Is it Worth it to Use Corn as Biofuel?

Praveen Kumar, a civil and environmental engineering professor at the University of Illinois, and graduate student Meredith Richardson found using corn for biofuel has greater environmental costs than using it for food. Source: University of Illinois Corn has long been used as a source of biofuel for ethanol for a clean renewable fuel source. But is this the best use for the vegetable?

Researchers at the University of Illinois have conducted a study to compare whether using corn for biofuel outweigh the economic and environmental costs.

The study is part of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) project to study the environmental impact of agriculture in monetary terms.

"The critical zone is the permeable layer of the landscape near the surface that stretches from the top of the vegetation down to the groundwater," said Praveen Kumar, a civil and environmental engineering professor at the University of Illinois. "The human energy and resource input involved in agriculture production alters the composition of the critical zone, which we are able to convert into a social cost."

Researchers inventoried the resources required for corn production and processing to compare the energy efficiency and environmental impacts for food and for biofuel. Then the team determined the economic and environmental impact of using these resources.

The Illinois researchers accounted for numerous factors in the analysis such as assessing the energy required to prepare and maintain the landscape for agricultural production for corn and its conversion to biofuel. Then, they quantified the environmental benefits and impacts in terms of critical zone services including the effects on the atmosphere, water quality, and corn’s societal value.

The result was the net social and economic worth of food corn production in the U.S. is $1,492 per hectare versus a $10 per hectare loss for biofuel corn production.

One of the key factors resided in the soil both in short-term and long-term impacts on nutrients and carbon storage. In fact, most of the environmental impacts came from soil nutrient fluxes, a role that is often overlooked in corn assessments.

"Using corn as a fuel source seems to be an easy path to renewable energy," said Richard Yuretich, the NSF program director for Critical Zone Observatories. "However, this research shows that the environmental costs are much greater, and the benefits fewer, than using corn for food."

The full study can be found in the journal Earth’s Future.