Ethanol — good, bad, or just plain ugly?

The first of four lectures put on by the Iowa State’s Sigma Xi chapter was held Thursday night in the Gallery Room of the Memorial Union.

“Environmental Impacts of Ethanol Production — the good, the bad and future solutions” was the title of the lecture presented by Felicia Wu, assistant professor of the University of Pittsburgh’s department of environmental and occupational health.

Wu explored several areas that are affected by the production of ethanol.

An area that was discussed was the production of ethanol and its effects on air quality.

“Ethanol increases ozone levels 2.14 times more than gas,” Wu said.

Ethanol also decreases carbon monoxide, benzene and butadiene levels in the air, Wu said.

Ethanol also affects soil and water.

Surprisingly, ethanol requires quite a large amount of water in order to be produced.

“One gallon of ethanol production requires three to five gallons of water,” Wu said. “This can be a problem in arid areas where ethanol plants are.”

Also, the run-off of chemicals from corn fields that are used for the production of ethanol causes problems concerning water quality.

“Water quality can also suffer because of the run-off of pesticides and fertilizers,” Wu said. “In fact, every square kilometer of corn that is planted results in over thousands of kilograms of nitrogen fertilizer being washed into the rivers and other bodies of water in the area.”

The effects of animal feed quality were discussed.

Corn is sometimes infected with mycotoxins that can be harmful to animals if it is consumed.

“There are multiple adverse animal health effects,” Wu said.

The food versus fuel debate was brought up and Wu made the argument that not all corn was being used for just ethanol.

“Most U.S. corn production is actually going toward animal food,” said Wu.

Some of the negative impacts that have been seen are the rising costs of meat because of the increased demand for corn for both ethanol and food.

“There has been a five to 10 percent increase in meat prices,” Wu said.

With the ever-increasing population in the world, our need for food, including meat, will increase as well.

“Our global food demand is going to probably double within the next 50 years,” Wu said. “Meat consumption is going to increase and that is going to drive a lot of our increased need for food.”

China and India are two of the most heavily-populated countries in the world, and if they all begin to eat more meat, the world’s need for corn will see a great increase in demand, Wu said.

“Both China and India have over 1 billion people each,” Wu said. “If each person each ate three pounds more meat per year, we would need 67 billion more pounds of corn produced each year.”

Wu put into perspective how much corn is used in the production of meat.

“One pound of meat requires 10 pounds of vegetable to produce,” Wu said. “This relates to 90 percent corn and 10 percent soybean meal.”