George:

The current espousal by politicians of ethanol reminds me of a scene in the film "Napoleon Dynamite." Napoleon's equally-geeky friend, Pedro, is running for class president. Napoleon suggests his campaign slogan: vote for me and your wildest dreams will come true!

Biomass energy is a wild dream: not sustainable on a large scale, partly because the need to use fossil fuels to power the huge machines that will harvest and process biomass fues for our cars means there's likely insignificant net gain in energy--and perhaps even a loss (I'd be interested in seeing what is counted in the 25% gain Al indicates). And, the carbon that is stored in plants is released into the atmosphere when it's burned, so there's no net saving of pollution, either. Yes, as Al Weed rightly says, biofuels release fewer VOCs, but not necessarily less carbon.

In addition, we would be harming our soils, which has farmers scared: in a recent profile in the New Yorker, Barack Obama spoke to some farmers who were questioning him about growing switchgrass for ethanol. They pointed out the need to put waste organic matter back into the soil--something it took decades for modern farmers to realize was important. But corn ethanol production requires farmers to strip the land of all organic matter. While cellulosic ethanol, using switchgrass, as Al Weed's analysis suggests, may be more sustainable than corn, as it's a perennial and therefore won't be entirely stripped away, there still has to be something going back into the soil. Finally, people would suffer: while the increase in food prices if American farmers turn to growing biofuels instead of food may only affect Americans somewhat, they will affect poor people the world over greatly.

I think there is one way in which cellulosic fuels could be sustainable, and also provide the benefits of ensuring American farms stay in business, while not consuming huge amounts of fossil fuels to make a small amount of biofuels: horsepower. While people may scoff, actual horsepower is far more efficient than modern farming methods, if the measurement is number of calories expended for each calorie produced (food or fuel)--because the use of fossil fuels is, essentially, cheating--using large amounts of calories stored up over millennia (which have historically been very cheap, but we're seeing the end of that). Horses also provide waste materials for the soil (and can run on unprocessed switchgrass). However, using horsepower is labor intensive, and farmers already can't find the help they need (and our current drive to get rid of undocumented workers means there will be an even greater shortage of agricultural labor).

Cutting America's energy consumption, rather than searching frantically for another, "greener" source of fuel, is vital, not only to make us less dependent on foreign oil, but for reducing pollution, and slowing the rapid changes in climate. This will have to be done the hard way--by making actual changes in the way we live, and the way our machines use energy. Either that, or we are going to have to accept nuclear power. Nothing else will meet our current energy demands without fouling our environment. We just can't have it both ways.

Ethanol is an expensive, non-sustainable pipedream, an attempt to prop up the current, non-sustainable American lifestyle while ignoring reality. No one wants to speak the unpopular truth: we've been borrowing from the future too long. Now the future is almost here, and we're about to see what our profligacy has cost us.

Valerie L'Herrou (Electronic mail, June 28, 2007)