It might seem a bit ironic.
As fuel prices escalate and the fear of permanent effects of oil dependence trickles down from scientists to citizens, a movement that could alleviate oil’s side effects gains ground. It’s a movement toward corn ethanol.
But it seems that now the nation and the world are responding negatively to the production of corn ethanol, which plays a part in the rise of food prices.
According to Roderick Rejesus, assistant professor of agricultural and resource economics, this is due, in part, to a sudden demand for ethanol that cannot, at this time, be satiated.
“There’s a lot of demand for corn [to produce] ethanol. What that effect[s], is it increases demand for corn. If you increase that demand, it shifts your demand curve up. So now, the demand for oil is competing with the demand for food,” Rejesus said. “Everyone jumped on the corn ethanol bandwagon, but supply hasn’t caught up yet to that kind of demand.”
If supply of corn catches up to its demand, Rejesus said, food prices will go down.
If it doesn’t, and if the medley of issues — including a larger middle class in Asian countries that now demand more than just rice, drought in Australia that lowered the availability of beef, and other “natural calamities that all came about at the same time” — triggers lasting effects, the economy will undergo a structural change. That is, a new economic state created when demand lags behind supply, and prices continue to rise.
“Prices will be high in the near future,” he said.
However, there are solutions, both at the grassroots and governmental levels.
“If the government subsidizes farmers more because of this, that will give incentive for farmers to produce more,” Rejesus said. “Conceivably, supply can catch up to demand. If it’s just a bubble, prices will go down.”
At the grassroots level, “if people tend to use biofuels, they’ll increase the demand for biofuel, and research will come up with some sort of alternative fuel that might substitute for regular fuel.”
If they don’t already use biofuels, it won’t be long before they do, according to Rejesus.
“People rally [in response] to price increases,” he said. “If prices are high, it’s natural people will change or substitute something else for what they’re getting. It depends on what’s available in the market.”
Corn ethanol, he said, cannot act alone as a substitute for fuel.
“Technology has to advanced such that other cellulosic sources are being tapped … to stem the tide.”
And some of that research is already being done at N.C. State.
According to Alex Hobbs, associate director of renewable energy at the NCSU Solar Center, this type of research has been going on since 1988.
Solar Center employees have seen gas prices rise and fall during their tenure at the center, and after each fall Hobbs saw that “everyone went back to buying Hummers and SUVs and moving as far away from work as possible.”
This poses a problem the center has been working to fix — along with researchers from the colleges of agriculture and life sciences and engineering and natural resources; teams from other universities such as North Carolina A&T and Appalachian State; federal agencies such as the departments of agriculture and transportation and the EPA; and organizations like Golden Leaf and the Biofuel Center of North Carolina, which provide funding for projects.
Hobbs said the teams work as both market pushers and pullers. The “front end,” market pushers, are those who research, convert and produce new biofuels. For example, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences researches crops and crop residues that can be harvested into biofuels. The College of Natural Resources looks into using and providing wood chips for biofuel production. The College of Engineering does the actual biomass-to-biofuel conversion.
Market pullers work on the back end to enact incentives for purchase and facilitate the transition by, for example, getting E85 (ethanol) pumps installed in gas stations.
“We have a very broad program on biofuels here,” Hobbs said. “[The colleges] get very much committed to the front end [of biofuel production].”
Current Projects Through the Solar Center
Clean Fuel Advanced Technology — A three-year, $2-million project attempting to reduce transportation-related emissions in some N.C. counties.
Clean Transportation Initiatives — Provides assistance to help the North Carolina State Energy Plan coordinate and implement statewide alternative fuel and advanced transportation efforts.
Source: http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/ncsc/transportation/projects.htm
