Fact Sheet: Ethanol Biorefineries

[Print­able PDF ver­sion of this fact­sheet]

[Print­able foot­notes]

Ethanol Basics

The pri­ma­ry feed­stock of ethanol is corn.¹ Cur­rent­ly 18% of the U.S. corn crop² and 15% of the sorghum crop goes into ethanol pro­duc­tion annu­al­ly. ³ The U.S. annu­al­ly con­sumes 142 bil­lion gal­lons of gaso­line⁴ and now has the capa­bil­i­ty to pro­duce a record 7.2 bil­lion gal­lons of ethanol per year.⁵ The Ener­gy Pol­i­cy Act of 2005 man­dates pro­duc­tion of 7.5 bil­lion gal­lons per year by 2012⁶ and the Ener­gy Inde­pen­dence and Secu­ri­ty Act of 2007 cre­ates an impos­si­ble goal of pro­duc­ing 36 bil­lion gal­lons of renew­able fuels, includ­ing 17 bil­lion gal­lons of corn ethanol by 2022.⁷ Achiev­ing this will require approx­i­mate­ly 83 mil­lion acres⁸ —almost 90% of the cur­rent corn pro­duc­tion in the entire Unit­ed States.⁹ This is spawn­ing a mas­sive growth in pro­pos­als for noisy,¹⁰ pol­lut­ing ethanol biore­finer­ies, but will do lit­tle to cut oil imports. A 1997 con­gres­sion­al report con­clud­ed, “ethanol’s poten­tial for sub­sti­tut­ing for petro­le­um is so small that it is unlike­ly to sig­nif­i­cant­ly affect over­all ener­gy secu­ri­ty.“¹¹

As of July 2008, there are 160 ethanol plants in oper­a­tion, 7 being expand­ed and 123 more under con­struc­tion.¹² A total of about 200–300 are pro­posed.¹³

more on Ethanol Basics

Industrial Agriculture — Food Vs. Fuel?

Of all crops grown in the U.S., corn demands the most mas­sive fix­es of her­bi­cides, insec­ti­cides, and nat­ur­al gas-based fer­til­iz­ers, while cre­at­ing the most soil ero­sion.¹⁴ 85% of U.S. corn is genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered.¹⁵ Ethanol is increas­ing­ly derived from biotech corn vari­eties.¹⁶ USDA Pro­pos­es First Ever Indus­tri­al GE Crop

Biotech corn comes in two main vari­eties: one where the corn pro­duces Bt tox­in to kill the Euro­pean corn bor­er, and one that enables the corn to with­stand high­er dos­es of com­mer­cial her­bi­cides like Aven­tis’ Lib­er­ty or Mon­san­to’s Roundup,¹⁷ with Roundup hav­ing been found to be more tox­ic than pre­vi­ous­ly thought, espe­cial­ly to amphib­ians.¹⁸ Both Bt and her­bi­cide-resis­tant corn can lead to the devel­op­ment of resis­tance in bugs and weeds. Bt is a soil bac­te­ria used as a pes­ti­cide of last resort by organ­ic farm­ers because Bt resis­tant bugs are a major prob­lem. Both meth­ods also risk genet­ic pol­lu­tion,¹⁹ spread­ing the biotech attrib­ut­es to near­by crops, wild rel­a­tives or weeds.²⁰

Meet­ing the life­time fuel require­ments of just one year’s worth of U.S. pop­u­la­tion growth with straight ethanol (assum­ing each baby lived 70 years), would cost 52,000 tons of insec­ti­cides, 735,000 tons of her­bi­cides, 93 mil­lion tons of fer­til­iz­er, and the loss of 2 inch­es of soil from the 12.3 bil­lion acres on which the corn was grown.²¹ The U.S. only has 2.263 bil­lion acres of land and soil deple­tion is already a crit­i­cal issue. Soil is being lost from corn plan­ta­tions about 12 times faster than it is being rebuilt.²²

Wet­lands – the most pro­duc­tive fish and wildlife habi­tat there is – con­sume nitro­gen and fil­ter out pes­ti­cides and sed­i­ments, but wet­lands are being drained in order to pro­duce sur­plus corn. The Corn Belt has lost about 70 per­cent of its wet­lands. In some areas, corn has to be irri­gat­ed by pumps that suck water from the ground faster than it per­co­lates back in. More­over, the pumps are pow­ered by nat­ur­al gas, the fren­zied pro­duc­tion of which is cre­at­ing hor­ren­dous prob­lems for fish and wildlife.²³

more on Indus­tri­al Agri­cul­ture and Food Vs. Fuel

Energy (in)Security

Ethanol is pro­mot­ed in “ener­gy secu­ri­ty” terms, yet our abil­i­ty to grow corn is increas­ing­ly depen­dent on for­eign sources of essen­tial fer­til­iz­er nutri­ents nitro­gen, phos­pho­rus, and potas­si­um.²⁴ Nitro­gen for com­mer­cial use is pri­mar­i­ly recov­ered from the air as ammo­nia (NH4), which is pro­duced by com­bin­ing atmos­pher­ic nitro­gen with hydro­gen derived from nat­ur­al gas.²⁵ Ris­ing nat­ur­al gas prices have con­tributed to a 172% increase in the cost of U.S. ammo­nia pro­duc­tion between the fis­cal years of 1999 and 2005.²⁶ Between 1991 and 2007, nitro­gen-based fer­til­iz­er imports tripled, from 14% to 42%²⁷ and increas­ing to 48% in 2008. Many of the ammo­nia fer­til­iz­er plants in the U.S. have shut down due to high nat­ur­al gas prices, mov­ing pro­duc­tion over­seas.²⁸

Fac­to­ry farm­ing prac­tices uti­lize phos­pho­rus to pro­duce corn for ethanol and pro­duc­tion depends on the avail­abil­i­ty of this min­er­al for the via­bil­i­ty of the soil. In 2007, U.S. pro­duc­tion slipped below 30 mil­lion tons for the first time in over 40 years.²⁹ With the decline in pro­duc­tion and increased usage from more corn plant­i­ng for ethanol we are increas­ing our depen­dence on for­eign sources to sus­tain our phos­pho­rus needs. USGS esti­mates that aside from the U.S., the world’s largest phos­phate rock stores exist in Chi­na, a bud­ding super­pow­er and geopo­lit­i­cal rival, and Moroc­co, a region of increas­ing unrest and attacks.³⁰

Potash is the major source of potas­si­um. In 2007 the U.S. import­ed over 80% of the potash con­sumed, with 85% of all potash sales going direct­ly to the fer­til­iz­er indus­try.³¹

Increased glob­al fer­til­iz­er demand, the weak­en­ing of the dol­lar, ris­ing cost of inputs, and dimin­ish­ing nat­ur­al resources have all con­tributed to a stark rise in nitro­gen-based fer­til­iz­er prices in the U.S. USDA data indi­cate that in June 2008, aver­age fer­til­iz­er prices stood 286% high­er than their 1990–92 lev­el.³² Clear­ly, the idea that indus­tri­al agri­cul­ture could achieve “ener­gy inde­pen­dence” for the Unit­ed States is noth­ing but a polit­i­cal farce.

Polluting Biorefineries

Ethanol pro­duc­tion is very ener­gy inten­sive, requir­ing mini-pow­er plants just to pro­duce the steam they need. Some pro­posed ethanol plants have sought to locate next to exist­ing trash incin­er­a­tors, coal or waste coal pow­er plants or oth­er indus­tries capa­ble of shar­ing steam with their new indus­tri­al neigh­bors. This may save ener­gy, but it results in the con­cen­trat­ing of pol­lut­ing indus­tries in already poi­soned com­mu­ni­ties. Most ethanol plants have their own pow­er pro­duc­tion facil­i­ties, usu­al­ly burn­ing nat­ur­al gas, but some have been coal-pow­ered. Dur­ing the ethanol biore­fin­ery build­ing binge around 2005, when coal was cheap and gas was still expen­sive, it was fore­cast that near­ly all new ethanol facil­i­ties would burn coal.³³ Thank­ful­ly, that did­n’t seem to hap­pen. Some of the pro­posed ethanol plants sought to install gasi­fi­ca­tion-style incin­er­a­tors capa­ble of burn­ing any­thing from very tox­ic waste streams like trash, tires, plas­tics, con­struc­tion and demo­li­tion wood waste to less­er con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed wastes like ani­mal, crop and food pro­duc­tion wastes and forestry residues. All of these fuels have their own set of con­t­a­m­i­nants that would be released into the com­mu­ni­ty through air pol­lu­tion and the pro­duc­tion of tox­ic ash. Since the facil­i­ty can make more mon­ey serv­ing as a waste dis­pos­al site by tak­ing the more dan­ger­ous waste streams, this eco­nom­ic incen­tive will encour­age these plants to become de fac­to incin­er­a­tors for trash and tires.

Oth­er parts of the biore­fin­ery pro­duc­tion process release pol­lu­tion as well. Prod­ded by hun­dreds of com­plaints at the Gopher State Ethanol plant in St. Paul, where res­i­dents com­plained that the plant smelled like “rub­bing alco­hol mixed with burn­ing corn,” the Min­neso­ta Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Agency began test­ing emis­sions from the plant. They found high lev­els of car­bon monox­ide, methanol, toluene and oth­er Volatile Organ­ic Com­pounds, includ­ing formalde­hyde and acetalde­hyde, both of which are known to cause can­cer in animals.

The EPA then test­ed oth­er ethanol plants and con­clud­ed that “most, if not all” ethanol plants are emit­ting air pol­lu­tants at many times the rate allowed by their per­mits. Between 2002 and 2005, EPA set­tled cas­es with ADM and Cargill, the largest ethanol pro­duc­ers, over their 9 ethanol plants, forc­ing them to pay out over $485 mil­lion for these and oth­er facil­i­ties, most­ly to invest in after­burn­ers to burn off the exhaust gas­es that cause most of the odors. Set­tle­ments with 12 Min­neso­ta ethanol plants result­ed in sim­i­lar require­ments to cut back on emis­sions of nitro­gen oxides, car­bon monox­ide, volatile organ­ic com­pounds, par­tic­u­lates, and oth­er haz­ardous pol­lu­tants.³⁴

Even after installing new equip­ment, neigh­bor­hood res­i­dents con­tin­ue to com­plain of odors and ill health effects, since emis­sions still con­tin­ue through leak­ing pipes and through vents when the pol­lu­tion con­trol equip­ment isn’t work­ing.³⁵

more on Pol­lut­ing Biorefineries

Water Use and Pollution

For each gal­lon of ethanol pro­duced, typ­i­cal ethanol plants con­sume 3.5 to 6 gal­lons of water ³⁶ and pro­duce 12 gal­lons of sewage-like efflu­ent in the fer­men­ta­tion and dis­til­la­tion process.³⁷ Syrup, batch­es of bad ethanol, and sewage are dumped into streams, threat­en­ing fish and plants with chlo­ride, cop­per and oth­er wastes which deprive waters of oxy­gen when they decom­pose. A state inspec­tor in Iowa report­ed that a creek next to the ethanol plant in Sioux Cen­ter was milky and smelled like sewage.³⁸

more on Water Use and Pollution

Ethanol Vs. MTBE

For years, ethanol was pro­mot­ed as the only alter­na­tive to MTBE, a oxy­genate used in gaso­line to meet fed­er­al require­ments for con­trol­ling ground-lev­el ozone. These require­ments were kept in place despite over­whelm­ing sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence that mod­ern blends of gaso­line with­out ethanol or MTBE burn more clean­ly than the refor­mu­lat­ed gaso­line that was required in ozone non-attain­ment areas. A Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences report con­clud­ed that the “com­mon­ly avail­able ethanol and MTBE blends do lit­tle to reduce smog.” They also found that, com­pared with MTBE blends, ethanol blends result in more pol­lu­tants evap­o­rat­ing from vehi­cle gas tanks.³⁹ The Ener­gy Bill final­ly scrapped the oxy­genate require­ment, but man­dat­ed a dou­bling of nation­al ethanol pro­duc­tion and use.⁴⁰

more on Ethanol Vs. MTBE

Ethanol — The Fuel

Ethanol evap­o­rates faster than gaso­line. So while gaso­line refor­mu­lat­ed with ethanol may release less car­bon monox­ide, it releas­es more volatile organ­ic com­pounds, hydro­car­bons, and nitro­gen oxides. You have more vapor emis­sions when you’re refu­el­ing and when your car is sit­ting in a park­ing lot on a hot sum­mer day. And ethanol can degrade sys­tems in cars and boats, so you’ll get more leaks.⁴¹

Ethanol costs three and a half times as much as gaso­line to pro­duce⁴² and con­tains only 60% as much ener­gy per gal­lon as gaso­line.⁴³ So, while a gal­lon of ethanol-blend­ed gas may cost the same as reg­u­lar gaso­line at the pump, it won’t take you as far.

Ethanol must be blend­ed with gaso­line. But ethanol absorbs water. Gaso­line does­n’t. There­fore, ethanol can­not be shipped by reg­u­lar petro­le­um pipelines. Instead, it must be shipped sep­a­rate­ly and mixed on-site. Ship­ping by truck, rail car, or barge are far more expen­sive than pipelines.⁴⁴ They also car­ry larg­er risks of acci­dents dur­ing shipping.

more on Ethanol — The Fuel

Fires, Spills, and Explosions

Numer­ous fires, explo­sions and spills have occurred at ethanol plants and in ship­ping.⁴⁵ In Octo­ber 2003, a tank hold­ing 40,000 gal­lons of corn mash explod­ed at a Ben­son, MN ethanol plant, killing one work­er and caus­ing a near­by 2,000 gal­lon ethanol tanker truck to burst into flames.⁴⁶ In Jan­u­ary 2004, an explo­sion caused a fierce fire at an Aus­tralian ethanol stor­age tank that took 14 fire crews over 20 hours to extin­guish. Tail lights melt­ed on cars parked 200 feet away.⁴⁷ In Feb­ru­ary 2004, a tanker car­ry­ing 3.5 mil­lion gal­lons of ethanol explod­ed and sank off of the coast of Vir­ginia. Only six of the 27-mem­ber crew sur­vived.⁴⁸ In May 2004, fire­fight­ers spent 16 hours bat­tling a fire at an ethanol plant in Caro, MI.⁴⁹ In Sep­tem­ber 2005, a tanker truck spilled at least 2,000 gal­lons of ethanol onto the ground and into sew­ers in Brent­wood, OH, dis­plac­ing 300 res­i­dents in the sub­se­quent evac­u­a­tion and loos­en­ing up the tar on the road, required that it be repaved.⁵⁰

more on Fires, Spills, and Explosions

Magnets for Corporate Factory Farms

Among the waste by-prod­ucts of ethanol pro­duc­tion is a corn mash known as dis­tiller’s grains. The large vol­umes of this waste prod­uct have to go some­where. Ethanol plant oper­a­tors – to save costs – seek to use this as ani­mal feed, regard­less of whether it’s nutri­tious and appro­pri­ate for such use. Iowa – the nation’s #1 state for ethanol plants – is see­ing a large influx of cor­po­rate dairy oper­a­tions now. Researchers have also found ways to pro­duce hog feed with 30–40% gluten (ethanol plant pro­tein mash). Ethanol plants could sev­er as mag­nets for attract­ing fac­to­ry farms. This part­ner­ship adds insult to injury for com­mu­ni­ties bear­ing the bur­den of hous­ing ethanol plants. Iowa – the nation’s #1 state for ethanol plants – is cur­rent­ly see­ing a large influx of cor­po­rate dairy oper­a­tions. Fur­ther­more, a study pub­lished by Kansas State Uni­ver­si­ty researchers in Decem­ber of 2007 found an increased preva­lence of the dead­ly E. coli 0157 bac­teri­um in the hind-gut of cat­tle fed distiller’s grains.⁵¹ This strong­ly sug­gests a link between the increased use of distiller’s grains by the beef indus­try and the increased preva­lence of nation-wide beef recalls due to E. coli 0157 contamination.

more on Ethanol and Fac­to­ry Farms

Net Energy: More Harm than Good?

Ethanol pro­duc­tion using corn grain requires 29% more fos­sil ener­gy than the ethanol fuel pro­duces. Using switch­grass requires 50% more; wood bio­mass: 57% more.⁵² Inef­fi­cient solar cells pro­duce about 100 times more elec­tric­i­ty than corn ethanol.⁵³

more on Net Ener­gy

Billions in Subsidies

Many bil­lions of dol­lars go to sub­si­diz­ing the corn indus­tryand ethanol pro­duc­tion. This mon­ey could go much fur­ther if invest­ed in the tran­si­tion to con­ser­va­tion, effi­cien­cy, wind and solar. The need for com­bustible fuels in trans­porta­tion can be elim­i­nat­ed with the use of elec­tric cars (and plug-in hybrids in the short term), using wind­pow­ered elec­tric­i­ty, at a cost less than $1/gallon gaso­line equiv­a­lent.⁵⁴

Increas­ing the aver­age mileage of pas­sen­ger cars and SUVs by 3–5 miles per gal­lon would dwarf the effects of all pos­si­ble bio­fu­el pro­duc­tion from all sources of bio­mass avail­able in the U.S. Inflat­ing pas­sen­ger car tires prop­er­ly today will have more impact on the ener­gy inde­pen­dence of U.S. than the 2012 ethanol pro­duc­tion require­ments.⁵⁵

more on Sub­si­dies

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also, more on Exist­ing and Pro­posed Ethanol Plants / Oppo­si­tion Groups

Footnotes

1. www.ethanolfacts.com, ©2007 Nation­al Corn Grow­ers Asso­ci­a­tion. http://www.ethanolfacts.com/ETHL2007/ebasics.html About 5 per­cent of U.S. ethanol is made from sug­ar- and starch-con­tain­ing mate­ri­als oth­er than corn. These include wheat, bar­ley, and sorghum grains; sug­ar­cane; cheese whey; and wastes from paper mills, pota­to pro­cess­ing plants, brew­eries, and bev­er­age man­u­fac­tur­ers-or some com­bi­na­tion of these materials.
2. “Ethanol Facts: Agri­cul­ture.” Renew­able Fuels Asso­ci­a­tion. http://www.ethanolrfa.org/resource/facts/agriculture/
3. SORGHUM and ethanol June 2008. www.sorghumgrowers.com/SORGHUM-to-Ethanol
4. Based on 2006 Annu­al Data http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_psup_dc_nus_mbbl_a.htm
5. Renew­able Fuels Asso­ci­a­tion (RFA) “Ethanol Indus­try Overview” sec­tion.www.ethanolrfa.org/industry/statistics/
6. Ener­gy Pol­i­cy Act of 2005. Sec­tion 1501 man­dates 7.5 bil­lion gal­lons of ethanol use by 2012 (link)
7. Ener­gy Inde­pen­dence and Secu­ri­ty Act, passed into law under the Bush admin­is­tra­tion on Decem­ber 19, 2007. New bio­fu­el stan­dards list­ed in Title II Sec­tion 203 of HR6 Infor­ma­tion may be accessed at: www.GovTrack.us. H.R. 6–110th Con­gress (2007): Ener­gy Inde­pen­dence and Secu­ri­ty Act of 2007, via GovTrack.us, a data­base of fed­er­al leg­is­la­tion http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?tab=summary&bill=h110‑6
8. Cur­rent­ly, to pro­duce 7 bil­lion gal­lons of ethanol requires 34 mil­lion acres of corn. At 17 bil­lion gal­lons, corn acreage will equal 17/7*34 mil­lion acres (=82.57 million)
9. Accord­ing to the Nation­al Corn Grow­ers Asso­ci­a­tion, July 2008 http://www.ncga.com/growersresources/sharefacts/Sustainability.asp
10. Seth Slabaugh. “Ethanol Plan­t’s Noise Annoys Neigh­bors.” The Star Press. (Muncie, IN.) 11 Sept 2005. for­mer­ly at
    http://www.thestarpress.com/articles/0/046436–2730-004.html
11. Robert Bryce. “Corn Dog.” Slate Mag­a­zine. 19 July 2005. http://slate.msn.com/id/2122961/
12. “Plant Loca­tions.” Renew­able Fuels Asso­ci­a­tion. www.ethanolrfa.org/biorefinery-locations/
13. “A Car­bon Cloud Hangs Over Green Fuel,” Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor, March 23, 2006. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0323/p01s01-sten.html (also post­ed athttp://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/33969/); also cit­ed in “Warts and Ethanol – A new reliance on coal could sap green cred from the ethanol indus­try,” Grist, May 25,
    2006. http://www.grist.org/news/muck/2006/05/26/unethacoal/ Both arti­cles cite McIl­vaine Com­pa­ny (www.mcilvainecompany.com).
14. Ted Williams. “Drunk on Ethanol.” Audubon. Aug. 2004. http://magazine.audubon.org/incite/incite0408.html
15. USDA Eco­nom­ic Research Ser­vice. “Adop­tion of Genet­i­cal­ly Engi­neered Crops in the U.S.”
    http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/BiotechCrops/ExtentofAdoptionTable1.htm
16. “Green Ethanol Pro­vides Envi­ron­men­tal Advan­tages.” Coun­cil for Biotech­nol­o­gy Infor­ma­tion. http://www.whybiotech.com/index.asp?id=5174
17. Dr. Charles M. Ben­brook, “Fac­tors Shap­ing Trends in Corn Her­bi­cide Use,” Ag BioTech InfoNet Tech­ni­cal Paper Num­ber 5, North­west Sci­ence and Envi­ron­men­tal
    Pol­i­cy Cen­ter, July 23, 2001. http://www.biotech-info.net/corn_reduct.html Study shows slight increase in Roundup her­bi­cide on Roundup Ready corn.
18. Rick A. Relyea. “The Impact Of Insec­ti­cides And Her­bi­cides On The Bio­di­ver­si­ty And Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty Of Aquat­ic Com­mu­ni­ties,” Eco­log­i­cal Appli­ca­tions: Vol. 15, No.
    2 (April 2005), pp. 618–627. http://www.pitt.edu/~biohome/Dept/pdf/1616.pdf See also Dr. Relyea’s Response to Mon­san­to’s Con­cerns About His Research on the Tox­i­c­i­ty of Her­bi­cide Roundup. Relyea Lab, Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh.
    http://www.pitt.edu/~relyea/Site/Roundup.html
19. “Crops Under Ques­tion – a brief­ing book on genet­i­cal­ly ‑engi­neered Bt crops,” Genet­i­cal­ly Engi­neered Food Alert, Aug 2001.http://www.gefoodalert.org/library/admin/uploadedfiles/Crops_Under_Question_A_Briefing_Book_on_Geneti.pdf
20. Ag BioTech InfoNet, “Insect Resis­tance.” http://www.biotech-info.net/bt-transgenics.html#corn
21. David Pimen­tal. “Ethanol Fuels: Ener­gy Bal­ance, Eco­nom­ics, and Envi­ron­men­tal Impacts are Neg­a­tive.” Nation­al Resources Research Vol. 12 No. 2 (June 2003).
    https://energyjusticenetwork.org/ethanol/pimentel2003.pdf
22. Ted Williams. “Drunk on Ethanol.” Audubon. Aug. 2004. http://magazine.audubon.org/incite/incite0408.html
23. Ibid.
24. “Hunger for Nat­ur­al Gas” by Stan Cox. Alter­Net, Oct 12, 2005. http://www.alternet.org/story/26703/
25. U.S. Geo­log­i­cal Sur­veys, Min­er­al Com­mod­i­ty Sum­maries, Jan­u­ary 2008, Nitro­gen http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/nitrogen/mcs-2008-nitro.pdf
26. The Fer­til­iz­er Insti­tute pub­li­ca­tion http://www.tfi.org/publications/pricespaper.pdf
27. Unit­ed States Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey: Nitro­genhttp://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/nitrogen/. For 2008 go to http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/nitrogen/mcs-2009-nitro.pdf
28. Supra #26.
29. Unit­ed States Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey: Phos­phatehttp://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/phosphate_rock/
30. U.S. Geo­log­i­cal Sur­veys, Min­er­al Com­mod­i­ty Sum­maries, Jan­u­ary 2008, Phos­phate: http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/phosphate_rock/mcs-2008-phosp.pdf
31. U.S. Geo­log­i­cal Sur­veys, Min­er­al Com­mod­i­ty Sum­maries, Jan­u­ary 2008, Potash: http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/potash/mcs-2008-potas.pdf
32. Supra #26.
33. Robert McIl­vaine, pres­i­dent of McIl­vaine Com­pa­ny, as quot­ed in arti­cles cit­ed above in foot­note #13.
    
34. “Ethanol Plant Clean Air Act Enforce­ment Ini­tia­tive.” U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency. http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/cases/civil/caa/ethanol/
35. Mary Losure. “Gopher State Ethanol Prob­lems Trig­ger Nation­al Crack­down.” 23 Sept 2002. Min­neso­ta Pub­lic Radio News.
    http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/200209/23_losurem_ethanol/
    
36. “Water Sup­ply Can’t Meet Thirst For New Indus­try,” Min­neapo­lis Star Tri­bune, Decem­ber 26, 2005. For­mer­ly at
    http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/5801665.html
    
37. Ted Williams. “Drunk on Ethanol.” Audubon. Aug. 2004. http://magazine.audubon.org/incite/incite0408.html
    
38. Per­ry Bee­man. “Ethanol Plants Among Iowa’s Pol­luters.” The Des Moines Reg­is­ter. 11 Sept 2005. DesMoinesRegister.com.
    https://www.thoughtfulcambrians.org/docs/091105dmrethpollute.pdf
    
39. Nation­al Acad­e­mies News Office. “Com­mon­ly Avail­able Ethanol and MTBE Gaso­line Blends Do Lit­tle to Reduce Smog.” The Nation­al Acad­e­mies. May 11, 1999.http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/0309064457?OpenDocument Full report on “Ozone-Form­ing Poten­tial of Refor­mu­lat­ed Gaso­line” is here:
    http://www.nap.edu/books/0309064457/html/
    
40. Ener­gy Pol­i­cy Act of 2005. Sec­tion 1504 elim­i­nat­ed the oxy­genate require­ment. Sec­tion 1501 man­dates 7.5 bil­lion gal­lons of ethanol use by 2012.
    http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_bills&docid=f:h6enr.txt.pdf
    
41. Ted Williams. “Drunk on Ethanol.” Audubon. Aug. 2004. http://magazine.audubon.org/incite/incite0408.html
    
42. Ibid.
43. (ethanol = 75,700 Btu/gallon; gaso­line = 125,000 Btu/gallon). “Bioen­er­gy Con­ver­sion Fac­tors.” Bioen­er­gy Infor­ma­tion Net­work. Oak Ridge Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry.
    http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/misc/energy_conv.html
    
44. Robert Bryce. “Corn Dog.” Slate Mag­a­zine. 19 July 2005. http://slate.msn.com/id/2122961/
    
45. “Ethanol Plant Inci­dents.” Cam­bri­ans for Thought­ful Devel­op­ment. http://homepage.mac.com/oscura/ctd/incidents.html
    
46. Mara H. Got­tfried. “Ethanol Plant Blast Kills 1.” Pio­neer Press. 23 Oct. 2003. TwinCities.com. http://homepage.mac.com/oscura/ctd/docs/pioneerpresssbenson.pdf
    
47. Angela Kam­per and Matthew Den­holm. “Ethanol Infer­no Extin­guished.” The Dai­ly Tele­graph. 29 Jan. 2004. News.com.au.http://homepage.mac.com/oscura/ctd/docs/ausfire.pdf
    
48. “‘We are on fire!’ ‘May­day, may­day, may­day! This is the Bow Mariner, Bow Mariner!’” Rich­mond Times-Dis­patch, April 18, 2004. This and sev­er­al relat­ed news arti­cles can be found here: http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/Page/RTD_SectionFront&c=Page&cid=1031774925423 The U.S. Coast Guard’s acci­dent report is here: http://www.nrc.uscg.mil/reports_cgi/rwcgi60.exe?foia_bmp+inc_seq=714652 This was also report­ed in the Asso­ci­at­ed Press and Wash­ing­ton Post.
49. “Fire­fight­ers Bat­tle Fire At Caro Ethanol Plant,” WNEM TV‑5, http://www.wnem.com/Global/story.asp?s=1875829 (also report­ed in “Inci­dent log: May 2004.” Indus­tri­al Fire World Mag­a­zine http://www.fireworld.com/incidents/May2004.htm)
    
50. “Ethanol Spill Forces 300 to Evac­u­ate.” KRON 4. 6 Sept. 2005. http://www.kron4.com/Global/story.asp?s=3810822
    
51. Kansas State Uni­ver­si­ty researchers in Decem­ber of 2007 http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007–12/ksu-krf120307.php
52. David Pimen­tal and Tad W. Patzek. “Ethanol Pro­duc­tion Using Corn, Switch­grass, and Wood; Biodeisel Pro­duc­tion Using Soy­bean and Sun­flower.” Nat­ur­al
    Resources Research Vol 14, No.1 (March 2005). http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/Biofuels/NRRethanol.2005.pdf
    
53. Tad W. Patzek. “Ther­mo­dy­nam­ics of the Corn-Ethanol Bio­fu­el Cycle.” Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia Berke­ley. 14 Aug. 2005.
    http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/patzek/CRPS416-Patzek-Web.pdf
    
54. Plug-in hybrid and elec­tric car advo­cates argue that even if wind pow­er cer­tifi­cates were pur­chased to ensure that elec­tric­i­ty use wouldn’t be sup­port­ing our large­ly
    coal, nuclear and gas-pow­ered elec­tric grid, it would still cost under $1/gallon gaso­line equiv­a­lent. See the fol­low­ing web­sites for more info:
    http://www.pluginpartners.org, http://www.pluginamerica.com, http://www.calcars.org, http://www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com
55. Tad W. Patzek. “The Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca Meets the Plan­et Earth.” Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia Berke­ley. 21 Aug. 2005.
    http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/08/NPC_briefing_Patzek.pdf

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Last mod­i­fied: 9 June 2010