I first heard about biodeisel from an alternative fuels magnate here in Atlanta. And by “alternative fuels magnate,” I mean anti-corporate anarchist. My heart skipped a beat as he explained to me in detail how you can turn used grease from fast food restaurants into energy. Wide use of this technology would mean a completely renewable local fuel source - no war required. Needless to say, I became a huge proponent of the stuff. I thought it was the answer to our problems. Rather than spending between $100 and $150 billion overseas every year supporting various dictators and other would-be evil-doers, we can produce everything we need right here, support our local economy and simultaneously turn a McMuffin into something patriotic.

Make no mistake, its potential as a renewable energy source does not absolve the fast food industry for what it’s done to the American palate, not to mention its waistline. And fast food restaurants, alone, will not be able to support America’s overfed oil addiction, at least not unless we drastically increase the national level of french fry consumption. If America truly wants to free itself from dependence on foreign oil through biofuels, there will have to be other sources.

And that seems to be just what our politicians are looking at right now. Everyone from George W. Bush to Barack Obama seems to be on the ethanol bandwagon these days. But corn ethanol, as bright a future as it seems to have, is not quite as ecologically efficient as a Wendy’s grease trap.

In order to explain why corn ethanol may not be the panacea that everyone is hoping for, let’s take a brief look at the history of corn.

At $23 billion a year, corn is America’s number one cash crop. There are many contributing factors to corn’s central role in America's heartland, but by far the most significant is government subsidies.

Before the 1970’s, the USDA supported farmers by stepping in whenever there was a bumper crop and purchasing a certain amount of the harvest, which they would then store for use in the event of future crop failures. By doing this, they ensured that there would never be a glut on the market that would drive prices too low. But in 1974, our then USDA Secretary, Earl Butz, completely dismantled the government’s practice of agricultural surplus management, and developed fiscal incentives for our farmers to plant from “fencepost to fencepost.” His program, which is the one currently in use, established certain commodity crops for which the government paid farmers directly regardless of the year's yield. This led farmers to ramp up their production of these crops as much as possible by converting their farms into giant monocultures fueled by massive amounts of chemical fertilizers.

The subsidies guarantee that, despite an almost continual glut of corn that drives market value down until it is well below the cost of production, farmers will continue to grow it in greater quantities year after year in order to get their government check. In other words, farmers are being compensated by the American tax payer to grow something we do not want and cannot use. Eat your heart out, Adam Smith.

Due to this unending surplus, agribusiness corporations, like Arthur Daniels Midland, are keen to come up with new and exciting ways to squeeze more money out of their golden goose. And the latest craze seems to be to convert it into fuel. However, from an ecological standpoint, this really makes no sense. Conservative estimates have said that if every single ear of corn grown in the United States was used for the production of ethanol, it would only offset 12% of our crude oil use. If you count the petroleum that is required to produce ethanol (from farming to transporting to processing), it would only account for 3% of our oil needs. Less conservative estimates have declared the entire process a net loss. (Z Magazine Online, “Will the new Congress act to change our disastrous energy policy?”, Brian Tokar, January 3, 2007)

Still, there is a potential for success in the world of vegetable fuels. It’s just that it doesn’t lie with corn. Alternative plants, which have no digestive value, may be more suited to the task of creating biofuel. Some varieties of algae, for example, are 60% oil by content. Algae is a quick-growing crop that can be farmed on salt ponds in the middle of the desert. It requires no arable land, and it doesn’t even require fresh water. It does well in highly polluted areas and can be cultivated on waste streams (either human waste or animal waste from feedlots).

The DOE’s Office of Fuels Development, conducted a study known as the Aquatic Species Program, which detailed the potential for algae as a combination waste water treatment and biofuels feedstock. The study confirmed that Algae could supply substantially more biofuel than existing oilseed crops could. Microalgae are capable of producing 30 times the amount of oil per unit area of land than their terrestrial counterparts. According to Michael Briggs, a physicist at the University of New Hampshire, we could completely eliminate our need for crude oil if we dedicated 28.5 million acres of otherwise non-arable land to algae. Compare that to the roughly 16 million acres of perfectly good farm land that are presently being used to grow corn for ethanol. That 16 million acres hasn’t done much to alleviate our reliance on foreign oil (See Iraq War).

I don’t want to suggest that algae is a silver bullet. It isn’t. But doesn’t it make more sense to put research money into something that

• doesn’t take up valuable land
• produces more oil than any known alternative
• can be used simultaneously as a waste water treatment

than it does to invest in corn monocultures, which are demonstrably wasteful and harmful to our ecosystem? If you answered yes, you may want to take it up with your congressman. In 1998, the Department of Energy completely eliminated the Aquatic Species Program and our Congress continues to write legislation that supports the research and development of corn ethanol.

When it comes to agriculture in this country, it always seems like there is a better solution than the one Washington gives us. Corn ethanol seems to be nothing more than a reallocation of our tax dollars. It does very little to address a serious issue the nation is facing.

It is the classic one-two punch. We take something that we don’t need and turn it into something we waste and the American tax payer loses money every step of the way. It would be nice if this country would have a meaningful discussion about our immanent oil crisis. But, unfortunately, until alternative agriculture can develop enough financial and political power to compete with the National Corn Growers Association, we may be a long way from a biological solution to this problem.