Seems like you can’t turn around without someone finding another possible alternative to converting food crops into fuel.

Past promises of cheap fuel grown on American soil have sometimes become, umm, stuck in the weeds as prices for commodities like corn and soybean oil rose. But a number of researchers now believe that this winter weed with oily little seeds has an advantage in that it is not a food crop.

The weed in question is pennycress, also known as stinkweed, is but one of many alternatives to converting corn or soybeans to ethanol that are being explored around the world.

Farmers in warmer climates around the world are looking at a plant called jatropha and in Oregon this summer, they are planting camelina sativa, sometimes called false flax.

This is a good thing. The sooner we find a way to quit growing corn for fuel, the better.

With all the attention being focused on the nomination of Sarah Palin for Vice-President athe the Republican Convention, it would be easy to miss this change of heart regarding ethanol during Monday’s meetings.

U.S. Republicans called on Monday for an end to a controversial requirement that gasoline contain a set amount of ethanol, a policy backed by the Bush administration that critics say has helped drive up world food prices.

In their 2008 platform detailing policy positions, Republicans said markets — not government — should determine how much ethanol is blended into gasoline, and pushed for development of a cellulosic version, which could be made from grasses rather than corn.

I’m guessing they got an earful about this from their agriculture constituents back home. The problems involved with corn to ethanol production, everything from rising food prices to pollution to the depletion of fresh-water supplies, are becoming more apparent all the time. At last Winter’s Pheasant Fest the excitement was all about the possibilities of ethanol from cellulosic plants like switchgrass which offer several advantages over corn as a source for ethanol, such as not replacing a food crop and being easier on the environment. It’s a pretty good guess that most of the farmers who were there generally vote Republican, and they know how to make their views known to politicians.

This is just a plank in the party platform, and we all know how much politicians feel bound by their party’s platform. Yet it certainly suggests that political support has turned against growing corn for fuel, or Republican Senators wouldn’t be willing to turn against a policy supported by a Republican President.

If so, it will be a good end to a policy that really offered no long-term solutions to the current energy problems. The benefits were always marginal at best, and the problems kept piling up. What’s good is that it’s taking a relatively short time, in political terms, for the politicians to see the error in a policyb they were once so definitely committed to.

Sounds like the U.S. isn’t the only place where a growing awareness of possible environmental consequences is making people re-think the conversion of food crops into ethanol.

A Kenyan court has temporarily halted a $370 million sugar and biofuels project in a coastal wetland that conservation groups warned would threaten wildlife and local livelihoods.

The government and the country’s biggest sugar miller, Mumias, wants to plant cane on 20,000 hectares in the Tana River Delta to create jobs and plug an annual 200,000-tonne sugar deficit.

But the Malindi High Court ruled on Friday that environmentalists and groups representing local livestock keepers could apply for a judicial review, according to a copy of the order seen by Reuters on Sunday.

“This decision will make supporters of the project reflect on some of the issues raised at the public hearings,” said Steve Itela, director of Kenyan campaigners Youth for Conservation.

“This should never have needed to go to court.”

There’s a hint in the article that the biggest worry here is water, producing ethanol can use a lot of water. And Kenya has a dry season.

With floods in the midwest farmland and corn prices going higher by the day, the idea of growing food crops for fuel is looking like less and less of a bargain. It’s a good thing that we’re already getting a start on what looks to be a viable alternative.

Work has started on the planting of a 1,000-acre switchgrass field in the Oklahoma Panhandle that researchers plan to use in the production of cellulosic ethanol.

The field is being touted as the world’s largest for switchgrass, a drought-resistant perennial plant that grows even on marginal lands. Scientists at the Noble Foundation in Ardmore are overseeing the project and hope that switchgrass proves to be a viable substitute for corn in ethanol production.

Switchgrass doesn’t have to be harvested and re-planted every year, you grow it and mow it like you would grass. It also can be grown on land that isn’t suited for corn, soybeans, wheat, and other food crops so it doesn’t take away from one field in order to support the other. With a little work, maybe farmers can go back to growing food first, and grow switchgrass on the side as a bonus instead of, when it comes to corn anyway, substituting ethanol production for food.

The loss of rainforest in the Amazon has long been a major concern for environmentalists worldwide. Brazil in particular has often been criticized for failing to protect its forests from being clear cut for agriculture. This week Brazil took a major step towards rebutting that criticism.

Brazil commemorated World Environment Day yesterday by signing into existence four new protected areas, three of them in the Amazon rainforest.
Following a speech in observance of the special day, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed the documents authorizing the three new protected areas in the Amazon, including Mapinguari National Park in Amazonas state, named after a mythical red furry creature supposedly living in the rainforest.

Mapinguari National Park is designed to preserve savannah areas of the Purus and Madeira river valleys. It is an area of great biological diversity with unique ecosystems that offer great potential for scientific research and eco-tourism, according to the government of Brazil.

In addition, there are two new extractive reserves - Ituxi in Amazonas state and another on the River Xingu in Pará state.

Brazil has also come under criticism for its reliance on ethanol as a major fuel source at a time of rising worldwide food prices. But Brazil has argued in turn that their ethanol is derived from sugar cane, which is much more efficient to produce than ethanol from corn, and for which there is a surplus, not a shortage.

The subtext of all this is that Brazil, which has taken some lumps in the past for its environmental policies, is now staking a claim to be among the world’s leaders. It’s evident that more countries, Brazil included, are feeling the pressure to be seen as being on the right side of environmental issues. This could turn into the best sort of competition if we can get more countries involved in competing to see who can gain the greatest reputation for being good to the environment.

There was a time when the mere threat of a veto by President Bush could keep a piece of legislation from even being voted on. Those days are no more.

The House passed a $290 billion farm bill Wednesday with a strong veto-proof majority, offering more subsidies for farmers, food stamps for the poor and special projects that lawmakers can bring home to voters this election year.

The 318-106 vote for the five-year bill came despite President Bush’s promised veto. He says the measure is too expensive and gives too much money to wealthy farmers.

The thing is, Bush probably has a point when it comes to subsidies to already wealthy farmers. But the farm bill also contains key pieces if environmental legislation, including the beginning of a shift away from corn as a source for ethanol.

No legislation gets through Congress in an election year without some provisions designed to help a few legislators keep their jobs. And besides, since when was George Bush opposed to tax breaks for rich people?

Whatever you think about the merits or drawbacks of the current legislation, the real issue at this time is power and who has it. And after nearly eight years of a term in which the President all too often got everything his own way, it’s nice to see that power is beginning to shift out of the White House.

Here’s another reason to think there’s a better way to produce ethanol than by converting corn.

Sweet sorghum, used in the United States mostly as animal feed, offers a 10-foot (3 meter) stalk that can be turned into ethanol without damaging the food grain that grows at its top, Mark Winslow said in an interview.
Unlike corn-based ethanol, which uses one and a half times as much energy in its production as it offers as an end product, sweet sorghum produces eight units of fuel for every unit of fuel used to make it in developing countries, Winslow said.

The days when corn is actively grown in order to be used as a fuel are going to end up as a blip in history. Blink twice and it will be as if it never happened.

This is going to stir things up. For the first time in the state, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has ordered that an environmental impact statement be made before a proposed ethanol producing plant is built. The order has the potential to bring growing environmental concerns about ethanol and the use of corn to produce it in direct conflict with corporate profits and a small town’s desire for steady jobs.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) has ordered an environmental impact statement on a proposed corn-ethanol power plant, Agassiz Energy, near the small northwestern town of Erskine, Minn., a move that’s certain to rile a corn-ethanol industry that has encountered growing concern over the environmental and energy cost of producing the biofuel.

It is the first time that a full review would be completed on any ethanol plant in Minnesota, where 17 plants already are operating and nearly that many are on the planning horizon.

It’s pretty hard to overstate the influence of corn on the economy of Minnesota. The growth of ethanol production and the subsequent rise of corn prices has been a boon to the agriculture industry and every other business related to it. At the same time, there’s been a growing awareness that raising so much corn comes with an environmental price attached. The heavy use of fertilizers involved in planting corn runs off into lakes, rivers, and streams. When that corn is converted into ethanol, a whole new water problem comes in to play.

This year the combined production of all plants in Minnesota will surpass a billion gallons of the biofuel and nearly twice that in the next five years. That means that up to 7 billion gallons of water would be drawn in 2008 for ethanol production, most of it in drier parts of the state where water supply is little known or limited.

In January, (MPCA Commissioner Brad) Moore asked the state’s multiagency Environmental Quality Board to undertake a broad review of the groundwater implications of ethanol production, a study that could take a year or more to complete. Further study of controversial issues is generally viewed as a politically safe way to show “progress,” but the MPCA action taken earlier this week is the kind of assertiveness that attracts attention.

It also involves political risk. Already there’s concern over the economic impact of the MPCA action to order a full environmental review of Agassiz Energy’s $130 million, 70 million-gallon capacity plant to be built near Erskine (pop. 425), located a few miles east of Crookston in Polk County.

There are already studies suggesting that ethanol production does more harm than good, the MPCA’s impact statement could conceivably make that assessment official. It would be a major blow to an industry that has been touted as an alternative to the use of gasoline and other petroleum-based fuels, and could lead to a major reconsideration of ethanol production in Minnesota.

The problem is there’s lots of money being invested in Ethanol, and Erskine isn’t the only small town that sees an ethanol plant as a way to bring well-paying jobs in to town. About the one certain thing that can be said about the MPCA’s decision is that it’s going to provoke one heck of a fight.

In some ways, that fight is overdue. Seventeen ethanol plants have already been built in Minnesota, none of them have faced the type of scrutiny required by an environmental impact statement. In recent years the MPCA has been so reluctant to take on the economic interests in the state that it might as well have changed its name to the Minnesota Pollution Allowing Agency. Time will tell if the MPCA’s decision is a signal that the agency is ready to go back to protecting the environment, or whether this is a one-time deal.

And now, a plug for the source of the MPCA story. In the last five years or so, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and the St Paul Pioneer Press have both drastically cut back the number of journalists on their staffs. Of course, the writers let go tended to be the ones with the longest experience, and the highest paychecks. Instead of disappearing from the local scene, however, many of those writers have hitched up with MinnPost.com, which has quickly established itself as a quality alternative to either of the Twin Cities newspapers. In fact, when it comes to local news, their coverage is more complete and better written than either the Strib or the pioneeer Press. If you’re a resident of Minnesota, I urge you to check out the MinnPost website. For everyone reading this who is interested in the topic of corn and ethanol, you can read the MinnPost’s article on the subject, written by Ron Way, here. It’s well worth the time.

The dead zone, an area in the Gulf of Mexico where the oxygen content of the water has been so depleted that nothing can live there has been a frequent topic here at Thinking Outside. Here’s an article that provides some good information on the causes of the dead zone and explores why the current boom in corn growing could be the final blow that quashes any hopes of either diminishing or removing the dead zone all together.

With demand for corn booming, some researchers fear the dead zone will expand rapidly, with devastating consequences.

“We might be coming close to a tipping point,” said Matt Rota, director of the water resources program for the New Orleans-based Gulf Restoration Network, an environmental group. “The ecosystem might change or collapse as opposed to being just impacted.”

The demand for ethanol is pushing prices up to around $4 a bushel, historic highs that are encouraging farmers to plant more and more of their acreage in corn. Corn as a crop requires large amounts of nitrogen fertilizer, and the increase in corn production means more nitrogen running off into the Mississippi River, then down to the Gulf where it feeds the growing dead zone.

The farmers know what’s happening, but the economics of the situation make it difficult for them to do the right thing.

Farmers realize the connection between their crop and problems downstream, but with the price of corn soaring, it doesn’t make sense to grow anything else. And growing corn isn’t profitable without nitrogen-based fertilizer.

“I think you have to try to be a good steward of the land,” said Jerry Peckumn, who farms corn and soybeans on about 2,000 acres he owns or leases near the Iowa community of Jefferson. “But on the other hand, you can’t ignore the price of corn.”

Notice that line about “doesn’t make sense to grow anything else”. I was at my parent’s house for Thanksgiving. They live in Watonwan County, Minnesota, the heart of one of the most productive farming areas in the United States. The scariest thing I heard during my visit was that the farmers there have quit rotating crops, instead of alternating between corn and soybean year to year they are now planting corn on top of corn. The result is that the soil is being more and more depleted of nutrients, requiring more fertilizer to be used every year in order to produce the same yields. It’s a path that could lead to disaster, but as long as ethanol made from corn is the main alternative fuel and the demand for corn remains high, the farmers will continue planting, and over-planting it.

We have to find a better way.

There may yet be hope for ethanol as an alternative fuel. Currently, the knock against ethanol is that, because the main source is corn, it encourages the conversion of marginal mfarmland to corn production, reduces habitat for wildlife, increases the amount of soil erosion and water pollution, and drives up the price of corn used for food. These factors, and more, have led many to conclude that the drawbacks of using ethanol outweigh any advantages it may have as an alternate fuel source.

TMO Renewables, a British companmy, thinks they may have found a better way. They’ve developed a strain of thermophilic bacteria that eats woody waste products and turns them into ethanol. The possible advantages are pretty obvious, instead of creating more pollution as converting corn to ethanol does now, the bacteria would actually help cut down on waste products and produce an alternative to gasoline.

“We see the feedstocks being regional,” said Curran (CEO of TMO Renewables). “In the UK it would be wheat straw — look in the fields, there are straw bales just lying there; in Scandinavia it would be woodchips; in the U.S. corn belt it would be the five foot six of plant that isn’t cob.”

“We have the organism people have dreamt of — it eats nearly anything and it makes ethanol really quickly,” he added.

TMO is already building a demonstration plant and intends to have it running in 2008. It will be worth keeping an eye on this to see how well it works.