THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 115, June 19, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
CHINA BARS CORN ETHANOL, DUE TO HIGH FOOD COSTS
By Dennis T. Avery
ENERGY FOR TRANSPORTATION PURPOSES: SOURCES, EXISTING TECHNOLOGY, & ECONOMIC REALITY: PRODUCTION
& CONSUMPTION OF ETHANOL AS A MOTOR FUEL -- THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF INCREASED RELIANCE UPON CORN
ETHANOL AS A MOTOR FUEL & REDUCED RELIANCED UPON GASOLINE & DIESEL FUEL -- WHAT THE CHINESE LEADERSHIP
HAS LEARNED & WHAT THE LEADERSHIP OF THE U.S.A. HAS YET TO LEARN
FULL STORY:
China has just banned further expansion of its corn ethanol industry, after a radical 43 percent increase in pork prices over
the past year. Xu Dingming, of the Chinese National Energy Leading Group, told a recent seminar that “Food-based
ethanol fuel will not be the direction for China.” The Chinese turnabout comes as U.S. President George W. Bush is
cheerleading a massive corn ethanol expansion, supposedly to help the U.S.A. achieve “energy independence.”
Unfortunately, U.S. corn land produces only 50 gallons worth of gasoline per acre per year — against an annual gasoline
demand of 135 billion gallons. New U.S. ethanol plants coming on line could take 30 percent of next year’s U.S. corn for
auto fuel — an unprecedented diversion of the world’s scarce cropland. Supplying the Bush goal of 35 billion gallons of
ethanol per year would currently force farmers to clear more than 200 million acres of Midwest forest to supply even 10
percent of our gasoline demand from corn ethanol.
Even without ethanol demand, farmers would need to triple existing crop yields over the next 40 years. Population growth
is likely to produce a peak human population of 8-9 billion. Economic growth will raise the number of affluent consumers
from today’s 1.5 billion to 7 billion — accompanied by soaring demand for meat, milk, eggs and pet food.
World corn prices are already nearly double last year’s level, and wheat prices are up 10 percent. Mexican consumers are in
the streets protesting a 60 percent tortilla price increase. Midwest economist Tom Elam says current oil prices will support
corn at $4.50 per bushel. A serious drought or crop disease could drive corn to $6 per bushel.
Why did the environmentalist movement, which is pledged to defend the wildlands, silently approve Bush’s corn ethanol
diversion and risk a massive forest loss? I would guess it’s because the world is currently building or planning more than
40 new nuclear power plants. The Greens didn’t wage their 30-year campaign against fossil fuels just to produce a shift to
nuclear-powered air conditioners; they want dramatic reductions in humanity’s use of technology.
The Kyoto Protocol demands we eliminate at least 80 percent of the world’s current energy sources. Solar and windmills
have proven woefully inadequate to supply our base energy needs. There is currently no cost-effective way to produce
ethanol from cellulose sources such as wood chips or switchgrass.
Brazilian sugarcane is three times more efficient at converting sunlight to transport fuel, mainly because corn-growing takes
more diesel fuel, more fossil-fueled fertilizer, and lots of natural gas to heat the conversion process. But even ethanol from
sugarcane is more expensive than gasoline with oil at $65 barrel.
The deeper reality is that fossil fuels probably are not to blame for our global warming. Roman histories and modern studies
of ice cores, seabed sediments, and fossil pollen all agree that the world has a moderate, natural 1,500-year climate cycle. That
cycle explains most, or all, of the planet’s warming since 1850. There is no evidence that human-emitted CO2 has significantly
increased global temperatures. We will probably have a moderate warming for the next several hundred years, no matter
whether we burn fossil fuels or not. Then we will have centuries of colder weather.
Let’s keep our trees. Let’s forget the Kyoto Protocol. Instead, let’s get rid of the trade barriers that prevent American farmers
from selling their corn and meat to the increasingly affluent consumers in densely populated Asian countries. Then both our
farmers and our urban consumers can move sustainably forward into the 21st Century.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Dennis T. Avery is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., and is the Director of the Institute's Center for
Global Food Issues (www.cgfi.org). Formerly he was a senior analyst for the United States
Department of State. He is the co-author, with atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, of the book, Unstoppable Global Warming:
Every 1500 Years (Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006). Readers may write Avery at Post Office
Box 202, Churchville, Virginia, 24421. Email: cgfi@rica.net
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity