Good news coming from the Dept. of Agriculture?

The new Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack seems to get it:

"This is a department that intersects the lives of Americans two to three times a day. Every single American," he said. "So I absolutely see the constituency of this department as broader than those who produce our food -- it extends to those who consume it."

Michael Pollan had this to say:

"He's definitely sounding a different note than his predecessors," said Michael Pollan, the reform-minded author of the bestseller "In Defense of Food." "Whether they'll be reflected in policies remains to be seen."

Personally I think Pollan would have made a great Ag secretary! Here's my review of his excellent book, In Defense of Food.

Energy research at Stanford

A new research paper from Professor Mark Jacobson at Stanford highlights the advantages of wind, water, and solar energy over other alternatives:

Jacobson has conducted the first quantitative, scientific evaluation of the proposed, major, energy-related solutions by assessing not only their potential for delivering energy for electricity and vehicles, but also their impacts on global warming, human health, energy security, water supply, space requirements, wildlife, water pollution, reliability and sustainability. His findings indicate that the options that are getting the most attention are between 25 to 1,000 times more polluting than the best available options. The paper with his findings will be published in the next issue of Energy and Environmental Science but is available online now. Jacobson is also director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford.

"The energy alternatives that are good are not the ones that people have been talking about the most. And some options that have been proposed are just downright awful," Jacobson said. "Ethanol-based biofuels will actually cause more harm to human health, wildlife, water supply and land use than current fossil fuels." He added that ethanol may also emit more global-warming pollutants than fossil fuels, according to the latest scientific studies.

The raw energy sources that Jacobson found to be the most promising are, in order, wind, concentrated solar (the use of mirrors to heat a fluid), geothermal, tidal, solar photovoltaics (rooftop solar panels), wave and hydroelectric. He recommends against nuclear, coal with carbon capture and sequestration, corn ethanol and cellulosic ethanol, which is made of prairie grass. In fact, he found cellulosic ethanol was worse than corn ethanol because it results in more air pollution, requires more land to produce and causes more damage to wildlife.

SEPARATELY, Stanford has announced plans to spend $100 million on alternative energy technologies:

"The biggest renewable resource is the sun," said Lynn Orr, who has been named overall director of the new institute, which will function as an independent laboratory reporting to the dean of research. "But we need to lower the cost of converting sunlight into electricity and supplying it through a much improved electric grid. The new center will allow us to expand significantly our effort to develop new nanostructured materials for solar energy and energy storage and to work on the host of social, market and policy issues involved in the needed transition to energy systems with significant fractions of renewables."

The latest on the corn ethanol boondoggle...

From the Environmental Working Group; apparently the ethanol refineries are looking for a bailout:

Solar, wind and other renewable energy sources have struggled to gain significant market share with modest federal support. Meanwhile, corn-based ethanol has accounted for fully three-quarters of the tax benefits and two-thirds of all federal subsidies allotted for renewable energy sources in 2007.

A little noticed analysis buried in an April 2008 report from the federal Energy Information Administration (EIA)1 shows that the corn-based ethanol industry received $3 billion in tax credits in 2007, more than four times the $690 million in credits available to companies trying to expand all other forms of renewable energy, including solar, wind and geothermal power.

The federal bill for ethanol subsidies grows with every gallon of ethanol produced. By 2010, ethanol will cost taxpayers more than $5 billion a year -- more than is spent on all U.S. Department of Agriculture conservation programs to protect soil, water and wildlife habitat.

Now the ethanol industry wants even more. In recent weeks, the corn ethanol lobby has pushed for billions in new federal subsidies as part of the economic stimulus package. Corn growers and ethanol companies are also pressing for dramatic increases in the amount of ethanol Americans will be required to put into their gas tanks—even if it results in worse fuel economy and more engine repairs. Once touted as the energy equivalent of a free lunch, corn ethanol has proved to be an over-hyped and dubious renewable energy option. Ethanol made from corn has extremely limited potential to reduce the country’s dependence on imported oil, and current production systems likely worsen greenhouse gas emissions.

Moreover, despite billions in federal subsidies on top of a government mandate that forces motorists to buy ethanol, the industry’s financial outlook remains highly unstable. A fleeting few years of windfall profits and breakneck construction of ethanol plants gave rise to talk of “sheikdoms” springing up in the Midwest to rival those in the Middle East and a “rural renaissance" featuring hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

But that was last year. Today, a glut of ethanol, abruptly lower gasoline prices and wild swings in the corn market have caused the ethanol industry's profit margins to evaporate, hammered its stock values, triggered major bankruptcies and shredded ambitious plans to construct dozens of new plants.

Hence the latest burst of special pleadings from the ethanol lobby. Its spokesmen have floated a proposal for billions more in taxpayer handouts via the economic stimulus bill, and they want an expanded government fiat that would require drivers to use as much as twice the ethanol that Washington currently dictates.

Cellulosic ethanol: let's think it through first

Scientists recommend a cautious approach to cellulosic ethanol so as to avoid another corn ethanol-like boondoggle:

While allowing that the production of cellulosic feedstocks has some distinct advantages over grain-based fuel manufacture — from less frequent fertilization and improved storage of carbon in the soil to higher overall energy yields — the authors highlight several potential pitfalls:

Some proposed biofuels crops are exotic and others are known to be invasive, which can have further negative influences on local-to-regional biodiversity. Other cellulosic crops may require substantial chemical inputs and irrigation, with the potential for water pollution, nitrous oxide emissions, and, in arid regions, further competition for water. In addition, excessive removal of “waste” residue from annual cropping systems will rob the soil of carbon, increase erosion and reduce soil fertility. Also, excessive forest thinning will reduce long-term forest productivity and wildlife habitat.

Getting an early jump on identifying and heading off the “unintended consequences” associated with the production of cellulosic fuel — through both practice and policy — the scientists say, is the solution.

Europe backs off on biofuels

Citing concerns about "competing with food production," the European Union is reducing its 10% mandate for biofuels to 5%.

World Bank report blames rising food prices on biofuels

An internal World Bank report finds that the recent rise in food prices is primarily due to the use of crops such as corn for fuel:

"Without the increase in biofuels, global wheat and maize stocks would not have declined appreciably and price increases due to other factors would have been moderate," says the report. The basket of food prices examined in the study rose by 140% between 2002 and this February. The report estimates that higher energy and fertiliser prices accounted for an increase of only 15%, while biofuels have been responsible for a 75% jump over that period.

It argues that production of biofuels has distorted food markets in three main ways. First, it has diverted grain away from food for fuel, with over a third of US corn now used to produce ethanol and about half of vegetable oils in the EU going towards the production of biodiesel. Second, farmers have been encouraged to set land aside for biofuel production. Third, it has sparked financial speculation in grains, driving prices up higher.

The Bush administration has argued that as little as 3% of the rise in prices is due to corn ethanol and other biofuels.

(Thanks for the tip, Jack!)

End ethanol mandates

With soaring food prices, the idea of rolling back ethanol mandates continues to gain steam in Washington.

Keith Collins, the former Agriculture Department chief economist, will release a study on Monday saying that as much as half of the sharp increase in corn prices over the last few years is due to the demands of ethanol production.

That view diverges sharply from the view of Mr. Collins’ former boss, Mr. Schafer, who said at a Rome conference that only a tiny percentage of the increase in world food prices was due to American ethanol production.

“We’ve seen a tremendous range of unintended consequences” from the requirement that increasing amounts of ethanol be blended into gasoline, Mr. Collins said.

The economist, who was hired by the Kraft food company to prepare his report, said he would be surprised if the Agriculture Department did not open up some conservation lands. He would not speculate about a change in the ethanol mandates.

The White House will be forced to confront the ethanol issue next month. States are allowed to asked for waivers of the mandate for corn ethanol on the ground that it is harming the economy or the environment.

Corn hits another record

Corn futures hit another record today as the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture lowered corn forecasts:

The latest rally was sparked after the USDA on Tuesday cut its forecast for the average U.S. 2008 corn yield to 148.9 bushels per acre, down sharply from its May figure of 153.9.

As a result, the USDA lowered its corn production estimate to 11.7 billion bushels, down from 12.1 billion in May and down 10 percent from last year's crop.

Rice, soybeans, and wheat also jumped.

United Nations report on food prices

A new report from the United Nations agency responsible for food and agriculture is predicting that food prices will drop a bit but remain above average for the next decade:

The expected causes of higher-than-average prices during the next decade include a doubling of biofuel production, higher fuel costs that increase the cost of producing crops and transporting food, and greater demand for food and animal feed in richer developing countries where incomes are rising, the report says.

Prices for vegetable oils are expected to remain the highest, 80 percent above the average from 1998 to 2007; wheat, corn and skim milk powder are anticipated to be 40 to 60 percent higher; sugar, 30 percent; and beef and pork, about 20 percent. Biofuel production should account for about a third of the expected increases in prices for vegetable oils and grains. [emphasis added]

The Bush administration has argued that using corn to make ethanol is only responsible for 2 to 3% of the rise in global food prices.

Biofuels 2.0

Here we go again. Since the whole corn ethanol experiment hasn't turned out all that well, a move is on to try a different set of crops for use as biofuels. One problem: some of the proposed replacements are invasive species and carry a risk of invading surrounding areas as weeds. And while the claim is that they are hardy enough to be used on marginal lands that aren't rich enough for growing food, what's to stop farmers from planting them on prime farmland if the price that these new crops fetch is high enough?

... Biologists and botanists are warning that they, too, may bring serious unintended consequences. Most of these newer crops are what scientists label invasive species — that is, weeds — that have an extraordinarily high potential to escape biofuel plantations, overrun adjacent farms and natural land, and create economic and ecological havoc in the process, they now say....

“With biofuels, there’s always a hurry,” said Geoffrey Howard, an invasive species expert with the International Union for Conservation of Nature. “Plantations are started by investors, often from the U.S. or Europe, so they are eager to generate biofuels within a couple of years and also, as you might guess, they don’t want a negative assessment.”

More games with the price of oil

The Senate has voted 97-1 in favor of a measure that calls for the Bush administration to stop adding oil to the nation's strategic petroleum reserve, a cache meant to protect against a catastrophic drop in imports due to war, disaster, etc.

But only 70,000 barrels are being added to the reserve each day, which represents a tiny 0.3% of the 21 million barrels America uses every day. How much of a difference in the price of gas do you think that this measure's going to make?

No gas tax holiday. No ethanol subsidies. No more symbolic measures.

It's time to get real and start dealing with the problem of peak oil: higher mileage standards, a commitment to alternative fuels research, a carbon tax, tax credits for improvements in energy efficiency, etc.

But most of all, we need a recognition that "business as usual" is part of the problem, not the goal.

Home-brew

Ethanol fuel, that is. A company has produced a backyard ethanol distiller. From Scientific American:

Ethanol fuel is made from a combination of water, yeast and sugar, Tom Quinn, E-Fuel founder and CEO, said at the press conference, adding that the process was no more complicated than what is taught in "third-grade science." The adoption of ethanol has been held back because drivers do not have access to the fuel, he said, pointing out that there are only 1,200 ethanol stations in the U.S., compared with about 176,000 gas stations.

To make ethanol in the EFuel100, feedstock (consisting of sugar and yeast) or discarded liquor [my emphasis] is loaded into the device's 200-gallon (757-liter) tank. Using the LCD screen located on the front of the device (next to the pump), the operator places the EFuel100 either in ferment (for feedstock) or distillation (for liquor) mode to begin the process. The EFuel100 is hooked up to a water source—much like one's washing machine or dishwasher is—and regulates the amount of water flowing into its tank to begin the ethanol-conversion process.

Uh... "discarded liquor." Come again? :-)

Senators: take a "timeout" on ethanol

Here's the letter I sent to my Senators (Harry Reid (D) and John Ensign (R)) this morning:

I read with great interest yesterday that a number of Republican Senators are calling for a slowing of the growth of ethanol as a gasoline substitute.

I urge you to support such efforts. In my opinion, the evidence is clear that our rush to use corn ethanol in this manner has led to a variety of unintended consequences.

1) Food prices are soaring. Corn's price has risen as a direct result of the diversion of corn out of the food supply and into ethanol plants. Corn is, for better or worse, a primary ingredient of animal feed as well as a wide range of processed foods. And as farmers replace other crops like wheat with corn because of the latter's rising price, the prices of the supplanted crops are rising, too.

2) I have read that many farmers are considering taking land out of the conservation reserve. Much of this land is of marginal quality, and cultivating it again will likely have negative long term impacts to the Midwest's environment.

3) The data on ethanol's ability to slow climate change is decidely mixed, with many experts providing evidence that the fuel used to grow and transport corn for ethanol negate any CO2 benefits that this biofuel provides.

Given all of this, it's clear that there is no convincing rationale for moving so quickly to ethanol and a lot of evidence that doing so was a hastily conceived idea that is hurting American consumers and, in fact, people around the world.

I grew up farming in Kansas, and I'm very much a supporter of the family farm. Fortunately, it's possible to have smart agricultural policies that benefit both the public in general and family farmers. Promoting corn ethanol as a gasoline substiute is not one of them.

While ethanol's use has already become somewhat entrenched, at least in terms of the Washington lobbying machine, I urge you to look at the data and support a "timeout" on the existing ethanol fuel mandates.

You can write your own Senators here.

Put ethanol on "pause"

It's nice to agree with Republicans now and then. :-) A number of them in the Senate are calling on the EPA to slow the use of ethanol as a gas substitute in the face of rising food prices. Pork and chicken are expected to spike next as the cost of their feed has skyrocketed.

You can share your opinion with your Senators of either party here.

In Defense of Food summary

I finished reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food a couple of weeks ago and am finally getting around to sharing a bit about it. I'm happy to report that it's already affected my eating habits, as I'm definitely cooking at home a lot more these days. And I'm recycling my copy: it's on it's way to my Dad in Kansas, he's got a big birthday on Saturday.

(Happy Birthday, Dad!)

In writing In Defense of Food, Pollan sets out to remind us that eating was once a more pleasurable experience, mainly because we ate for the joy of doing so rather than to meet the U.S. RDA of various nutrients (or to add the latest "super" nutrient to our diet). His point isn't that eating is unrelated to satisfying our nutritional requirements; instead, it's that all the knowledge we need to eat a healthy diet is contained in the wisdom that's been passed down through the centuries, mostly by our mothers.

Humans can thrive on a wide variety of diets, judging from the fact that you've got examples of well-fed people living in environments as diverse as the Arctic and the Sahara. But over time, an increasing proportion of the world's population has taken to eating what's known as the Western diet. In doing so, they've found themselves burdened with a whole range of diseases--think obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer--that are rare in populations eating more traditional fare.

Five trends define the development of the Western diet:

1. The transition from eating whole foods to eating refined foods. Think of white flour replacing whole grain flour, white rice replacing brown rice, high fructose corn syrup replacing a little bit of honey, and so on.
2. The transition from complexity to simplicity. Once upon a time we used manure as fertilizer. Then someone "discovered" that the key ingredients could be summed up as "NPK" (nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium), and artificial fertilizer was born. In making this transition, we simplified the chemistry of our farm land, which in turn simplifies the chemistry of what grows there.

   Moreover, we've vastly reduced the number of foods that we eat: wheat, corn, and soybeans make up the great majority of what the agricultural industry grows. (And try to find something to eat in the center aisles of the grocery store or at a fast food restaurant that doesn't contain one or more of those big three crops.)

   Here's an interesting article on one man's effort to save a bunch of American plants and animals that are facing extinction by returning them to the dinner table. He's collecting culinary lore and recipes from seniors before they're all permanently lost.

3. The transition from quality to quantity. Science has clearly coaxed more macronutrients from the soil, not only here in the U.S. but also in Asia where the Green Revolution of the 40s and 60s dramatically improved crop yields. But research indicates that the quality of the food may have gotten worse, with fewer micronutrients (like vitamins) than in the past.

   And a growing worry is the current global food crisis. A stronger link is being forged between the price of food and the price of fuel by the increasing conversion of corn to ethanol for use as a gasoline replacement. This has pushed up corn and other crop prices (land used to grow wheat is now being shifted to corn production, for example), and people around the world are having more trouble avoiding hunger. And the whole rationale for using ethanol in the first place is being called into question. A report in the February 29th issue of Science magazine stated that the greenhouse gas emissions of corn ethanol "exceed or match those from fossil fuels and therefore produce no greenhouse benefits."

4. The transition from eating leaves to seeds. Agriculture has brought about a dramatic shift from eating the leaves, roots, fruits, and vegetables of plants to eating their seeds. Think about all that wheat, corn, and soybean acreage again (as well as the fact that cows, which evolved on a grass diet, are now primarily fed corn here in America). This transition has resulted in a significant shift in the balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in our diets. The omega-6s are abundant in seeds, and we now consume far more omega-6 fatty acids than the omega-3 variety, a big change from the pre-Western diet.

   One thing that was made clear in my biology class this semester is the fundamental role these fats play in every cell in our bodies.

5. The transition from food culture to food science. Once upon a time we ate because it satiated our hunger and because food tasted good. Now we've become a nation (and increasingly a world) of label readers. The food industry makes money with new and improved products, with packaging, with processing and additives, and with health claims. Yet the healthiest foods are those that are the most traditional, the least packaged, the least modified, and the least marketed.

   A report issued earlier this week raised a red flag about the costs of factory farming, noting the negative impacts to human health and the environment from what agriculture has become. Perhaps the most significant thing about the report is that even ag industry representatives agreed with recommendations like banning the use of antiobiotics in livestock except to treat disease (they're currently used to speed up growth as well).

Like I said, I've already taken Pollan's advice (summarized below) to heart: cooking at home more, eating fewer processed foods, eating a lot more fruits and vegetables.

I've also stopped drinking nonfat milk... which for years I assumed was the "right" choice. But Pollan explains that this is a great example of where we've taken a simple, one-ingredient food and complicated it.

Nonfat milk alone tends to be too watery for most people's tastes, so the dairy industry adds powered milk (aka "milk solids") to the milk. But in making powdered milk, the cholesterol it contains is oxidized, and in this form it's much worse for our cardiovascular system than the original cholesterol was. And now some dairies are trying to compensate by adding antioxidants. "New and improved," indeed.

POLLAN'S ADVICE ON EATING WELL IS SIMPLE:

• Eat food. (Think of food as what your greatgrandmother would have recognized as food.)
• Mostly plants. (Shift the balance from animals to fruits and vegetables. Some meat and dairy is great. Too much may not be, and perhaps more importantly, crowds out the produce.)
• Not too much. (There's no question that people are larger now than 20 or 30 years ago. We eat more, we exercise less. And if we're eating crap, too much of a bad thing is even worse.)

There's one minor point that Pollan makes that I would take issue with: he suggests that a multivitamin supplement "can't hurt." The most recent research finds that antioxidant supplements may, in fact, do just that. Read more here.

And if you're interested, I also wrote a post in 2006 about another Pollan book, The Omnivore's Dilemma. Read it here.

Cropland dilemma

To the extent that taking farmland out of the U.S. conservation reserve may put marginal soil back into use, this is a bad idea.

I have to admit that I don't have the answer to balancing the needs of farmers, consumers, and the environment, but doing more of the same (industrial farming and corn for ethanol) doesn't seem like the smartest path. Ultimately, our health is tightly bound to the health of the world we live in... and to the soil itself.

In Defense of Food

I have finally gotten around to starting Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food. As I get through more of the book I'll share more about it. One of my first and, I think, best posts here on Torqopia ("You are what you eat") discussed Pollan's earlier book, The Omnivore's Dilemma.

In the meantime, Paul Krugman at the NYTimes writes about the rising cost of food and the various causes, including the rise of China and American ethanol subsidies. He also makes this observation:

Governments and private grain dealers used to hold large inventories in normal times, just in case a bad harvest created a sudden shortage. Over the years, however, these precautionary inventories were allowed to shrink, mainly because everyone came to believe that countries suffering crop failures could always import the food they needed.

This left the world food balance highly vulnerable to a crisis affecting many countries at once — in much the same way that the marketing of complex financial securities, which was supposed to diversify away risk, left world financial markets highly vulnerable to a systemwide shock.

The escalating cost of ethanol

It's measured not just in the price of ethanol but also in the rising prices of the food crops that corn is replacing on America's farms. And our government continues to subsidize this insanity. (OMG I think I sounded like Lou Dobbs for a second there!)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23847301/

Bad forecast for cellulosic ethanol?

A new study suggests that cellulosic ethanol will never take off because the subsidies necessary to get farmers to grow switchgrass rather than food crops would be prohibitively high. Wheat prices have already risen 83% in the past year to record highs, and biofuels are cited as one reason:

Demand for alternative energy sources has led farmers to sow less wheat and convert land to crops such as corn, sugarcane and rapeseed, that can be turned into biofuels.

Ethanol, diesel and other liquid fuels can be made from processing plant material.

But this means there is less land for growing food crops.

Wheat prices may come down as high prices convince farmers to devote more land to the crop, but this takes time.

And even if there wasn't a problem with competition for arable land, this approach still doesn't get around the basic problem of dwindling fossil fuel supplies: each year we use the equivalent of multiple years worth of sunlight reaching the Earth. And if that's the case, no crop is ever going to be able to replace a major portion of our energy use.

My guess is that cellulosic ethanol--or any other biofuel--will likely be only a small part of our energy future...

It's not easy being green...

Even biofuels have byproducts that negatively impact the environment.