The Hidden Costs of Turning Food Into Fuel | National Geographic
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ก.ย. 2014
- Worldwide biofuel production has increased, with the main source being corn-based ethanol. This has driven up corn prices in the U.S. (a large producer) and created problems for countries that heavily rely on U.S. corn imports, such as Mexico. In 2007, tortilla prices soared 70 percent in that country, and riots broke out. Eventually the government stepped in to control costs, but similar situations could arise in the coming years as we increasingly turn to food as a source of fuel.
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GRAPHIC: Álvaro Valiño, Lawson Parker, and Kelsey Nowakowski
ANIMATION: Native to Noise, Nico Puertollano, Clarissa Gonzalez, Megan Palero, and Angelo Cuyegkeng
PRODUCER: Katwo Puertollano
SOURCES: Timothy A. Wise, Tufts University; FAO; USDA Economic Research Service; and International Energy Agency
The Hidden Costs of Turning Food Into Fuel | National Geographic
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I'm glad most of my family that left in mexico all own there own corn farm they end up sending us tortillas to us lol
I'm hoping there will be more development in algae based biofuels, they are much easier to grow and take up less resources and money.
Switch to growing self seeding perennial grasses on degraded lands with lower quality soils. Switchgrass & Miscanthus have EROEI's that are >8-12x higher than corn and produce ethanol. They also build soil, grow like crazy (but aren't invasive and are easily maintained within boundaries... hell, they're the native grasses to North America, so, relaly, it'd be like restoring the midwest to what it was before we started farming the hell out of it!), sequester more carbon, and .... are grass: once planted, they don't need to be again.
Being able to be grown on lands not used for food, but set aside and maintained such as to not be 'natural environments' either would allow for a switch over to focusing more on food crops in the primary farmlands. Switchgrass has such an extensive root system that it not only builds soil with it, but it has been shown to build soil in harvested fields that are properly maintained at rates of up to 6" a year, with 3"+ quite common. In the 'natural world', it can take up to a century to build just 2" of soil... and switchgrass can do up to 6" per year... every year.
The healthy soil produced requires minimal inputs (water, fertilizer, etc) as the roots will just grow deeper to mine nutrients as it needs them... thus building soil faster.. and creating channels in the water that allow for rain and such to filter into the soil vs running off. ... running off and polluting streams... with fertilizers, pesticides, etc.. that these crops don't need. In all reality, corn for fuel is a horrible idea, or the exact opposite of a good idea, while switchgrass is brilliant.
Did I mention it sequesters carbon like crazy? The soil holds up to 10x the amount of carbon that the atmosphere do. Plants are largely made up of carbon, and 98% of the carbon that makes up a plant doesn't come from the soil, it comes from the air they breath. Plants exhale oxygen because they breath in CO2... and keep the C to build their mass with (roots, stems, trunks, leaves, etc) .. the O2 is exhales. up to 60% of switchgrass's mass is in its roots... and the stuff grows 10-15ft per harvest, and can produce 2-3 harvests per year. The roots can be as deep as 20ft... with 15ft being the average for a 12ft tall plant above ground. When harvested, the plant is cut using standard hay harvesting equipment (cutters, bailers, etc) and is cut down to ~6" to 1ft in height. ...the roots will cut themselves off to about 8"-1.5ft before regrowing quickly again. The roots that were 'cut off' by the plant compost in the ground, building new soil in the process... or grow into new plants very quickly... adding to the yield of the field.
The US currently has 7% ethanol in every gallon of gas... that means that 7% of our gas comes from corn (predominately). ..but, with switchgrass getting 8-12x as high an EROEI vs corn, that means that we could supply 56-84% of our gas just by switching to switchgrass... whereby we don't just improve soils, cut inputs, save water (90% of all water in US/world is used for agriculture... and, mostly for crops like corn, wheat, soy), stop pollution, sequester carbon.. vs putting more into the atmosphere... but we also do so with a crop that grows on lands that aren't being grown on .. and, more importantly.. don't compete (as directly) for food crops.
That we haven't been doing this baffles me.
(side note: to corns defense: modern technology utilized by most refineries actually shell the corn... the part used for the ethanol production is separate form the part used for feed. The video gets away with this by presenting corn for tortillas... but... if you feed the corn to livestock (a horrible feed, btw... fattening, unhealthy, and just downright cruel to both the animal and to those that eat them) ... and the livestock are then eaten, thus, corn-for-fuel diesn't really mean 'food for fuel' ... as the part that's used for the fuel isn't really eaten by the livestock to begin with. It's a misrepresentation. but corn still sucks... period. let alone when compared to other crop-types for fuel ... and livestock feed)
Forgot to add a link to this 2008 article from Scientific American. Since 2008, *major* advancements in both switchgrass *and* miscanthus have been achieved... in GMO'd strains.. of course, but also in natural/non-GMO'd strains, fortunately... in where the numbers put forth here were really just at the start of studying this. The newer numbers are almost double these... on the newer strains... with even more higher numbers being shown possible. 20x EROEI vs corn and even up to 24x isn't an unrealistic thought... i digress
Grass Makes Better Ethanol Than Corn Does
www.scientificamerican.com/article/grass-makes-better-ethanol-than-corn/
nice
If only there was something that could be used to make biofuel that grows faster and much easier than corn. Something like hemp but I guess someone might try and smoke it and not get high.
If one of my stoner buddies started puffing hemp exhaust out a car, i dont think id wanna be there buddy anymore😂😂
State policies stimulate the use of ethanol for fuel rather than consumer demand. That causes increased prices and shortages of corn for food.
The energy returned on energy invested is a factor of 1.3 as a best case scenario for biofuel. It can easily be less than one. Last time I checked humans can't run on electricity, so those calories/KWh have to go to us first before considering chopping down more forests!
Too many people.
*****
I propose no solution, I merely point out the problem. But if anyone is going to cull the herd, I'd recommend starting with those who can't grow their own food or survive on their own, those who firmly believe their _god_ will welcome them with open arms, those who want to "shuffle off this mortal coil", and anyone with an IQ less than 135 (arbitrary, to be sure.)
Do you have a solution? More people means more demand for resources, and by mid century there's going to be 9 billion humans, a few wolves, very few polar bears, and many extinct species. Please come up with a solution that won't just push the problem ahead another 50 years.
Time to go gay.
i hear tell that overpopulation is an elite constructed lie: overpopulationisamyth.com/overpopulation-the-making-of-a-myth
you always say that, but you have to remember that you can't really do anything about it. humanity will have to come out with actual solutions instead of looking at the growing population and fearing the future. if you don't have any ideas in mind, stop saying "too many people", cause that doesn't and won't help anytime soon...
paradisegunshot
Yes, because the problem will go away if we shield our eyes to it... just like the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.
So many people can barely afford their food, and we are raising food price by turning corn in to fuel, so some hipsters can feel like they are saving the earth.
And the awful scent nearby the Ethanol plant. Yet, I always fuel with Ethanol when I can
Just wait til the Harvest comes in this year, recorded breaking year.IMO
In fact, I'm willing to go as far and say they will run out of storage by the end of this years harvest.
Some will have to be kept in the fields, everything is pretty full now!
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Should be plenty for all grain consuming business.
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No worries Mexico, the tortillas will be plentiful!
I’m not sure your willing to go that far BUD, you probably need to wake up to yourself because your doing yourself no favours. Get a grip 👍
Brought to you by big oil :)
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The information contained in this video about ethanol production causing the prices of food to increase is wrong. It's all nonsense.
You forgot to say that beef is a big waste of crops so if we eat les beef we will have more crops to make bio fuel.
Its idiotic.
If mexico cannot produce more corn themselves then its their problem and no one else.
Everyone is responsible for themselves. What is wrong with people blaming each other for everything on someone else. Nothing grows on Sahara, lets blame USA for rising prices of wood; Its their wood!
I don't blame car scrap yards which won't sell me a car for 100 dollars, saying that they force me to buy more expensive car elsewhere.
Corn is not a fuel source, it is a food source. Just ask any Arab country.
Actually it's both... and at the same time. I hate corn.. both as a food (it's delicious but horrible for you) and a crop.. so I'm by no means endorsing, condoning, or defending it... just trying to clarify.
To use corn *just* for fuel isn't profitable.. and is a waste. The part of the corn that's used for fuel is separated by the part used for feed. The fuel part goes to.. make fuel, and the food part (though not used for the tortillas mentioned in the video, nor sold for human consumption) is used for feed for livestock.
...we then eat the livestock. so, again, i despite corn. but, for the sake of accuracy I feel compelled to type this. Again, it's just wasteful and non-profitable to *not* separate them and sell to both industries. The corn lobby has spent billions to ensure that this is done... corn still sucks. as do their lobbiests
(Any) arab country? really?
FIRAS ELHAJ I agree, I didn't 'get' or agree with this comment. Obv oil-rich Arab countries don't 'need' corn as a fuel source but... then... who does?
Vailhem Thank you, being from Iowa the number one state at producing corn. It takes over one hundred years to replenish one inch of top soil. Every year are farmers here are destroying tons of this precious rich soil on the lack of soil conservation, because money rules. I'll take food over fuel anytime. Corn is not a renewable energy source, contrary to what they say.
Dennis Wicker I've been to Iowa. Beautiful state! I went there to go to the 2010 US Biochar Conference. ISU is doing a lot of great stuff with biochar. One of the things that was pointed out is that Iowa has tons of biochar naturally in the soil to begin with. ...this was not only showed on the presentations during the conference, but also ...
They were doing road work on a few parts throughout the state... there was one where they were digging into the ground.... such as to have produced about a 15ft deep pit large enough to bury a Suburban into width and length-wise.
I saw there clearer than any of the presentations they took us to... whereby, Iowa soil is black black black much deeper than the ~15ft deep hole they'd dug. The thousands and thousands (millions?) of years that prairie grass has dried out, been struck by lightening in a coming storm, partially burned (making natural biochar) and then been extinguished by the oncoming storm before completely burning to ash... and then built layer after layer of this century after century.... the soil there is awesome! arguably the best in the world... esp over such a wide area. Ukraine is/was (chernobyl?) close to it... and other places 'scattered' around the world....
But, yeah, destroying top soil is definitely a big problem of modern day ag.. or, even ag in general... as it's presumed that the dust bowl in the last century was caused by soil destroying practices brought in by the cheap/free land promoted to 'thin out' the civil war mongering Americans on the eastern seaboard... killed the soil, it couldn't hold water... drought.. dust...
The stuff takes a long time to build... naturally... but crop types (like switchgrass) and practices that work best to grow those crops (like switchgrass) can build soil at surprisingly fast rates. ... multiple inches per *year* ... feet per decade... meters per century, presumably... ...soil *can* be built very quickly... if we want to. ...but, we have to stop killing it off first. ...and, changes in both practices as well crops is prob the best way to start.
In my opinion, corn is barely even a food. Iowa is beautiful, but i'm of the opinion that it'd be even more eso if all of those fields growing corn and soy were replaced with fast growth native grasses... that used to be spread as far and wide as the corn currently is. Iowa could provide more joules of energy per year (*and* build soil, *and* retain water, refilling aquifers) than Saudi Arabia could even imagine providing the world.... ...until *they* got smart and started planting de-desertification crops, retaining water, building their soils, and then planting even faster growth soil building energy crops themselves.
,
So many ethanol myths in one place.... sad!
or we could just not make it from corn? i mean seriously we pick corn mostly to make the midwest happy namely Iowa ...
Just grow more food. It's a simple concept.
need to burn down the rainforest first to grow more food.
I know it sounds easy but growing more food, will cost more money to produce, more man hours, more water, etc. cus if a guy only has 40 acres to plant, how can he plant more and more etc, etc , etc!!!
The key is to increase yields. Innovating seed strains which can grow in hotter/drier climates i.e. Africa.
xihang yang A better way to word it may be 'grow different food'. If we weren't growing huge monoculture food-types like corn, soy, wheat, etc, we can drastically increase the amount of food grown per acre. California grows arguably more food than the midwest US... but very little of that is large monocrop fields. They grow in greenhouses, orchards, etc... it's the crop-type that's the problem, not the land limitations.
Greenhouses for corn or soy make no sense. there's barely enough profit in them to begin with. Without subsidies and gov't bailouts, there wouldn't be *any* profits in them.
But, greenhouses for much denser crops with faster turn overs.... think tomatoes, peppers, other fruits.. but also plenty of types of vegetables too... you can drastically increase the density, as well the length of the growing season... with year-round growing done the world over... granted, infrastructure afforded more easily once the initial infrastructure (of the greenhouse itself) has been paid off (lights, heaters, etc cost money).
But, the controlled environments, the water, herbicide, pesticide, etc reductions are substantial. ...with 'closed loops' being used left & right in the (greenhouse) industries. ..whereby water is recycled and fed back into the system again and again, soils are controlled, pests are kept out.. (no pesticides, no fungicides, etc) and, most importantly, no run off of these polluting streams.. and, aquifers can fill back up, vs need ot be continually drained.
did i mention that the foods area healthier? (corn is horrible for health.. and that's even the organic stuff.. fattening, largely sugar (hence why it's used for ethanol), litlte nutritional value, wasted calories really.. and i'm not even a health freak)
apologies, not the response I originally intended to type out, and definitely longer... more just wanted to say the first line.
greenhouses need a lot of energy. also in china most of the people eat rice but in the north it to cold and in the west it to dry to produce rice. most food where being use as food for food like cow, chicken and pigs. it would be beter if we eat bugs.
Unfortunately, what they do not tell you about ethanol is that it corrodes your fuel tank and fuel injectors. Therefore leading to engine problems. The company my husband works for which specializes in industrial lawn mowers will not recommmend ethanol based fuel for these machines due to corrosion. He has seen the damage to the motors. So how much more damage is it causing in our vehicles. Solution? Some gas stations sell ethanol free fuel. It costs more but is worth it to lengthen the life of your car engine. But, as many people can not afford the extra many people are forced to use ethanol based fuel. Just some facts for your information.