MayesDon'tWorry

The premise of the collage is the issue of corn-based fuels. The primary issue with ethanol food sources is the controversy surrounding the true energy benefits of growing the corn. While it is indisputable that ethanol made from corn is renewable and currently less than the cost of gasoline, there are several concerns with ethanol fuels. The first is that when corn is grown, it can either go to feeding people or through the fuel distillation process. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a large chunk of the American agricultural exports are corn-based, accounting for 12% of agricultural export in 2008. The primary importers of corn are Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Middle East, North Africa and other developing countries. These countries rely heavily on United States corn, as the United States is the primary exporter of corn in the world. And Americans rely on American corn as well. Corn is used as an additive in many foods under the guise of high fructose corn syrup, syrup, animal feed and just fresh or canned corn.

There is another issue behind using corn in fuel which is often neglected. Climate change could bring the system of ethanol fuel to its knees, based on its dependence on regular rain cycles, which cannot be assured. Should such an event occur, it would not be possible to move to a new area and start over right away and move into a new spot. Weather is not localized and it would be likely that the rest of the possible area is also unusable, causing gas prices to spike for a new reason. One Homeland Security report on the dependence of the economy on corn stated that in the past 40 years, there have been 4 significant weather disasters which were responsible for the destruction of anywhere between 21 and 29% of the corn crop. Ethanol made up 6% of America’s gasoline supply in 2008, and it has risen since then. Additionally, older vehicles cannot process ethanol gasoline, rending any vehicle made before 2000 less efficient then it was at that time. Americans have been holding on to their cars for longer as a 2007 study found. The study was conducted by an independent website and found that the average age of cars on the road was 9.2 years, with 41.3% of vehicles on the road being 11 years or older. Such cars cannot process ethanol fuels.

Corn is also the most fertilizer and phosphate intensive of the ethanol producing crops. The Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School reports that cornfields are responsible for 40% of all crop fertilizers used, and 95.8% of cornfields use pesticides. Increased production of corn would also increase the severity of the “Dead Zone” in the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi River Basin encompasses 52% of American farmland, and increased corn production would certainly occur in this zone, sending more nutrients into the Gulf, creating larger algae blooms, destroying biodiversity in the region with high mortality rates. Pulling gasoline out of the ground is not likely to be the solution to the energy crisis.

Image Sources: [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] Caption Sources [] [] [] [] http://www.tulane.edu/~bfleury/envirobio/enviroweb/DeadZone.htm []