A quiet invasion is
under way near my home in Colorado. Inconspicuous black stickers
are appearing on gas pumps announcing the arrival of a new molecule
looking to occupy gas tanks. It goes by the name of C2H5OH —
ethanol.
Typically, my consumption of ethanol is strictly
oral, in the form of alcoholic beverages. But I was forced recently
to consume ethanol through an avenue much less entertaining or
appetizing — my gas tank.
It was a crisp Saturday
morning, and I was driving with a friend to a workshop in Boulder.
All was going well until suddenly my Prius notified me that it was
getting ready to run out of gas. If you own a ecologically
fashionable Prius, you know that in this vehicle, the illumination
of the gas light amounts not so much as a warning as the start of
an emergency that might well end in a trip to the Toyota dealer.
But when the dread light came on, I was five miles from
the nearest gas station. I started coasting down hills and taking
corners like my brakes were out, well aware that my weekend would
be blown if I sucked the tank dry. At last, the Prius and I made it
to the tiny town of Nederland and what appeared to be the only gas
station around. That’s when I saw a little black sticker
informing me that the gasoline from this pump was supplemented with
ethanol. For many reasons, being forced to gas up with ethanol was
not as happy an occasion as cracking a Colorado microbrew.
Economic and environmental studies consistently criticize
corn-based ethanol because increased demand for the fuel can push
up prices for food with corn ingredients and because its production
is so energy-intensive. According to Scientific American, the
energy balance for corn ethanol is at most 1.3-to-1, meaning that
its output of energy is only 30 percent greater than the energy it
took to produce and ship it. Since ethanol can bond with condensed
water in pipelines, it must be shipped by diesel trucks or trains.
Meanwhile, gasoline’s energy balance is 5-to-1.
Ethanol production is so energy-intensive that the United States
would have to increase its imports of natural gas to meet mandates
for this “domestic” fuel. What’s more, thanks to ethanol’s
lower energy density, your vehicle is 33 percent less efficient
when it burns ethanol, so you’ll be paying more to fill up more
often. Energy experts such as Jan Krieder of the University of
Colorado find that burning ethanol produces more carbon dioxide, a
major component of global warming, than just burning gasoline.
It appears that politics drives the production of the new
fuel more than any benefits to the environment. Agribusiness giant
Archer Daniels Midland, one of the world’s largest corn processing
firms and the country’s leading ethanol producer, has contributed
$3.7 million to elected officials since 2000. Those politicians, in
turn, handed out corn subsidies totaling $51 billion between 1995
and 2005. Congress has also subsidized ethanol itself at $1.38 per
gallon, and mandated huge increases in ethanol production. All
told, the ethanol hoopla seems more like a cynical and misleading
marketing campaign than an ecological fix to what’s ailing
our atmosphere.
And that is why I bought only $10 of
ethanol-supplemented gasoline at that pump in Nederland. At a time
when it is crucial that we do everything in our power to curb
global warming, the ethanol boom seems a distracting waste of
precious time and tax dollars.
Ever since then, in my own
small way, I have been fighting the invasion of the black stickers.
I gas up only where they are not. But most people probably don’t
even notice them. They don’t care that there’s booze in their fuel,
or worst of all, they think they’re doing their part to fight
global warming by buying ethanol-supplemented gasoline.
I
invite you to join my boycott of the black stickers. Spread the
word and help prevent the hijacking of the environmental movement
by fat cats who could care less about saving the planet so long as
they get paid.
Dustin Heron Urban is a
contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News
(hcn.org). A recent college graduate, he lives and writes in Buena
Vista, Colorado.
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