Corn Ethanol is Not the Answer----take action.

Did you see Sen. Grassley jump up and down during the SOTU address when Bush announced $$ for Iowa for corn???????



From View message header detail Friends of the Earth <foe@foe.org>
Sent Wednesday, May 9, 2007 9:55 am
To ......
Subject URGENT - Spread the Truth About Biofuels

Friends of the Earth



Corn Ethanol is Not the Answer
Don't be fooled by the wrong biofuel.

Stand up to a misguided Senate bill today!

Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), chair of the Senate Energy and Resources Committee, has passed through his committee a bill that would require an annual production of 36 billion gallons of biofuels per year by 2022. This bill is on course to be the backbone of major energy legislation that will come to a vote on the Senate floor in early June.

Tell your senators to overhaul or scrap this bill.

What?!? But aren't biofuels an alternative to fossil fuels -- and part of the answer to energy security? Shouldn't an environmental group like Friends of the Earth be backing such initiatives?

The truth is that biofuels can be a good alternative to oil and coal, and Friends of the Earth is excited about the opportunities offered by the production of some biofuels. But science matters, and science tells us that not all biofuels are created equal.

Sen. Bingaman's bill would mandate production of up to 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol -- equivalent to half the corn currently grown in the entire United States. This is not a clean prospect.
Growing and processing this much corn for fuel would:

* Create over 100 million metric tons of global warming pollution
* Lead to the ecologically damaging conversion of millions of acres of land
* Increase non-sustainable agriculture, erosion, pesticide use and fertilizer use
* Require 60 billion gallons of water
* Drive the price of corn through the roof, effectively taking it out of the diet of many of the world's poor (the amount of corn it would take to fill one 25-gallon SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year!)

Perhaps most discouraging, recent reports suggest the burning of corn ethanol generates as much or more pollution as the burning of gasoline.

Senators need to know there are promising biofuel crops out there -- including switchgrass and even algae -- that can be converted to fuel with less intensive use of resources and result in cleaner final products. Like many things, the devil is in the details, and when it comes to biofuels the Senate must pay attention to those details.

Our activists in states with a senator serving on Bingaman's committee weighed in before this bill passed out of committee, and their pressure helped Friends of the Earth staff negotiate some important improvements -- including mandates for a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gasses for biofuels produced in newly built factories. But this bill is still far too bad to support. Tell both of your senators that Sen. Bingaman's bill, as written, should not be the foundation for major energy legislation.

To find out more about why this legislation is bad, check out our fact sheet.

- Friends of the Earth


Take action here: http://www.FOE.org/biofuels_action


Friends of the Earth
1717 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 783-7400

Seriously, the more I hear, the more concerned I am about biofuel. There has to be a better answer.

available for biodiesel, like algae and even rape seed and sunflower that do not exhaust the soil or compete with land for people's first basic need: food.

Remember the heirarchy: food, shelter, safety, etc.? Well, private transport is a nearly -- if not completely -- unaffordable luxury in most of the world, and food is a necessity everywhere.

to find a non-polluting replacement for the internal combustion engine.

It's my guess the billions we've spent in Iraq killing human beings might have been enough to fund the project. But even if it takes a thousand times that amount it will have been money well spent.

Distiller's grain, the byproduct of ethanol production, is a poor quality livestock feed (spent mash) that is saturated with water so it rots in two weeks or less. Because the distiller's grain is poor quality and is very heavy since it is saturated with water it can only be transported economically 100 miles or less. As a food for cattle distiller's grain can only be 30% of a cows food and non-ruminants (animals with 4 stomachs) can eat even less distiller's grain in their diet.

The increase in massive corporate livestock operations to use up the excess distiller's grain will bring on massive amounts of ground water, land, water and air pollution in America's corn belt.

When the pollution from the distiller's grain is added into the ethanol equation ethanol is a recipe for diaster.

driving their monster vehicles.

Saying that you're an environmentalist because you support ethanol is like saying that you're a vegetarian because you don't eat red meat.