The Debate Over Corn based Ethanol

 

When it comes down to the debate about ethanol a lot of people have different opinions on what should be going on. Some say we shouldn’t use it others are giving all effort into wanting it to be used. Within the debate people branch off into different subjects that are about ethanol in general. One of the things is on the impact of ethanol. People out there want to know what is ethanol and what does it do. Well in fact it has enough impact on the people that they want to debate about it. Ethanol has impact in many general areas. It impacts farmers,and everyday people. The main debates deal with prices of corn, food, and fuel.

Ethanol has an impact on farmers all over the world. In fact it impacts just about every aspect of the farmer. A farmer has to decide every year what he or she is going to do to make money the following year. There are many questions a farmer has to ask to make his decision. According to the USDA last year many farmers decided to plant corn. Last year on estimate there was 10.7 billion bushels of corn produced (USDA 2012). After the farmers have planted the crop they have to decide on where they want to put it after they harvest it. Now this is where the debate comes into play. Some people have the issue with this because they think that farmers are only doing that because they get a subsidy for planting corn for the ethanol plant. Farmers have their own choice, yes some do but most plant because it fits within their crop rotation. With that said we are
 


“Converting more cropland to corn, and shifting corn utilization to ethanol and away from other uses, would have severe consequences for other agricultural markets, livestock, food prices and land”

Ethanol Plant in Gavilon Iowa

 

(D. Somma, H. Lobkowicz, and  J. P. Deason, 2009). This can be very serious consider there isn't very much land out there to put more crops on to balance out this shift. Farmers have to figure a lot out and so does the ethanol plants. Ethanol plants and farming communities have to get along. An Ethanol plant in Iowa has made a huge impact on one community, it has given a lot of money toward the local school for events (National Geographic 2012). This is a great thing and farmers respect it and they want to make sure their community does well, so there are many choices for a farmer.

Farmer have the choice of either taking the corn to the ethanol plant or send it to elevator for it to be transported to many corn processor plants or use it to feed the livestock. As a farmers daughter I know exactly how farmers feel. The choice is tough especially if they have livestock. They want to make money but they also want to continue with having livestock. A lot of people have an issue with farmers sending it to the ethanol plant considering a lot of it does end up there. It is predicted that ethanol will replace 30% of the oil that is in our current gas (Consumer Report 2011). Today there is a lot of people think that all of the corn goes into ethanol when there is a very little percent that does. About 40% of every year crop goes into ethanol production (EcoWatch 2012). In turns out 40% means that roughly 5 billion bushels go into making ethanol. This can be a debate that gets a lot of people. People this year have been debating that why do we still do this when the drought hit the grain belt hard. It turns out that this year the mandate for the ethanol was decreased because the percentage of corn left over was not enough (Al Swanson 2012). This is alright because it was a bad year; ethanol plants recognize that and they know that it happens. They have to know because if they didn’t their industry would not function as good as it does.



Food vs. Fuel

              The thing is that ethanol plants take a hit, the livestock produces take a hit, and so did the farmers. The debate can go on and on over whether or not we should keep having ethanol be put into our fuel vs. using it for food/feed. The livestock industry does a great job finding middle to it all. There are livestock producers who actually depend on the ethanol plants because they take the waste and use it for feed. Livestock producers have to have a say in the whole debate because no matter what happens on either end they are affected heavily. If there is less corn out there they have less to feed their livestock but if they use the waste from the ethanol plants they have even less feed options.

It is amazing when people can go on debating when sometimes they really don’t know the facts. The other side to this is that yes some do know there facts but they don’t imply it. Ethanol only affects prices a little bit. When everything is looked at from a broad perspective it has some impact but it is just like people at the stock market trying to make money. For an example people debate that ethanol affects the price of food. Well in fact food prices did jump last year, they went up 6% (Alvaro Garcia 2012). Yes that does seem like a lot and it was but ethanol did not cause that jump, the factors of the drought and corn prices did this. Corn prices affect food prices because it had a 23% jump. The prices topped $8 a bushel. For a farmer that is amazing but if they didn’t have anything to sell yet it wasn’t good. It comes to show that yes ethanol is involved but it doesn’t have direct impact on food prices. Anything that happens will affect food prices, especially anything that impacts the ingredients in our favorite foods.

Ethanol Debate

We all have favorite food but in order to get or make our favorite food we have to have transportation to get to the store. Gas prices have been a talk for many years. To watch the prices vary many years has been an interesting thing to watch and listen to people complain about it. Many people hate spending so much money on fuel but it is needed to get us place to place. One way to cut back on spending is by putting an ethanol based gas in the vehicles.  It is a great thing to have an alternative fuel option but there are many debates about that. Some people have it in their minds that ethanol is a terrible thing. They get poor gas mileage, the food prices are going up, and life is just not working out for them. Money is getting tight and people are looking for something to blame. The thing they go to is ethanol. It is new to the system, it has disrupted there normal oil fuel life.  Gasoline today is a mixture of about 10% ethanol (EIA 2013). This has become a mandate because it helps with the emissions. There are other options out there like a blend of 15% and 85% (E15 and E85), these can only be used in newer vehicles(EIA 2011).  This does mean that if a person wanted to save some money on gas, because the E15 and E85 are cheaper, they have to get a car that is at least 2001 or newer. Usually newer the better, there are new flex-fuel cars that allow people to use the E85 all the time.  

When a conversation on the street happens to be about ethanol there will always be a debate about it. Now if a person was going to research about the topic so they could do a good job debating the topic they are going to find lot information that has many different sides. If the debate happens to be about the production of ethanol a lot of information is going to say that it is not very good. This is very true a corn based ethanol does not have very good outputs for the amount of inputs (Jessica Zhang, Sarah Palmer, and David Pimentel 2011). A university in New York did an analysis on energy that goes into production of ethanol from corn. From the article they talk about that yes there can be good aspects, but a main aspect that they were reinforcing was that it takes more fossil fuel to produce corn based ethanol than it produces (Jessica Zhang, Sarah Palmer, and David Pimentel 2011). One thing to remember is that the fact may be true but they included the amount of fossil fuel it takes to produce corn in general. So if corn wasn’t going to the ethanol plant it still using fossil fuel to be produced. It is just like if someone was hungry it takes fuel to go get food and it takes fuel to make the food. It all evens out.

There are many debates to pick and choose from and there are many sides to pick from as well. For must debates a person is either going to be for it or against having ethanol. All in all the debates are going to range around the impact it has on the person. That can be the price of corn, fuel, and food. They are going to put their opinions in and usually they stick to it. The one thing is that people don’t know there facts and so sometimes they just go out on a limb and then they inform other people with the wrong information. This is a problem people should know their facts before they debate something, especially considering it could lead to better innovations.

 

Works Cited

Soma, Dan, Hope Lobkowicz, and Jonathon P. Deason. “Growing America’s Fuel: An

          Analysis on Corn and Cellulosic Ethanol Feasibility in the United States.” (2009):

          1-9. Springer. Web. 9 Apr. 2013. <http://link.springer.com.proxy.lib.iastate.edu/

          article/10.1007/s10098-009-02343>.

 

Zhang, Jessica, Sarah Plamer, and David Pimental. “Energy Production from Corn.”

          14.2 (2012): 221-231. Springer. Web. 9 Apr. 2013. <http://link.springer.com.

          proxy.lib.iastate.edu/article/10.1007/10098-009-02343>.