In today’s economy, the main problem that Americans face is how to decrease their dependency on oil and coal. One solution that has become popular is corn ethanol. However despite its attractiveness to solving oil and coal demands, corn ethanol is not the answer.
To begin, corn ethanol production has major drawbacks such as increases in greenhouse gas emissions. According to a Duke University-led study, “it makes more sense using today's technology to leave land unfarmed in conservation reserves than to plow it up for corn to make biofuel." Furthermore, the conversion of more land into strictly corn-producing fields can decrease the diversity of plants and make the fields more pests susceptible. As well, “more acreage to corn [in order to] make fuel can lead to higher prices for other crops, [as well as] increase soil erosion." One way to help is for corn producers to introduce soybean crops in order to lessen the threat of pests and increase the biodiversity.
In addition, corn ethanol production can increase greenhouse gas emissions because of farmers practicing deforestation in order to compensate for the economic pressures to produce more corn for ethanol. The deforestation methods will include plowing and setting fires to the land, which will only increase the CO2 levels and contribute to global warming.
Even with corn ethanol seeming to help reduce the reliance on fossil fuels, the ethanol will only bring about 20% new energy per gallon produced. Furthermore, it still takes enormous amounts of fossil fuels to power the machinery to harvest the corn for ethanol, which ultimately increases the levels of greenhouse gases.
As an alternative, swit
chgrass can be used for biofuels. Unlike corn, switchgrass does not require annual replowing and planting. Furthermore, a study conducted for the Department of Energy confirmed that switchgrass “has the potential to slow the buildup of greenhouse gas[es]." Unlike fossil fuels, switchgrass can repeatedly recycle CO2. As well, switchgrass only produces minor land changes than compared to corn.
Lastly, corn ethanol production is beginning to have an impact on bird species. Because of the increase in farmland conversion, increasing amounts of birds are losing their habitats in forested lands and starting to become endangered.
Overall, corn ethanol is an attempt to try to decrease the demands for coal and oil. Nevertheless, corn ethanol can only be considered as an improvement and not as a solution.
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