Ethanol Responds to Scam Article
Posted: March 31, 2008
The Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC) has responded to the current Time Magazine cover story “The Clean Energy Scam.”
In a letter to the editor of Time, EPIC executive director Toni Nuernberg says the article makes corn-based ethanol “the scapegoat of the week.”
She notes that the studies alluded to in the article, although not specifically referenced, (authored by Timothy Searchinger and Joseph Fargione) “reach conclusions regarding the greenhouse gas emissions associated with potential global land-use changes caused by increasing biofuels demand — specifically for corn-based ethanol. Their conclusions are considered debatable by others in the scientific community.”
She also points out that the studies make assumptions that are unrealistic.
(The assumptions) double the level of corn ethanol that is actually required under the new Renewable Fuels Standards by 2015, an assumption that’s not realistic to U.S. corn ethanol production in the next seven years. Congress established a production cap of 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol by 2015 to help guard against dramatic land use changes. But Searchinger bases his projections on a model in which U.S. corn ethanol production increased from 15 billion gallons a year to 30 billion gallons a year by 2015. Thus, the findings are irrelevant.
Finally, she says, “today’s grain-based ethanol industry is providing the auto industry with incentive to manufacture flex-fuel and alternative-fuel vehicles and creating an infrastructure to distribute ethanol produced from any feedstock.”
You can read Toni’s entire letter on DomesticFuel.com.
Unfortunately, the Time article is filled with sensationalism, emotionalism and just plain misinformation that will lead the public to believe that corn ethanol is starving the world and responsible for for everything from destabilization in Pakistan to deforestation in Brazil. Toni’s letter is likely too long to make it into the Time letters to the editor, if they would even include it - but ethanol supporters everywhere who feel that they are being slandered by that article should respond with a deluge of letters to the magazine.
Bob Moffitt Said,
April 1, 2008 @ 10:11 am
Time Loves Our Addiction To Oil?
Michael Grunwell’s sweeping indictment of the biofuels movement in “The Clean Energy Scam” was the most stunning piece of misinformation I have seen published in a major news outlet. The article laid the blame for everything from destabilization in Pakistan to deforestation in Brazil at the feet of biofuel. Astonishingly, Grunwell did not quote a single supporter of the cleaner-burning fuel in the cover article!
The simple facts are these:
• There is a clear scientific consensus that vehicles using E85 or biodiesel emit significantly less air pollution than those using traditional fuels.
• A typical E85 user prevents 4 tons of lifecycle carbon dioxide (CO2) and other harmful pollutants from entering our air every year.
• The National Renewable Energy Laboratory reports that biodiesel (B100) use reduces lifecycle carbon dioxide emissions by 78%.
Space does not allow for me to point out the many errors in fact, rampant speculation, and use of discredited data and opinion contained in Grunswell’s article – I’m sure others will step up to that task. Let me just say that the American Lung Association of the Upper Midwest remains a strong supporter of cleaner-burning biofuels such as E85 and biodiesel, and we reject its unfair labeling as a “scam.”
Harold Wimmer, CEO
American Lung Association of the Upper Midwest
SPRINGFIELD, IL