Biofuel+Problems



Bio Fuel vs. Bio Friendly Recently there has been a huge push to decrease our use of oil-based fuels by using “biofuels” instead. This seems like a great, Earth friendly option at first glance. Biofuels have some really attractive benefits, like the fact that all of the carbon emitted by burning the biofuel is actually zeroed out by the fact that this was simply carbon absorbed by the plant in the process of growing, and the fact that harvesting the fuel doesn’t require an intensive drilling operation, it simply requires harvesting the plant, which we do for all of our food sources anyway. If you look a bit closer though, there are some major problems with biofuel. One of the main issues is that in the U.S., almost all of our biofuel is made from corn. Corn is one of the most resource intensive crops that we grow in the U.S. “Corn production uses more nitrogen fertilizer than any other crop grown” (Pimentel). This is a big problem environmentally, because when nitrogen gets into water systems in high concentrations, it can upset the balance of that ecosystem, like in the “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico (Pimentel). Corn also is very water intensive and the monoculture drains the soil of nutrients, making more fertilizer necessary to keep growing corn.  Another problem with using corn for biofuel is that it severely increases the demand for corn. Many farmers switched from a corn-soybean crop rotation to a corn-corn rotation to try to keep up with this demand. This is a problem because “ producing corn after a crop of corn emits 35% more GHGs on average than corn produced after a crop of soybean” ( Feng, Rubin, and Babcock). It also decreases the yields that each crop produces—corn grows better if it is in a field that was just used for soybeans. Another way that farmers have been keeping up with demand is switching land from other crops, like wheat, to corn, or turning idle land into farmland. This causes problems both in monoculture, which is not healthy for the land and makes it easier for disease or pests to thrive, and in the destruction of once untouched land, which is a problem because “in many cases, idle land actually sequesters carbon and will release carbon when being converted into production” (Feng, Rubin, and Babcock). As we increase the amount of corn grown, we also increase the amounts of pesticide and fertilizer used, the amount of energy used to produce the corn, the trucking to transport the corn, and the use of factories to convert the corn to fuel (Feng, Rubin, and Babcock).  Another major problem with corn-based biofuel is that it decreases the amount of crops grown for food. Growing corn for biofuel is very land intensive, especially when compared to growing corn for food. If you consider the needs of one individual in terms of land use, “ an individual's demand for food translates into a demand for land that is limited to a fraction of a hectare of cropland, whereas an individual's demand for transportation can translate into a demand for several hectares” (Sagar and Kartha). Considering this, and considering the fact that “ the World Health Organization reports that 3.7 billion people are malnourished today-nearly 60 percent of the world population” (Pimentel), it just doesn’t seem right to use corn for fuel.  There are other options. We could use sugarcane or algae for biofuel, both of which are far less resource intensive and are not used nearly as much for food. The best option though, is simply to reduce our fuel use.  Works Cited Feng, Hongli, Ofir D. Rubin, and Bruce A. Babcock. “Greenhouse Gas Impacts of Ethanol from Iowa Corn: Life Cycle Assessment Versus System Wide Approach.” __Biomass and Bioenergy__. Volume 34, Issue 6 (June 2010): pages 912-921. []  Goffman, Ethan. “Running on Algae.” __E: The Environmental Magazine.__ Volume 21, Issue 1 (Jan/Feb 2010): pages 21-22. [] Pimentel, David. “Corn Ethanol as Energy: The Case Against US Production Subsidies.” __Harvard International Review.__ Volume 31, Issue 2 (Summer 2009): pages 50-52. []

Sources for pictures: isportsweb [] maes research: Saginaw Valley Research and Extension Center [] Love for Life [] Biofpr (biofuels, bioproducts, and biorefining) [] Kombo [] Sagar, Ambuj D., and Sivan Kartha. “Bioenergy and Sustainable Development?” __Annual Review of Environment and Resources.__ Volume 32 (November 2007): pages 131-167. [] <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">