https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/457404-environmental-advocates-should-take-another-look-at
[I would add that U.S. farmers are seeing additional challenges due to
international trade uncertainty, unstable domestic policy, and growing
public resistance to Big Ag practices (e.g. overuse of glyphosate).]
Environmental advocates should take another look at biofuels
By Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and former Sen. Timothy Wirth (D-Colo.),
Opinion Contributors — 08/14/19 12:40 PM EDT
The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of
The Hill
The question of how best to address environmental challenges has
increasingly become a partisan flashpoint. So, when there is a green
solution on which many Republicans and Democrats see eye-to-eye, as we
do, it’s worth paying attention.
It’s time to take another look at biofuels.
The economic benefits to a hard-pressed farm economy are plain as day.
Renewable energy – not just biofuels, but also wind and solar – are
helping farmers and the rural economy survive in a year when the weather
has been unkind, to say the least.
There is a lot of talk about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but
what’s needed are practical strategies to get there. Transportation is
now the single greatest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United
States, making it critical to any carbon reduction strategy. But public
policy to date has put almost the entire burden of the sector’s
transformation on the nation’s vehicles. Shouldn’t the fuels they burn
get equal attention?
Look at the numbers: Even a rapid transition to electric vehicles will
leave hundreds of millions of conventional cars and trucks on U.S. roads
for the next 30 years. According to a review of the relevant studies by
USDA, Ethanol reduces carbon emissions by 40 percent or more compared to
gasoline. Increasing ethanol blends from the 10 percent used today by
most vehicles to 15 percent, now approved by the EPA, is an important
start – but we can do more.
There are also major public health benefits. Today, the octane in your
gasoline is supplied by a class of toxic chemicals called aromatics,
which make up roughly 25 percent of every gallon of gasoline. Breathing
in these toxins from car exhaust can cause cancer. Moreover, Frederica
Perera, head of the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health,
has shown through more than a decade of research that the worst
emissions from those chemicals – polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or
PAHs – have effects on pregnant women and small children comparable to
airborne lead: low birth weight, diminished IQ and cognitive and
behavioral disorders. In addition, fine particle pollution from
aromatics causes thousands of premature deaths each year.
Higher ethanol blends reduce the need for aromatics in gasoline. The
reason is that ethanol has higher octane than gasoline and improves
engine performance – with lower emissions. NASCAR vehicles run on 15
percent ethanol. Those blends should become standard nationwide.
We should also give more attention to the potential of higher blends of
ethanol for engine performance. With wider availability, automakers
could tune their engines to perform even better than they do today.
Research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has shown that mid-level
blends of 25-40 percent, despite the lower energy content of ethanol,
can match the vehicle fuel efficiency of cars running on today’s blends.
Indeed, a multiyear study by the Department of Energy points to such
blends as the best way to optimize vehicle and fuel performance. Blends
of 30 percent are being used by the city fleet in Watertown, S.D,, with
great success, and Nebraska is testing them in its state fleet. In
Brazil today, every vehicle on the road (along with motorcycles and
off-road equipment like boats) runs on a minimum of 27 percent ethanol.
It’s still true today that America’s national, energy and economic
security is tied to our economic and consumer dependence on oil imported
from volatile regions of the world. Using our farm commodities and
agricultural by-products – such as corn, soybeans, switchgrass and
livestock waste – and capturing natural resources – such as wind – to
produce homegrown renewable energy is a winning solution to address the
nation’s energy and climate challenges. Despite relentless
misinformation campaigns by the oil industry and its allies, ethanol
should again be seen and valued for what it is – a cleaner, healthier
renewable fuel produced in the USA.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has served in the U.S. Senate since 1981
and Sen. Timothy Wirth (D-Colo.) served in the U.S. Senate from 1987 to
1993.
--
Darryl McMahon
Freelance Project Manager (sustainable systems)
=====================================
To subscribe, unsubscribe, turn vacation mode on or off,
or carry out other user-actions for this list, visit
https://www.freelists.org/list/keiths-list
Note: new climate change website is now in pre-launch
Visit https://www.10n10.ca/e/index.shtml