Ethanol Strikes Back at Critics

By Elissa Dickey, American News, Aberdeen, S.D.

May 19–Ethanol is not to blame for your increasing grocery bill.

Higher food prices have more to do with the sky-high cost of oil, say some state and local ethanol and corn representatives.

That’s the message those representatives have for consumers. The message is in response to what the South Dakota Corn Growers Association calls an attack on the ethanol industry — including a group of U.S. senators recently asking the Environmental Protection Agency to cut this year’s requirement for 9 billion gallons of corn ethanol in half to ease, they say, food costs. National campaigns have also linked ethanol to rising food prices, say local ethanol representatives.

The Corn Growers Association also called the senators’ move to seek a waiver from the Renewable Fuels Standard “irresponsible and damaging to American consumers” in a press release.

Months after the Renewable Fuels Standard package passed Congress, “hysteria has some grasping at straws, confusing the American public that removing the RFS is a solution to high fuel and food costs,” according to the release.

“The real driver of increased costs is $120 barrels of oil, and without ethanol, fuel prices would be up to 40 cents a gallon higher at the pump, according to numerous recent studies,” according to the release.

Slight impact: Ethanol might cause an increase in the price of corn, which has a slight impact on consumers’ food cost, said Nathan Schock, public relations director for Poet, an ethanol producer with a plant west of Groton. But study after study has shown that ethanol is not the largest cause of food inflation, Schock said.

Energy costs, led by $125 per barrel oil, are one of the largest factors in food inflation, Schock said. Other factors include increasing world demand, especially in places like India and China; drought in

some parts of the world; and an influx of investments from global commodity speculators into agricultural commodities futures, he said.

“If energy is the primary cause behind food inflation … the only thing keeping energy costs from going any higher is alternatives like ethanol,” Schock said.

But, he said, “There is certainly a well-coordinated, well-funded campaign to try to pin food price increases on the ethanol industry.”

Millions of dollars are being spent on propaganda by people whose businesses are best served if there is no competition with oil, said Bill Paulsen, vice president of operations for Advanced Bioenergy. Heartland Grain Fuels, a local ethanol producer, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Advanced Bioenergy.

“It’s almost preposterous that people have done such a good job of promoting things that don’t even make good sense when you put it all in perspective,” Paulsen said.

Numbers: Ethanol started using a measurable amount of corn 15 years ago, he said. This year, it’s expected that 25 percent of the U.S. corn crop will be used for ethanol. But the yield increase in corn over the last 15 years has been about 40 percent, Paulsen said. So although use has grown to 25 percent, it hasn’t kept up with yield increases.

“Not a single acre of corn (has) had to (be) added to sustain the ethanol industry,” Paulsen said. Meaning increased yields have supplied the corn.

The ethanol industry can continue to grow, and other renewable sources will pop up, he said.

Despite what’s going on nationally, Paulsen said there is still plenty of support for ethanol in South Dakota.

“We are fortunate in the state of South Dakota we have a good connection with our representatives in Washington,” he said. “They fully know and understand where the industry is at.”

Unlike some politicians nationally, Paulsen said, “They haven’t been fooled.”

Representatives from Glacial Lakes Energy LLC were unavailable for comment. Glacial Lakes Energy owns and operates the Aberdeen Energy LLC ethanol plant west of Mina and has ownership in Redfield Energy near Redfield and is its managing partner.

Schock said Poet continues “to be very optimistic about the future of ethanol and our country’s need for a domestically produced renewable energy source, and we’re confident that a majority of our elected officials will see that and continue to support biofuels of all kinds.”

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