In the news article, "How to improve food security by reducing grain demand" ( 9 November 2010) the author, Lester Brown, makes a number of arguments. One of his arguments is that we need to stop using grain for fossil fuels because it’s a large waste and the grain can be used in other places such as feeding animals or people. Brown states:
"If we are to reverse the spread of hunger, we will almost certainly have to reduce the latter use of grain. For perspective, the estimated 114 million tons of grain used to produce ethanol in 2009 in the United States is the food supply for 370 million people at average world grain consumption levels." (Brown, 2010)
Brown does give evidence for his argument but is not completely accurate. He claims that the entire amount of grain used for producing ethanol and biodiesel is removed from the food supply. Neither corn ethanol or biodiesel uses the entire grain in the fuel making process. Ethanol has distiller grains and biodiesel produces meal as byproducts. These byproducts are used as cattle feed as most grain is used for anyways. Some of the byproducts are used in the production of food for humans.
"It is also possible to produce ethanol through a wet-milling process, which is used by many large ethanol producers. This process also yields byproducts such as high-fructose corn syrup, which is used as a sweetener in many prepared foods."(West, 2010)
Not only does the byproducts of producing ethanol go to feeding cattle it is used in foods that we eat everyday. So when Brown says that we waste millions of tons of grain to produce ethanol he is incorrect. We are producing fuel, food for cattle and byproducts that are used in the production of food that we eat. The grain used for ethanol would most likely be going towards feed for cattle anyways, so there is no reason why we can not first extract what we need for fuel and feed the cattle with the byproducts. The cattle suffer barely no nutritional loss from eating the byproduct of ethanol because the starch that is removed from the grain for the fuel has very little nutritional value for cattle.
Brown’s claim that we should stop using ethanol to help stop the hunger crisis is not a very good one when you consider that not much of the grain is wasted during the production of ethanol. If all of this grain went directly to the people, which the majority of it does not, his claims would be more reasonable. He just never took into account that most of the grain produced in the United States and Canada goes towards cattle and not directly to the people.
Another argument that can be made against Brown’s claim is that when it comes to producing ethanol it is more efficient then gasoline.
"For example, Dr. Wang from the Argonne National Laboratories has estimated that for every 1kJ of ethanol fuel energy produced from corn it only requires 0.74kJ of energy from fossil fuels. Compared to gasoline, where 1.23kJ of energy is required to make 1kJ of fuel energy available on the market." (Williams, 2007)
According to this gasoline takes more energy to produce it than it actually provides us with which is not very efficient especially when people are worried about the environment. Ethanol on the other hand produces more energy then it takes to make it which makes ethanol more efficient than gasoline, but the only down side is that ethanol requires the usage of a food source whereas gasoline does not.
Brown states, "Even in the United States, with an abundance of feedlots, over half of all beef cattle weight gain comes from grass rather than grain." (Brown, 2010)
Even though this may be true it is grain that makes the cattle grow faster. Farmers will not lose time feeding the cattle grass when they can feed them more grain and make the cattle grow quicker so they can ship them out faster and make more money. Many grain products that are fed to cattle contain steroids that help the cattle grow faster and larger. Grass may be healthier for the cattle but grain will make the farmer more money and when it really comes down to it grain wins every time.
Brown’s argument is based on the importance of food and does not take into account the importance and value we have with fuel. The article was biased and he did not mention how the production of ethanol does not waste food since most of the byproducts are used by cattle and us. He also does not mention that ethanol is a more efficient fuel to produce compared to gasoline. He does not take into account that the grain that is being fed to cattle usually contains steroids and that farmers will not strictly feed their cattle grass because they will take too long to grow and they will lose money. There is a lot to consider when arguing about ethanol production and food production but by using ethanol we can produce both and this is what Brown never considered.
http://www.organic-center.org/images/200810_SCOOP/co2cycle.jpg link to a picture
References:
Brown, L. (2010, November 9). How to improve food security by reducing grain demand. Retrieved from http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/11/how-to-improve-food-security-by-reducing-grain-demand.php
West, L. (2010). How is ethanol made?. Retrieved from http://environment.about.com/od/ethanolfaq/f/ethanol_process.htm
Williams , M. (2007). How is ethanol produced. Retrieved from http://web2.uwindsor.ca/courses/physics/high_schools/2007/AlternateFuels/ethanolprod.html
No comments:
Post a Comment