Due to the rising interest in alternative fuels, results from studies focused on the effects of corn ethanol have recently been published in Science magazine and other sources. The majority of the reports indicate that the greenhouse benefits of using corn-based ethanol as an alternative source of fuel have been overstated. Stratos Renewable Corporation (SRNW.OB) officials publicly stated that their sugarcane-based ethanol is not the same as the corn-based version.
“I think some of the ethanol studies are a little misleading, as there are many concrete benefits of substituting ethanol for oil that are often not considered and frequently the studies do not adequately distinguish among different feedstocks,” said Roger Ballentine, an energy and environmental advisor with Stratos.
The authors of the latest studies highlight the environmental benefits for corn-based ethanol is small in comparison to the impact on land used to grow the corn and the energy-intensive nature of corn production. Republican Presidential nominee John McCain, who has never been known to question the current administration’s energy policy, has indicated his belief that the U.S. should shift its support to more of a sugarcane-based ethanol industry like Brazil.
“The key item most often sited in these studies is the use of corn as the primary feedstock, and there are huge differences in the cost of harvesting and producing ethanol from corn than from sugarcane. The use of corn as the primary feedstock, and the subsidies attached to the corn agricultural industry, have been widely criticized as environmentally problematic and as contributing to high food prices – but those criticisms don’t apply to sugarcane,” commented Ballentine.
Stratos is in the development stages of becoming the first-to-market sugarcane ethanol producer in Peru. The company plans on using Peru’s underdeveloped northern coastal area to cultivate and harvest sugarcane. Targeting this area will provide Stratos with the ability to provide competitive industry, environmental and economic advantages of high-yield, low-cost sugarcane ethanol production. Additionally, production in Peru allows Stratos to avoid the U.S. import tariff that the Brazilian-based ethanol incurs.
According to Ballentine, “There are many good economic and public policy reasons for us to be using more ethanol from a myriad of sources – but there is no question that some biofuels have clear environmental and economic advantages over others.”
There are currently around 7 billion gallons of renewable fuels being used each year. The recently signed Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) requires the consumption of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels in the U.S. by 2022. The RFS indicates that “advanced biofuels” like sugarcane ethanol must make up a minimum of 5 billion gallons of the renewable fuel total. The special preference in the RFS is mainly due to the fact that the production of sugarcane-based ethanol is more efficient and requires fewer steps than corn-based production, which lowers its greenhouse gas profile.
“I contend that showcasing the environmental advantages of ethanol from sugarcane – particularly from land that has not been deforested to make way for agriculture – will lead the newly-energized anti-ethanol contingent to reconsider their broad criticisms,” concluded Ballentine.
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