Geography Essay

California and Biofuels

It is hard to find an adult who is unaware that the world needs to find alternative fuels for the future . Many alternatives to foreign oil exist , including drilling in previously restricted areas , a return to developing nuclear energy , wind power , and biofuels . Each of these solutions comes with its own set of issues and may take years before they have an effect on the price of oil or gasoline . In addition , some solutions come with their own safety or environmental concerns Biofuels , while they do not appear to

have safety issues beyond those of any other combustible fuel , they may have a significant impact on the environment and on the economy of California

One global issue with biofuels is that a common alternative , corn ethanol also comes from a food source . This issue is already having a wide-ranging effect , potentially in world-wide food shortages . Jose Manuel Barroso , the European Commission president , launched an investigation of the role that biofuels have in rising food prices , on agriculture , and development (Oates , 2008 . Food price riots have occurred in several countries rice exports have been halted in others (Oates , 2008 . Although this investigation has revealed no results yet if food grains are being diverted into ethanol , then it is possible that this assumption has some bearing in fact

The cost of biofuels also has an impact on California . Up to five gallons of water is needed to grow the corn to produce a gallon corn ethanol fuel . Even more water is required to produce a gallon of cellulosic ethanol (Anthony , 2007 . This great water cost has an even higher price in California , which depends on irrigation to supply water to crops . The cost of irrigation will only increase as farms continue to convert from producing multiple crops to mono-cropping of corn , such is already seen in some California counties (Anthony , 2007 . In addition when the roughly 350 plants that have been built or are being built in this country go into operation , there will not be sufficient corn to keep them running--ensuring that even more land will be converted into corn producing fields . And yet , despite its consumption of our resources , corn ethanol will not have a large impact on the cost of fuel . According to Anthony (2007 , the impact of even widespread use of ethanol would have little effect . Anthony states that

If all the vehicles in California operated on E85 [the policy of the Governor and Legislature] , the ethanol required would consume 70 percent of the entire U .S . corn crop , but only 13 .6 percent of the energy in the fuel would be renewable because of the heavy use of fossil fuel (2007 par . 7

Clearly , the cost effectiveness of such a program would be inadequate especially when other prices continue to rise--such as the prices of animal feed , bread , cooking oils , and more

In addition to these disadvantages , corn ethanol is not as non-polluting as once thought . The fuel actually releases nitrogen oxide emissions and...