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"Food or Fuel?"
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the Sugar Mill
We continue to be lured by
the promises of ethanol as a supplement to ease the burden of oil dependence. A
gasoline extender they say!
Since the late 70’s / early 80’s we have seen the ethanol promise under several
different names in several attempts locally. Each time the projects went belly
up. Today were back at it again with the promise of ethanol production at Lake
Charles Cane also known as the Lacassine Sugar Mill.
I fall on the side of those who believe that the promise of “Ethanol” is one of
the biggest scams ever perpetrated on the American public. It’s promises are
dangerous. It this scam succeeds and ethanol becomes widely used, the debate in
years to come will be whether or not our farmers should be producing fuel or
food.
We are setting the stage for
what could be competition of epic proportions. It will be between the world’s
supermarkets and it’s gas stations. A competition between automobile owners who
need to get from point A to point B, and the worlds 2 billion poorest people who
simply want to eat and survive. According to studies, the amount of grain needed
to make enough ethanol to fill a 25 gallon SUV would feed one person for a full
year. If the US would convert it’s entire grain harvest into ethanol it would
only supply 16% of our fuel demand.
Using food to produce fuel bother’s me. We are heading in the direction of a
choice that we must make. Food or Fuel? We complain about our dependence on
foreign oil and if we convert our food into fuel then it stands to reason that
we will have to import our food. What do we gain by swapping dependencies? In a
narrow view, we can survive without oil. We did so long before it’s discovery.
Not so without an abundant supply of food. Our children will end up in a huge
conflict over cropland as this ethanol scam becomes reality.
We continue to have our
leaders fall in line to worship at the alter of ethanol and insist that American
must be energy independent. We have been an oil importer since 1913.
While the public and farmers are lured by politicians, and Big Sugar, they
insist on casting the ethanol scam in terms of national security. It is played
as the evils of foreign oil, and they sell the benefits of ethanol to rural
communities. The larger issue becomes a moral one: are we going to use our
precious farmland to grow food, or are we going to subsidize the growth of an
industry that turns food into a motor fuel, of which we already have an abundant
supply? You would think the answer would be obvious. For some it’s not.
The ethanol industry has some major hurdles out front. Like the one that requires more energy to produce ethanol from food sources, than energy that is output by the ethanol produced. For example fuel production using soybeans required 27% more fossil energy than the fuel produced. Fuel production using sunflower required 118% more fossil energy than the fuel fuel produced. Lets not forget about corn that requires 29% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced. As a “gasoline extender” the promise of ethanol falls short. All we will accomplish, will be to tie up food sources into fuel. On the upside we can drive around looking for food for our families.
To put all of this into better terms if an ethanol plan were to run itself only on the fuel it produces without fossil fuel, it would have a difficult time keeping the lights on much less producing a product that will break our dependence on imported oil.
As farmers are lured to worship at the alter of ethanol our food supply and feedstock’s used to feed the animals, that ultimately end up on our table, will dry up. How will we handle this competitive dilemma? Some of us will have enough land grow our own food? What will become of those who only have a small patch of ground in their yard that they convert for food production? Will the government step in a confiscate private land for the production of more ethanol, and thereby insuring everyone has an equal sized small patch of ground for their own use?
The sugarmill in Lacassine is what it is. It is a Bob Odom, department of agriculture project at the expense of taxpayers, that makes everyone feel good, makes false promises to the farmers and gives us a glimmer of hope. Those perpetrating the scam believe, so what if it’s false hope!