aims to discover less-expensive ways
of producing cellulosic ethanol. The
program’s goal: Make cellulosic ethanol cost-competitive with corn-based
ethanol by the year 2012. Here again is
Dr. Dale:
“Cellulosic ethanol looks attractive,
or any cellulosic biofuel, because the
volume of cellulosic material is so
large that we can make these materials really cheaply and also because
they don’t interfere with the food
chain at all. I think we’ll see tens of
billions of gallons of cellulosic biofuels being produced within about
the next 20 years. They’ll be much
cheaper than current petroleum-derived fuels.”
Four “Fs” of Farming
Cellulosic ethanol and new ways of
making biodiesel also could ease concerns about the potential consequences
— unwanted, indeed — of switching
from fossil fuels to biofuels.
One concern is biofuels’ impact on
food prices and the global food supply.
As more of each year’s corn crop goes
to biorefineries to produce fuel, less is
available to feed chickens and cows and
produce corn oil and other food products. Prices rise and consumers feel the
pinch. Here again is Bruce Dale:
“Regarding the food vs. fuel contro-
versy: The cellulosic materials, which
I call “grassoline,” basically gasoline
replacements and woody materials, doesn’t really exist for cellulosic materials. However,
obviously corn and grain oilseeds in particular also have alternative uses as foodstuffs.
Really, they’re animal feeds. But they do contribute to some degree to the rise in food
prices, so that has made them much more controversial.”
Dr. Jerald Schnoor, editor of Environmental Science & Technology and a scientist at the
University of Iowa, points out that biofuels put a fourth “F” in farming:
”Farmers grow the three Fs — food, feed, and fiber — for the entire world. Now, for the
first time, they are being called upon to produce a fourth F: fuel. But the burgeoning
growth of corn and soybeans for biofuels could gravely impact the environment, increasing our soil and nutrient runoff from the land, adversely affecting water quality, and
causing conservation reserve lands to be brought back into production.”
There’s a widespread assumption that biofuels will reduce carbon dioxide emissions. CO ,
2
of course, is the main greenhouse gas. Those gases contribute to global warming. However,
some researchers are concerned that biofuels may not be as beneficial as expected. Look at
biofuels’ “life-cycle” impact — from production through processing and transportation to
