This story was originally published byGrist.
Theres an intuition people have that burning plants is better than burning fossil fuels, said Timothy Searchinger.
Growing plants is good.
Photo: Scott Olson (Getty Images)
President Bidens landmark climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, outlined thebiggestfederal biofuels spending package in 15 years.
Regulators remain equally enamored.
No wonder the ethanol boom has been called the Great Corn Rush.
And a rush it has been.
Between 2008 and 2016, corn cultivation increased by about9 percent.
Nationwide, corn land expanded by more than11 million acresbetween 2005 and 2021.
A quarter of all the corn land in the U.S. is used for ethanol.
Its a land area equivalent to all the corn land in Minnesota and Iowa combined, said Hill.
Its not just what happens in the U.S. Its what happens globally.
As more land at home has been tilled to grow corn for ethanol, commodity prices havegone upworldwide.
In turn, growers seeking higher profits have embraced crops used to make biofuels.
It has also absorbed land that could be used to grow food or capture carbon.
We basically opened the floodgates, Searchinger said.
Growing more corn means usingmore nitrogen fertilizer, which emits nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas.
That number comes from a2021 analysisby researchers at Harvard University, Tufts University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
[And] it doesnt lead to lower emissions that affect air quality say, particulates.
In fact, theyre higher, Hill said.
Aside from ethanols environmental consequences, questions linger over its future in an increasingly electrified world.
In 2011, there were 22,000 EVs on U.S. roads.
Ten years later, there were2 million.
One in five cars sold around the world this year will be electric, the International Energy Agencyreportedlast week.
Hill said it has the same problems as the ethanol used to power cars.
Theres no reason to think theyre any different, he said.
Only time will tell if the new use of ethanol delivers the future the fuels supporters have long promised.
This article originally appeared inGristathttps://grist.org/agriculture/despite-what-you-may-think-ethanol-isnt-dead-yet/.
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