Term Paper on "Corn Ethanol"

Term Paper 14 pages (3874 words) Sources: 12 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Corn Ethanol

The Flawed Argument in Favor of Corn Ethanol as a Replacement for Fossil Fuels

There is a proven need, both environmentally and economically, for the world community to transfer its oil dependency to an alternative source of energy. Many industry and government agencies have endorsed the use of biofuels, such as ethanol and specifically corn-based ethanol in the United States, as a viable alternative fuel source. However, due to the inefficiency in the production process of biofuels, its implications to world agricultural exploitation, its threat of improper land use and the likely increase of world hunger, the biofuel movement should not be considered a viable replacement for petroleum. The research here will constitute an endorsement for a different form of alternative fuel from petroleum or biofuel.

Executive Summary

There is a clear and irrevocable need for the world community and major industrialized nations such as the United States to reduce their dependency on petroleum which, as a fuel source, is environmentally destructive and precipitous of fractious world politics. A popular interest has developed on the part of those in the agriculture and oil industries, as well as within the American government, of considering the potential value of biofuel as a viable alternative fuel source. Typically taking the form of ethanol, biofuel is in that context an alcohol-based fuel converted from the fermented sugars of plant cellulose. Given this point of origin, it is generally a cleaner burning fuel than most fossil fuels. For this reason, biofuels have commanded a great deal of attention in the discourse over possible alternative fuel foci.

However, several decades of refinement in the yielding and burning of biofuels have produced only modest progress at best, leaving us today with a fuel source that, while cleaner burning, is nonetheless distilled by an inefficient and costly process that benefits only modestly the interest of deriving energy. Moreover, evidence suggests that there are a great many conceptual drawbacks to a determined dependency on biofuels, which rely heavily on the use of agricultural, land, and labor-based resources for the production of fuel. The result would be, most research will reinforce, a shift away from food production and, therefore, and distinguishable destabilization of the world's food supply.

For these reasons and others that will likely be encountered by the source-gathering process, this research is intended to better understand the drawbacks to biofuel as they outweigh the prospective benefits.

Proposal: Critical Literature Review

The core reason for the current emphasis on biofuel as an alternative method to energy production is its wholesale endorsement by prominent sources of power in the government and in impacted industries. Indeed, as the research here will focus primarily on the United States for its observations, the focus on corn-based ethanol, which is determinably inefficient and negatively implicated on issues of world hunger, amongst lawmakers and industry-makers in the U.S. will draw the attention of a research investigation.

The research here proposes, therefore, a source review which is directed toward the support of theories asserting the negative consequences of making a transition toward biofuels, as opposed to engaging some other more effective means of energy generation.

The proposed study would seek to establish a body of information, through the evaluation of admitted sources, that may be used to counter the presence of misinformation amongst the supports of biofuel as a dominant energy supply.

Objective:

The research account will proceed from a position of opposition to an emphasis in the alternative fuel movement on biofuels. This position is taken on behalf of an interest in a meaningful shift away from the policies and philosophies associated with oil production as well as an interest in more constructively channeling the alternative fuel discourse. Therefore, this research is directed at decision makers in policy, industry and public advocacy.

Research Question and Thesis

The primary research question seeks to identify the consequences of a shift toward biofuels, and specifically toward corn ethanol, as a primary source of energy generation. In response to this proposed question, the tentative thesis statement argues that though often favored as an alternative fuel due to evidence that they are cleaner burning, biofuels should not be seen as a positive alternative fuel to petroleum due to the inefficiency of their production process and the likelihood that this would produce a resource shift instigating worldwide patterns of food shortage.

Introduction

The world's dependency upon petroleum and other fossil fuels comprises an energy scenario which cannot be sustained. In most scientifically informed circles, and within the context of the progressive political discourse, it is fairly well-understood that the environmental consequences of burning gasoline can no longer be endured. From the dangerous carbon emissions which add toxicity to the atmosphere to the costly and geologically degrading procedures of yielding the resource, the production of oil represents a waning approach to energy generation. Though resistance exists prominently in the form of industries and governments which benefit directly from the world's dependency on a resource quickly diminishing in availability, there is nonetheless a movement on the part of many more progressive organizations, corporations and world governments to pursue viable forms of alternative fuel generation. Among these, the development and endorsement of biofuels, and in particular of cellulose-based ethanol, as an eventual replacement for gasoline, has been the most institutionally popular ambition. However, most environmentalists and world humanitarian organizations argue that many of the drawbacks concerning environmental degradation and yield-inefficiency which we associate with oil production would only persist under this transference and that, moreover, many new problems concerning world food sources would arise.

Literature Review

Though the research process on the subject of biofuels had begun with a neutral orientation, and perhaps even a favorable bias based on the assumptive notion that the world must immediately begin the process of transition from petroleum to an alternative fuel source. However, upon initiating research into the subject, it became wholly apparent that the viable research available overwhelmingly argued that the negative consequences of a shift to biofuel far outweigh the benefits.

The Butler (2008) source would be amongst the more centrist of documents considered. An editorial designed to weigh the lessons learned with regard to the shortcomings of biofuels against the perceived benefits of continued process refinement, this ultimately constitutes one of the few works used here which advocates a continued strategic attention to biofuel development. Though this makes the source contrary to the primary thesis of the research project itself, the article would nonetheless offer some usefully balanced concessions as to the areas in which biofuel research still lags.

Another work which provides an endorsement for biofuel, the article by Dien et al. (2002) is one which is sourced directly to the corn-ethanol industry. Therefore, it is understood in entering a discussion with this document that its intent will be to endorse biofuels as a primary alternative fuel source. In that capacity, this work would be useful for its airing of statistical information and for its explicit counterpoint to the research otherwise produced by the examination.

Helping point the research toward an understanding of how such statistical evidence has been falsely endorsed, the EPA (2008) website is particularly useful. The government agency responsible for administering oversight and enforcement with regard to environmental policy, the EPA is distinctly guilty of over-emphasizing the value of corn-ethanol. This webpage is saturated by the undue attention to this method of alternative fuel, demonstrating the U.S. government to be out of step with current research on the subject.

Contrary to the problematic findings by the government, independent ventures are showing that there are positive ways to gain greater energy efficiency through innovation. As a counterpoint to the gross inefficiency of production methods and times associated with biofuels, the Freeman (2008) article highlights a recent UMass-based experiment which converted burning wood to clean burning fuel in under a minute. Touting a likely cost of between $1 and $1.7 per gallon, the creators of this technology serve as just one example of the many strides which might be made if we are to consciously draw the focus from biofuels and instead place it on innovation in the field of alternative fuel strategy.

Another more forward discussion on the subject, the article by Holt-Gimenez (2007) is a thorough and interesting refutation of biofuel as a viable alternative fuel. It is from this fiery article that much of the research assignment's assumptions on issues of world food distribution and agricultural shift are culled. The article in question tells in markedly explicit terms how the relationship between the exploitation of land, people and environment as seen at the behest of the oil industry would be instigated by an expansion of the biofuel industry as well.

An important historical document which was used in the research process, the Shappouri et al. (2002) report would constitute what remains today the final word on the subject of biofuel's value as an alternative fuel source. Officially accepted by the United States government for its endorsement of biofuel as justifying its processes by gaining rather than losing… READ MORE

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