is, we will be forced to shift our travel and shipping from motor vehicles especially.

China is mad -- as crazy as Mao's Great Leap Forward that denied the laws of physics and biology -- in shifting to the wrong direction. Now a net importer of oil and gas as well as agricultural products, China has even less forest and cropland to give over to biofuels than Canada or the United States.

Ditto India: It is also increasing its personal and freight movements by motor vehicles.

Michael Vaughan is co-host with Jeremy Cato of Car/Business, which appears Fridays at 8:30 p.m. on Report on Business Television and Saturdays at 2 p.m. on CTV.

mvaughan@globeandmail.com