Biofuels and U.S. Agriculture

The U.S. Department of Agricuture had published a report on the increasing use of ethanol as a fuel additive and the effects of this trend on U.S. agricultural production. Corn is currently used ni ethanol productionand in 2006 some 20% of U.S. corn production was used for this purpose. Increased corn acreage displaces soybean production, causing rising prices for both commodities. Furthermore, increased demand for corn causes higher feedstock prices which are transmitted in to higher pork, beef, poultry, and milk prices as well as the array of processed food products based on corn.The paper discusses the potential of "cellulosic ethanol" to displace corn-based ethanol production. Cellulosic ethanol uses plant waste -- plant stalks, leaves, tree trunks, and other materials that are currently biproducts of agricultural production. The study notes that if cellulosic ethanol technology can be made to work, the U.S. could produce as much as 11o billion gallons of ethanol -- using materials that are currently considered waste, and contributing no net gain to greenhouse emissions (burning the plants removed the same amount of carbon dioxide in the past growing year at was burned in combustion. This production technique may be competitive with conventional techniques by 2012, but significant investment in new production capacity will be required.