Commentaries: Yes, It’s Time to Rethink Ethanol

September 30, 2024

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by James Lenz (Minnesota Star-Tribune) I enjoyed Karen Tolkkinen’s fresh look at the ethanol situation (“The time is ripe to rethink ethanol,” Sept. 1). Yes, she writes with a tentative voice, obeying the rules for “Minnesota Nice.” Her perspective probably matches what most Minnesotans understand about this decades-old policy, sometimes called the ethanol mandate.

I’ve been studying the ethanol program since Minnesota financed the opening of 13 plants in the 1990s. As an adjunct professor in the University of Minnesota’s executive Management of Technology program, I delivered a series of lectures centered on the theme “How do you raise the price of corn 25 cents a bushel and stabilize Minnesota’s rural economy?”

I was on the stage at the Sept. 1, 2004, Iowa Farm Progress show... READ MORE

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Tolkkinen: Growing food for fuel isn’t working. It’s time to rethink ethanol. (Minnesota Star-Tribune/Governors' Biofuels Coalition
Changing Their Minds on “Land Use Change”? (Renewable Fuels Association posted in Advanced Biofuels USA with related articles)
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Readers Write: Ethanol, policing, wealth inequality -- Let’s clear this up. (Minnesota Star-Tribune)
What Will the Next 20 Years Bring For Corn Ethanol & Agriculture? (Business of Agriculture/Damian Mason Podcast/Video)
Counterpoint: Yes, let’s talk about ethanol — with grounded facts, data and science: That’s a discussion we in the industry are willing to have. (Minnesota Star-Tribune)

Excerpt from Minnesota Star Tribune/Governors' Biofuels Coalition: Then in 2022 a study funded in part by the National Wildlife Federation and U.S. Department of Energy found that, from start to finish, it’s actually worse for the environment than gasoline. READ MORE

Excerpt from Renewable Fuels Association posted in Advanced Biofuels USA with related articles: In early 2022, University of Wisconsin researcher Tyler Lark published a study claiming that U.S. farmers had converted several million acres of pristine grassland and other “seminatural areas” to cropland in response to the Renewable Fuel Standard and growth in ethanol production.

The study was accompanied by a well-funded, well-orchestrated public relations blitz that resulted in dozens of news articles and editorials, widespread radio and TV coverage, and echo-chambering on blogs and social media channels. Even though the study’s methods and findings were roundly criticized and swiftly rebuked by the scientific community, the massive PR push behind the study unfortunately succeeded in spreading the “land use change” myth far and wide.

Two years later (March 2024), Lark published another study on land use change. Only this time there was no big publicity campaign. No interviews on NPR, no pithy feature story on Fox News or HBO talk shows, no social media blasts, no TIME magazine pieces, no National Wildlife Federation press conferences, no congressional staff briefings (those are all things that really happened after the 2022 study). In fact, the newest Lark study made about as much noise as a tree falling in the woods.

Why? What changed? How come there wasn’t a massive PR effort around the new land use study?

Put simply: the results of the new Lark paper don’t fit the doomsday narrative that was carefully crafted by media-savvy PR firms following the release of 2022 study. Indeed, the new Lark study actually contradicts and undermines his study that made headlines two years ago. That’s why they’re keeping it quiet.

Using the same satellite imagery approach that Lark used for the 2022 study, this newest study shows that between 1986 and 2018—a timeframe that encompasses the period of rapid growth in ethanol production—more than 30 million acres of U.S. cropland were abandoned and transitioned into grassland/permanent pasture, forest, shrubland, wetlands, urban areas, and other uses.

Wow! That’s right…rather than claiming cropland expanded into grassland and forest areas during the biofuels era (like his previous papers), this new Lark study suggests the exact opposite occurred.

According to the new analysis, U.S. cropland area significantly receded over the 33-year period examined—and in its place, grassland, permanent pasture, trees, and shrubs sprang up. Some of the ground was enrolled in CRP, but most was not. Lark and his colleagues concluded that “among the abandoned croplands, 53% changed to grassland and pasture, 18.6% to shrubland and forest, 8.4% to wetlands, and 4.6% to non-vegetated lands” (it seems likely that “non-vegetated land” is mostly urban/suburban land).

These findings appear generally consistent with land use data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and EPA, which show steadily declining cropland area and stable or increasing forest and grassland over the past several decades. READ MORE

Excerpt from Star Tribune: Karen Tolkkinen’s recent column on ethanol was chock-full of myths, misinformation and half-truths about ethanol (“The time is ripe to rethink ethanol,” Sept. 1). We’d like to set the record straight.

First, there is no “food vs. fuel” conflict with ethanol. One-third of every bushel of corn processed by an ethanol biorefinery returns to the food supply. Only the starch in the corn is converted to ethanol; the protein, fiber, fat and other nutrients are concentrated and fed to livestock and poultry. The University of Minnesota says the 4 million tons of feed produced by the sttate’s ethanol plants is enough to feed nearly every cow, a quarter of all pigs and every single turkey raised in Minnesota.

Food security, quality and availability have improved — both domestically and globally — during the biofuels era, and there is no shortage of food. In fact, one-third of food produced worldwide is wasted each year, according to the United Nations. Meanwhile, U.S. cropland has decreased by 26 million acres since 2007, disproving the myth that ethanol has caused cropland expansion. How is that possible? Because farmers produce more grain on less land each year; Minnesota farmers produced 30% more corn per acre in 2022 than they did in 2007.

Second, Tolkkinen cited just one outlier study — which was rejected and debunked by many other scientists — to argue that ethanol is somehow worse for the environment than gasoline. In reality, researchers from places like the California Air Resources Board, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other institutions all agree that today’s corn ethanol reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 50% compared to gasoline.

Finally, Tolkkinen misunderstands the biofuels carbon cycle. Plants like corn remove CO2 from the atmosphere as they grow. That same CO2 is rereleased back to the atmosphere when corn is fermented into ethanol and when ethanol is combusted in an engine. The corn ethanol process is simply recycling atmospheric carbon. If CO2 from ethanol fermentation is captured and sequestered via a pipeline (rather than vented), then the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has been permanently reduced. That’s why policymakers and some science-oriented environmental organizations see enormous greenhouse gas mitigation potential in corn ethanol paired with carbon capture.

Next time, we hope Tolkkinen visits with some of the 20,914 Minnesotans employed in the state’s ethanol industry. They not only know the difference between field corn and sweet corn, but they also know we can simultaneously feed and fuel Minnesota with environmentally friendly ethanol and nutritious co-products.

This letter was submitted by Brian Werner, executive director of the Minnesota Bio-Fuels Association, and Geoff Cooper, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association. READ MORE

Excerpt from Minnesota Star-Tribune: Since James Lenz’s Sept. 29 commentary, “Yes, it’s time to rethink ethanol,” called out the organization I lead by name, I feel compelled to respond. And while we disagree with almost every one of Lenz’s arguments, he got one thing essentially right: The Renewable Fuels Association will always defend ethanol against baseless attacks and misinformation.

As a former adjunct professor and someone involved in “industrial research and development,” Lenz certainly failed to do his homework for this assignment. He says “hundreds” of academic studies have assessed the downside of ethanol, yet he can only point to the same debunked study cited in Karen Tolkkinen’s Sept. 1 column, “The time is ripe to rethink ethanol.” That study, which incidentally was funded by the Washington, D.C.-based National Wildlife Federation, was roundly criticized by numerous academic institutions, including Harvard, Purdue University, the University of Illinois, Tufts University and Department of Energy laboratories.

Lenz goes on to argue that ethanol has displaced Minnesota cropland that previously produced “edible foods such as pulse crops,” then contradicts himself by correctly noting that ethanol has “little to do with food security.” In reality, the number of Minnesota farms growing pulses increased between 2007 (the year Congress adopted the existing Renewable Fuel Standard) and 2022 (the latest year for which USDA data is available). Land dedicated to dry edible beans in Minnesota, by far the largest pulse crop, jumped 45% between 2007 and 2022, while production doubled. The amount of land and number of farms growing berries also increased over this period. Here’s a spreadsheet documenting the changes in the state.

Meanwhile, land dedicated to growing field corn (the type used for ethanol) in Minnesota fell slightly from 2007 to 2022 and the number of farms growing corn dropped by 20%. Nevertheless, Minnesota’s corn production grew 30% over this period due to new technology and greater efficiency — something Lenz apparently seems to think is a bad thing. The data also disprove Lenz’s argument that more corn production means more chemicals and fertilizers. Today’s farmers use less fertilizer and chemicals than they did in the early 1980s, yet produce almost twice as much grain per acre.

Lenz correctly noted that farmers get defensive when ethanol is attacked or, to use his term, “questioned.” But it’s not because they are “caught up in Big Ag’s vicious production monopoly,” as he asserts. It’s because they are sick and tired of the outright lies being told by uninformed elitists about growth in renewable fuels and its positive impact on agriculture.

It’s time for the people to have a conversation about ethanol, Lenz says. On that point, we agree. Ethanol producers and our partners in agriculture always welcome discussions that are grounded facts, data and science. Let’s talk. READ MORE