Monday, Feb 16

Dear Reader,

“Our gas tanks account for 40% of the corn grown in the U.S.,” Project Drawdown executive director Jonathan Foley told Bluedot (listen to Foley’s interview with Bluedot Institute students here), referring to the fact that virtually all fuel sold in the U.S. contains about 10% ethanol, made from corn. “A similar amount — 36% — feeds our cows, pigs, and chickens. But it doesn’t feed them particularly efficiently.” 

Foley was commenting for a story called What’s So Bad About … Corn? And, among the things he noted is the sheer amount of land dedicated to growing this crop that, mostly, feeds our cars and our cows. If we converted all the land currently used for biofuels, the number-crunching folks at Our World in Data report, we could generate 23 times more energy. And using just ¼ of that land would produce enough electricity to power all of the world’s cars and trucks if they were electric. 

What’s more, ethanol isn’t even a good fuel alternative. “There are no environmental benefits at all,” Foley told Bluedot. “In fact, net, it's probably worse for the environment in every conceivable way … the land it uses, the water it pollutes, the air quality it harms, and the fact it’s not really carbon free.” 

He’s right. A 2022 study funded in part by the National Wildlife Federation and the U.S. Department of Energy found that ethanol is likely at least 24% more carbon-intensive than gasoline “due to emissions resulting from land use changes to grow corn, along with processing and combustion.” In other words, we’d do better to burn pure petroleum than this so-called biofuel.

A large part of addressing our climate crisis involves reimagining how we do things — how we power our homes and offices, how we move ourselves around, what we put on our plates. And, of course, how we use our land. 

Alternatively,

Dot