Tag: ethanol

Ethanol Part 1: Running the Well Dry?

  • Ethanol is starting to bring prosperity to some rural communities. But there are also concerns about whether adding this new industry to other industries - and cities - that draw on groundwater supplies will cause local shortages of water. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

It’s no surprise that the Corn Belt is the heart of the ethanol boom.
Two main ingredients you need to make ethanol are corn and water.
There’s no shortage of corn of course, and in most places it’s assumed
there’s also plenty of water. But as Rebecca Williams reports, even
people in water-rich states are getting concerned about ethanol’s
thirst for groundwater:

Transcript

It’s no surprise that the Corn Belt is the heart of the ethanol boom.
Two main ingredients you need to make ethanol are corn and water.
There’s no shortage of corn of course, and in most places it’s assumed
there’s also plenty of water. But as Rebecca Williams reports, even
people in water-rich states are getting concerned about ethanol’s
thirst for groundwater:


Bob Libra can tell a lot about water by looking at rocks. We’re in his
rock library – it even has a Dewey decimal system. Libra’s holding up
one of the 35,000 chunks of rock in here.


(Sound of scraping on limestone core)


“This for example is a core from a well. You can look at this and say well this is
what the plumbing system’s like down there.”


Libra’s a state geologist with the Iowa Department of Natural
Resources. Part of his job is to figure out how healthy his state’s
water supplies are. Any time a test well is drilled for a new ethanol
plant, rock samples get sent here.


Outside the rock library, there are three red pipes sticking up out of
the ground. These are observation wells that tap into sources of
groundwater far underground, called deep aquifers:


“A lot of people refer to it as Paleo-water or fossil water. It’s been
down there tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of
years.”


Libra says the water in those deep aquifers is pumped out for
everything from drinking water to ethanol plants. But as it’s pumped
out, it’s not replaced right away. It could take hundreds or thousands
of years to replenish the aquifers.


Geologists use the observation wells and rock samples to figure out how
much water is in those aquifers. But here at the rock library, those
samples are piling up into small mountains in the storage room. Bob
Libra says his state is way behind. Iowa hasn’t updated its groundwater
maps for 20 years:


“I think Iowa’s in the same kind of situation that a lot of states that
tend not to think of themselves as ‘water poor’ are finding themselves.
We haven’t paid attention to it for 20 years and suddenly BANG we’re
using an awful lot. And we have people every day going I’m interested
in putting a plant here – how much water can I get over here? And it’s
happening very rapidly.”


Each state has its own way of managing its groundwater. In Iowa, you
have to have a permit if you’re withdrawing more than 25,000 gallons of
water per day from a well or stream. Libra says the ethanol boom has
overwhelmed the state office where permits are handed out for the
asking:


“I’m at this location, I’m drilling into this aquifer, I’m going
to extract this amount of water. Here’s my $25 for a 10-year permit.”


Libra says nobody’s really checking to see if all these water
withdrawals will work for the next few decades.


How much water ethanol plants consume depends on who you talk to. But
on average, it takes between three and four gallons of water to make
one gallon of ethanol. Bob Libra says here in Iowa, adding new ethanol
plants is like adding a bunch of new towns out in the cornfields:


“A lot of ethanol plants they’re building now are on the order of 100
million gallon per year capacity so they’d be using about 400 million
gallons of water a year which is roughly as much as a town of 10,000
people.”


In some drier states, new ethanol plants are running into opposition.
Mark Muller is with the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy. He
says groundwater is local. So, what works in one place might be a
crisis in another:


“We’ve already seen it in Southwest Minnesota where a plant was denied because
of a lack of water resources. There’s a couple big fights going on in
Kansas right now over water availability. I think this is going to
probably one of the big drivers that’s going to make the industry look
further East rather than in the Midwest/Great Plains.”


The ethanol industry argues that it has already cut back on water use.
Lucy Norton is the managing director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels
Association. She says it’s in the industry’s best interest to be
careful with water:


“We’re not going to see a plant built somewhere where it’s an iffy
situation as to whether 10 years from now we’re going to have enough
water. You don’t put $200 million investment into a location that’s
not going to be able to sustain itself 10 years from now.”


But even if the water supplies could last 50 years, once the water is
gone from the aquifers, it’s gone for a long time.


There are a lot of
test wells going in these days, with 123 plants in operation and more
than 80 under construction around the country.


The growing political pressure for more and more ethanol is making
state officials eager to figure out exactly what’s underground, instead
of just assuming there’s enough water.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Ethanol Part 2: Widening the Dead Zone?

  • Farmer Laura Krouse says the ethanol boom has been great for corn farmers, who she says are finally getting a fair price for their corn. But she says she's worried that there's not enough being done fast enough to reduce the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

Scientists are predicting the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico will reach its largest size ever this summer. Fish and shrimp can’t survive in the Dead Zone. It’s believed to be mainly caused by fertilizer washed from farm fields across the nation. Rebecca Williams reports some scientists say demand for ethanol made from corn could make the Dead Zone even bigger:

Transcript

Scientists are predicting the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico will reach its largest size ever this summer. Fish and shrimp can’t survive in the dead zone. It’s believed to be mainly caused by fertilizer washed from farm fields across the nation. Rebecca Williams reports some scientists say demand for ethanol made from corn could make the dead zone even bigger:


(Sound of tractor raking hay)


“It’s the perfect Iowa day, you know?”


Laura Krouse is tearing apart a bale of hay to mulch her tomatoes.
She’s a thousand miles from the Gulf of Mexico. But she points out,
what happens on farms here ends up affecting life way down South:


“This watershed I live in drains 25% of Iowa. And we’re one of the
richest farming states in the nation – of course we have something to
do with it.”


By “it,” Krouse means the dead zone. All or parts of 31 farm states
drain into the Mississippi River, which empties into the Gulf.
Scientists point to nitrogen fertilizer used on farm fields as the main
cause of the dead zone. All that nitrogen causes an enormous algae
bloom. When the algae dies it drops to the ocean floor. Bacteria eat
the algae and they rob the water of oxygen.


This summer, the dead zone’s predicted to reach a record size. It could get as big as the state of New Jersey.


Laura Krouse has been trying to cut back her own role in the dead zone.
Five years ago, she added something to her farm that’s rare around here.
Krouse cut some of the tile lines that drain water from her farm, and
replaced part of her farmland with a prairie wetland. She says that
made her neighbors nervous:


“We just don’t see people taking land out of production in Iowa very
frequently.”


Wetlands like this one remove nitrogen from the water that flows from
farm fields.


It’s one of the things a government task force on the dead zone
recommended to cut nitrogen loading into the Gulf.


But instead of a big push to restore wetlands, the economic landscape
is changing in the other direction. Demand for ethanol has led to
historically high corn prices. And that’s encouraging farmers to grow
more corn. A USDA report says farmers have planted 14 million more
acres of corn this year than last year. It’s the most corn planted in
the U.S. in more than 50 years.


Laura Krouse says this is not good for the Gulf of Mexico:


“I’m concerned about all the extra corn because it requires nitrogen to
produce that corn and no matter how careful we are and no matter how
expensive it is which causes us to be more and more careful with
application, nitrogen as a molecule just wants to get away. It is
leaky.”


When it rains, nitrogen runs quickly from farm fields and gets into
creeks and rivers. The federal government’s task force on the dead zone has been trying to
tackle all this.


Don Scavia led a group of scientists advising the task force under the
Clinton Administration. The Bush Administration convened a new science
panel to review the original science panel’s work. Don Scavia says
since then, there’s been very little progress in shrinking the dead
zone, or what scientists call an area of hypoxia:


“In fact what we’ve seen in the last year is just the opposite with
this push towards corn-based ethanol production. Even acres that were
set aside into conservation are coming back out into production, into
corn, and the increased nitrogen load to the Gulf this year and the projected record
hypoxia is probably caused by this increased corn production.”


Scavia says if the dead zone keeps increasing, the Gulf shrimping
industry could collapse.


Ironically, the new science panel appointed by the Bush White House is
calling for even bigger cuts in nitrogen than the first panel appointed
by the Clinton Administration. They want to reduce nitrogen from farm
fields and other sources by 40 to 45 percent.


Don Parrish is with the American Farm Bureau. He says those reductions
are too much:


“Those are going to be really difficult and they could cause
significant economic dislocation at a time when I think we need to be
thinking about the products that agriculture produces, and those are
important.”


There’s no question corn for ethanol is at the top of that list right
now. Ethanol’s popular. It’s making farmers richer. It’s making the
chemical companies that supply nitrogen richer. The government task
force has to figure out how to cut back on all the nitrogen that’s
needed to grow all the corn… that’s needed for billions of gallons of
ethanol.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Report: Ethanol Not the Answer

  • As ethanol is becoming more common, the demand for corn is driving up prices for the grain. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Using corn to make fuel for cars and trucks will cause more pollution, higher food prices,
and will not greatly reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil. That’s according to a
recent report by several environmental groups. Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

Using corn to make fuel for cars and trucks will cause more pollution, higher food prices,
and will not greatly reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil. That’s according to a
recent report by several environmental groups. Mark Brush has more:


About 20% of this year’s crop in the US will go into making ethanol. That’s expected to jump to 27% next year. The push for more corn-based ethanol has already led to higher food prices. A new report
says if the ethanol trend continues unchecked – it will cause more fertilizer pollution in
water – and more air pollution from ethanol processing plants powered by coal and
natural gas.


Dulce Fernandez is with the Network for New Energy Solutions – one of the groups that
put out the report. She says ethanol is not the answer:


“I think everybody is looking for one great solution to solve all of these problems. But
nobody is thinking about the great potential that is out there to reduce demands.”


Fernandez says the best way to reduce demands is for the federal government to raise fuel
economy standards, instead of subsidizing corn-based ethanol.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Oil Companies Serve Up Bio-Diesel

  • Tom Torre (pictured) is Chief Operating Officer at Metro Fuel Oil. (Photo by Brad Linder)

For years, environmental activists have been demonstrating that you don’t need gasoline to fuel a
car. Some people have been retrofitting cars with diesel engines that can be powered by
restaurant grease. But with the price of oil soaring in recent years bio-diesel’s been getting more
popular. Brad Linder reports that it’s moving from a fuel for hobbyists to an energy alternative
that’s even getting the attention of oil companies:

Transcript

For years, environmental activists have been demonstrating that you don’t need gasoline to fuel a
car. Some people have been retrofitting cars with diesel engines that can be powered by
restaurant grease. But with the price of oil soaring in recent years bio-diesel’s been getting more
popular. Brad Linder reports that it’s moving from a fuel for hobbyists to an energy alternative
that’s even getting the attention of oil companies:


From a distance, Metro Fuel Oil in Brooklyn, New York looks like an over-sized gas station. And
in a way, that’s what it is. Truckers pull up to a series of pumps, grab a hose and load their tanks
with oil. It’ll be distributed to heating oil and diesel customers throughout the area.


Tom Torre is Metro’s chief operating officer. He says starting next year, some of those trucks
will be topping off with a blend of oil and vegetable-based bio-diesel:


“Kind of like if you’ve ever seen a Sunoco gas station where they had the different octanes you
can buy, same thing with the bio. It’d be B5, B10, B20, B15s, whatever they might utilize.”


In other words, you can get a blend… For example, B20 is 80% diesel and 20% bio-diesel.


For more than six decades, Metro has provided oil to residential and commercial customers. A
few years ago, Metro began importing processed bio-diesel from nearby states to fuel its own
fleet of 40 trucks.


But next year, the oil company plans start taking in raw vegetable oil and processing it on-site.
Metro’s planned 110 million gallon bio-diesel processing facility will be one of the largest in the
country.


Torre says Metro doesn’t expect to get out of the oil business anytime soon. But the company
does see a future for domestically-produced fuels like corn-based ethanol and vegetable-based
bio-diesel:


“And it’s good for the economy as well. I mean, you know, the numbers are astounding as to
how much we spend a day, billions of dollars a day, that are being spent on foreign imported oils that are going back to the Arabs where… and
nothing against the Arabs, don’t get me wrong, but it’s money flowing out of the United States.”


When the processing plant opens, Metro will be able convert large quantities of soybean, palm,
and rapeseed oil into fuel. With a few modifications, the facility could also process restaurant
grease:


“I’ve been here, with the company, for 25, 26 years. Most exciting thing that’s happened in at
least the last 20, 25 years. We’re looking to push this thing going forward. And with our
association as well, the New York Oil Heat Association, to say, listen guys. We’d better start
thinking about this. We’d better be forward thinkers. Otherwise we’re going to be left behind.”


But as more and more facilities like Metro’s pop up around the country, what happens to the
nation’s food supply? Bill Holmberg heads the biomass division of the American Council on
Renewable Energy. As the demand for vegetable-based fuels rises, he says so could the price of
foods based on corn and soybeans.


“I think there will be an increase in price in those. But I think they’re beginning to level off now,
I think people are beginning to realize that you can find other resources to make those diesel- type
fuels.”


Holmberg says if you make bio-diesel out of soybean oil, there’ll be less soybeans available for
food processing. But that’s not the case if you use restaurant grease. And researchers are looking
at ways to cultivate algae as a fast-growing source of vegetable oil for bio-diesel.


If the economic impact of bio-diesel remains unclear, Holmberg says there’s no question it’s
more environmentally friendly than petroleum. Bio-diesel emits far less carbon monoxide, sulfur,
and particulate matter than petroleum-based diesel.


The U.S. bio-diesel industry is still young. Last year, it processed less than 300 million gallons
of fuel, which is just a drop in the 40 billion gallon transportation diesel market. Holmberg says
even large facilities like Metro’s aren’t going to change that overnight:


“We, in the world of bio-fuels, ethanol, and bio-diesel and other forms of bio-fuels, will be
making a major contribution if we just do not increase the amount of fuels used in the
transportation sector, which we’re doing now. If we can just keep that number steady for a few
more years, we’re providing a real service to the United States.”


Holmberg hopes that ten years from now, facilities will be in place to actually reduce the amount
of petroleum used. He says that could be from a combination of ethanol, bio-diesel, gas electric
hybrid vehicles, and other technologies that are just in their infancy.


Metro’s Tom Torre doesn’t think the oil industry is going away anytime soon. But he says the
company’s willing to invest 15 million dollars in its new processing plant to help the
environment and to get in on a growing industry.


It doesn’t hurt that Metro can sell bio-diesel for almost the same price as oil. The federal
government provides a tax incentive for bio-diesel producers like Metro, and the state of New
York offers a tax credit to residents who purchase bio-diesel. Currently, that means it’s cheaper
to heat your house with a bio-diesel blend than with 100% petroleum-based heating oil.


Without those incentives, Torre says Metro would still be opening a processing facility — just a
much smaller one:


“It would definitely not have been a 110 million gallon plant. You know, we could have started it
off with 5 million gallons, let’s say, and just utilize it for people that really wanted to be green.
But when we took a hard look at it and saw that it could be competitive, especially last year as
the price of petroleum just soared, is when we really started to say you know what? Instead of
doing the 5 million, let’s just go right to the 110 million.”


Metro’s new bio-diesel processing plant – one of the biggest in the country – is scheduled to open
next fall.


For the Environment Report, I’m Brad Linder.

Related Links

Gao: Biofuel Distribution Problems

  • The GAO found distribution of biofuels is an obstacle to its wider use. (Photo by Lester Graham)

The federal government has no comprehensive plan to deal with an expected
increase in the production of biofuels. That’s according to a new study from
the Government Accountability Office. Dustin Dwyer reports that the lack of
a plan has some real consequences:

Transcript

The federal government has no comprehensive plan to deal with an expected
increase in the production of biofuels. That’s according to a new study from
the Government Accountability Office. Dustin Dwyer reports that the lack of
a plan has some real consequences:


Mark Gaffigan studies energy issues for the GAO. He says there are real problems
getting biofuel capable vehicles where they need to be. For example, when officials at the Post Office tried to buy these so-called flex-fuel vehicles, the only options available were trucks with a larger engine than it needed. On top of that, officials had trouble getting biofuel, so they just ran the vehicles on gasoline.


“So, in effect, what you had was the government with vehicles using more fuel, using
more oil because they weren’t as efficient, when the intent was to try to encourage people
to use flex-fuel vehicles and use some of this ethanol to displace oil.”


The GAO says the Secretary of Energy needs to develop a new strategy that considers
both the production and distribution of biofuels.


For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

Related Links

Corn Ethanol: Higher Food Prices

Some people are warning there are hidden costs
to the drive for ethanol. The demand for corn-based
ethanol for fuel has pushed the price of corn close
to the highest price it’s been in 10 years. In the
first of our two-part series on ethanol, Rebecca Williams
reports that economists say the push for more ethanol will
mean higher prices at the supermarket:

Transcript

Some people are warning there are hidden costs
to the drive for ethanol. The demand for corn-based
ethanol for fuel has pushed the price of corn close
to the highest price it’s been in 10 years. In the
first of our two-part series on ethanol, Rebecca Williams
reports that economists say the push for more ethanol will
mean higher prices at the supermarket:


(Sound of burger sizzling)


Everything in your classic American meal has one thing in common.


(Sound of soda can opening and fizzing)


The burger, chips, soda, even the ketchup. They all depend on corn.


Cows eat corn. Chips have corn oil in them. And your soda and ketchup
have high fructose corn syrup as a main ingredient. Supermarkets are
loaded with food that has something to do with corn.


And lately, corn’s been near its highest price in ten years. The price
has nearly doubled. Everyone from livestock producers to beverage
companies has been feeling the squeeze of more expensive corn. And
that’s been starting to show up at the grocery store.


The US Department of Agriculture predicts our food is going to get more
expensive this year, and maybe for many years to come.


Ephraim Leibtag is a USDA economist. He says we’ll probably be paying
between two and a half and three and a half percent more this year at
the store:


“That’s on average for your food bill. So if you’re buying an average
basket of products and you spend $100 when you go to the store, now
you’ll be spending $103. But you’ll see it first in products most
related to corn. In addition you’ll see some after-effects because if
more corn is produced that may drive up the price of other commodities
if the tradeoff in land is between, let’s say, corn and other potential farm
products.”


So if farmers plant more corn for ethanol instead of soybeans, that
will drive up the price of soybeans, and in turn, the food that’s made
from them.


It turns out that’s exactly what farmers are planning to do this year.
A recent USDA report says farmers will be planting 12 million more
acres of corn than last year… and less soybeans, and rice.


Leibtag says high corn prices have been great for corn farmers, but he
says it’s been rough on a lot of other people:


“If you use corn as a main ingredient you’ve already noticed your costs
go up quite a bit. Some companies have explored the possibility of
substituting or using other products. But certainly producers of livestock and
poultry have higher feed costs. They have to think about exactly how they’re
going to produce their product when one of their inputs goes up 20, 30,
50, 80 percent in price.”


Ethanol backers say it’s just a matter of time before the market will
adjust to more expensive corn. Bob Dinneen is the president of the
Renewable Fuels Association:


“Corn prices are indeed going up… Our own industry is paying more for feedstock for ethanol today. But
at the end of the day, as the marketplace adjusts, we’ll be able to grow
more than sufficient grain to satisfy the country’s demand for food,
fuel and fiber and rural America will be better for it.”


But others argue it won’t be possible to have it all forever. Lester
Brown is the president of the Earth Policy Institute:


“Usually in the past, rises in food prices come when we have a poor
harvest somewhere in the world as a result of weather and therefore is temporary. It usually
lasts a year or so and weather comes back to normal and we get a good
harvest again. What we’re looking at now is continuous pressure on
prices as far as we can comfortably see in the future, simply because in
agricultural terms, the demand for automotive fuel is insatiable.”


Brown says we’re at risk of trading food for ethanol fuel. And he says
it’s not just going to impact food prices in the US. It’s also going
to affect food supplies worldwide, especially in developing countries.


“The biggest effects are hitting people in other countries who consume
corn more directly, like Mexico for example, which has a corn-based diet and there
the price of tortillas has gone up about 60 percent.”


Brown says many US politicians have what he calls “ethanol euphoria.”
He’s called for a moratorium on licensing new ethanol plants. He wants
the government to think about whether it makes sense to keep
subsidizing ethanol made from corn.


Many people, even some in the ethanol industry, say ethanol from corn
is a limited solution. So researchers are looking for ways to make
ethanol from other sources, such as woody plants like switchgrass.


In the meantime, ethanol from corn is still the most viable option.
Economists say if corn gets diverted into ethanol on a large scale,
that might mean we’ll all be paying higher food prices for the next
several years.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Corn Ethanol: More Water Pollution

  • Corn requires more fossil fuel-based nitrogen fertilizer than many other crops. Tanks of pressurized anhydrous ammonia fixes nitrogen in the soil, but heavy rains can wash nitrogen into waterways. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Government-funded programs that pay for
conservation on farmland have done a lot to
improve the environment over the past twenty
years. The federal government has paid farmers
to take some cropland and set it aside to protect
waterways and wildlife habitat. In the second of
our two-part series on ethanol, Julie Grant reports
that some of that conservation is being stalled:

Transcript

Government-funded programs that pay for
conservation on farmland have done a lot to
improve the environment over the past twenty
years. The federal government has paid farmers
to take some cropland and set it aside to protect
waterways and wildlife habitat. In the second of
our two-part series on ethanol, Julie Grant reports
that some of that conservation is being stalled:


A good hard rain can wash a lot of valuable soil off a farm field.
John Wallbrown grows corn and soybeans on his farm. He says losing
soil is just like losing money. The soil carries with it all the
nutrients he’s put in the fields to help the crops grow, things such as
nitrogen and phosphorous. Wallbrown says he’s put in a good number of
grass waterways through the fields to help filter the water and hold on
to that soil:


“And so when you put in a grass waterway, it dramatically reduces the
amount of erosion. And it is just better for the water supply, better
for our crop. We’re keeping our soil in our field as opposed to it
getting put away.”


What Wallbrown calls nutrients in the field are considered pollution
once they wash into rivers and lakes. So Wallbrown says planting grass
near waterways is good for everyone. Except it means he’s got to use
land that otherwise could be growing crops, and that’s a loss of
income.


Wallbrown has gotten various government assistance to offset those
losses. The largest program, is called the Conservation Reserve Program, known as the
CRP for short.


John Johnson is with the US Department of Agriculture. He says when
you add up all the farms like John Wallbrown’s around the country, the
CRP is making a huge difference in reducing agricultural runoff into
waterways:


“Over 450 million tons of topsoil annually are prevented from eroding
because of CRP. We’ve got lots of really good benchmarks and measurements of
success of CRP, in both water quality, soil erosion and wildlife
habitat.”


But that set-aside land is in demand these days. There’s been a huge
call for bio-fuels to help reduce American dependence on foreign oil.
Bio-fuels are made from crops such as soybeans and corn, especially
corn. So Johnson says the government has decided to stop enrolling
new farmland into the conservation program:


“The overriding concern was that there is a need for a larger supply of
corn and soybeans and wheat production right now, so given the need for
that production, let’s just take a pause right now from enrolling large
acreage of additional farmland into the CRP.”


Corn is used to make ethanol, a fuel that’s now commonly blended with
gasoline. That’s caused corn prices to nearly double so farmers say
they’re planting 12 million acres more corn this year than last year.
That’s the most corn grown in the US in more than 50 years.


Ralph Grossi, director of the American Farmland Trust, says corn needs a
lot more nitrogen fertilizer than other crops. And when it rains,
nitrogen moves quickly from the fields to the waterways. That’s
especially true when grass strips don’t filter the runoff.


Grossi says that nitrogen drains into creeks and rivers from 36 states
into the Mississippi River and eventually to the Gulf of Mexico. There
it causes huge algae blooms that then die, sink, and the decaying
matter causes low oxygen in the water called hypoxia. That’s why the
Corn Belt has been blamed for creating a huge dead zone in the Gulf of
Mexico each year:


“If you increase corn production and don’t add the conservation practices
it will add nutrients and exacerbate problems in the gulf with hypoxia.
But it’s not just in the gulf, it’s problems for every local water
district that has to purify water for drinking and other urban
purposes. As they have to contend with more nutrients, that increases
their costs of cleaning the water.”


Grossi says the best place to clean the water is at the source. He
says that’s why the government must continue to help farmers pay for
grass waterways and buffer strips – those things prevent farm nutrients
from getting into the water in the first place. He says the need for
grass waters is even greater now that so much farmland is being planted
in corn to meet the demand for more ethanol.


For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Co2 “Upstream” Battle

There’s a lot of talk these days in Washington about creating new laws
to cut greenhouse gas emissions. One major question right now is how
the government will handle carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles. Any
new regulation is expected to have some financial impact on automakers.
And, as Dustin Dwyer reports, the carmakers are looking to share the
burden:

Transcript

There’s a lot of talk these days in Washington about creating new laws
to cut greenhouse gas emissions. One major question right now is how
the government will handle carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles. Any
new regulation is expected to have some financial impact on automakers.
And, as Dustin Dwyer reports, the carmakers are looking to share the
burden:


Back in March, the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing
on how the auto industry could help fight global warming. All the
bigwigs in the U.S. auto industry were there: the heads of Ford,
General Motors and Chrysler, the North American president of Toyota and
the head of the United Auto Workers.


At the hearing, all of them agreed they would support a cap on CO2
emissions from vehicles, but they had a sort of caveat:


“We believe that there’s a lot of merit to it. And we believe if it’s
upstream…”


“For Cap and Trade, I think the further upstream you go, the more
efficient you’re going to be.”


“I’d just echo the upstream part.”


“The upstream as I stated earlier and the rest is absolutely critical.”


That was Ron Gettlefinger of the UAW, Jim Press of Toyota, Alan Mulally
of Ford, and Tom Lasorda of Chrysler.


So what do they mean by “upstream”? Here’s Ford spokesman Mike Moran:


“Lower carbon fuels, so that it’s just not what comes out of the
tailpipe, but you’re moving upstream and including the fuels that would
be included in the equation in the transportation sector.”


Basically the idea is, if you have less carbon in the fuel, you’ll pump
less carbon dioxide into the air.


But car companies really can’t take the carbon out of fuel. That’s
really more of a job for the oil industry. So are auto executives just
passing the buck?


David Friedman of the Union of Concerned Scientists says yeah, they’re
dodging the issue:


“The auto companies are basically finding more creative ways to say,
‘No,’ they won’t do anything to improve their products.”


Auto executives would say they’re already working to improve their
products, with millions of ethanol-capable vehicles on the road, and a
growing number of gas-electric hybrids. And many in the auto industry feel that they’ve been singled out for
regulation in the past.


The carmakers main lobbying group, the Alliance of Automobile
Manufacturers says that for the past 30 years, the auto industry has
been the only industry subject to carbon dioxide regulations. Though
most people try to avoid saying so in public, there is clearly some
tension between the auto industry and the oil industry.


Louis Burke is with Conoco Phillips. He says his company is willing to
do more to cut greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the oil company just
came out in favor of setting up mandatory federal rules. Those include a
possible system that caps carbon dioxide emissions, and allows
companies to trade carbon credits as if they were commodities:


“You can cap and trade at some point down within the value chain,
whether it’s all the way upstream, or whether it’s pretty far downstream. You
can also apply a carbon tax throughout the whole value chain. The whole
idea is it’s gotta be transparent, it can’t penalize any one group.”


So upstream, downstream, the point is something needs to be done.


David Friedman of the Union of Concerned Scientists says everyone can
do a little more:


“Everyone has to do their part. That means car companies have to
produce vehicles to get more miles to the gallon. Oil companies need to
have lower carbon fuels and yes, even consumers need to find ways to
drive less.”


It’s still not clear what exactly what approach Congress will take
toward cutting auto emissions, but while leaders in Washington try to
settle on a plan, local and state officials across the country are
coming up with their own plans.


California and 10 other states have their own plans to regulate
tailpipe emissions. Those plans are being challenged in court by the
auto industry. And California has also gone forward with the nation’s first low carbon
standard for fuels.


That “upstream” plan has the support of both auto and oil companies.


For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

Related Links

Fruit Frostbite From Record Lows

Freezing temperatures recently descended on large sections of the country.
Record lows were registered from the south to the plains states. The
prolonged frost means entire crops of fruit and grain could be lost. Adam
Allington reports:

Transcript

Freezing temperatures recently descended on large sections of the country.
Record lows were registered from the South to the Plains states. The
prolonged frost means entire crops of fruit and grain could be lost. Adam
Allington reports:


Paul Peters has 500 acres of apples and peaches in central Missouri. Peters
says above average temperatures during the day and night advanced the
growing season by 2-3 weeks:


“We really didn’t cool down at night; I think probably was more of a concern then
reaching 60-70 degrees in the daytime. One of my partners here said he’d never seen an
apple blossom in March and this year he did.”


But then a week-long frost hit, right when crops were at their most
vulnerable.


Extensive damage has also been reported on crops of winter wheat, grapes
and cherries.


Some farmers will be able to till under failed wheat and alfalfa crops and
substitute corn. However, it may not be that simple since corn seed supplies
are already tight from higher than normal plantings for ethanol production.


For the Environment Report, I’m Adam Allington.

Related Links

A Better Bacteria for Bio-Fuel?

President Bush and others are promoting more use of plant-based
material to fuel our vehicles. Scientists say they’ve taken an
important step toward more efficient production of bio-fuels. Chuck
Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

President Bush and others are promoting more use of plant-based
material to fuel our vehicles. Scientists say they’ve taken an
important step toward more efficient production of bio-fuels. Chuck
Quirmbach reports:


Biofuel producers say they need to get a common plant sugar called
xylose to ferment to get an efficient conversion of plant material into
fuels like ethanol.


Researchers from the US Forest Products Lab and the Department of
Energy are working on the problem. They say they’ve now completed a
genetic map of a yeast that helps xylose ferment faster.


Micro-biologist Thomas Jeffries says with the new information about the
yeast, researchers plan to do more genetic tweaking:


“Well, we’ve been able to increase the specific fermentation rate of
this organism with one of our mutations, we’ve been able to increase it
by 50%, we really are aiming to get a four-fold increase.”


But Jeffries cautions there are still many steps before the work with
the yeast might pay off at your local gas station.


For the Environment report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach

Related Links