GAPRI Factsheet #3

Replacing Petroleum: Securing Our Economic and Environmental Future

Prices at the pump are sky-rocketing. Iowans are feeling the pinch and looking at ways to reduce their fuel consumption. High oil prices don’t just effect drivers, though. They effect the price of many other petroleum-based products like cleaning supplies, paints and solvents, lubricants, farm chemicals and anything made out of plastic, as well as adding to the transportation cost of food and other goods.  Most people know that driving more fuel efficient vehicles, carpooling, taking public transit, cycling and walking are all ways to reduce our fuel bills while helping to create a healthier environment. With the use of bio-products, which are made from plants rather than petroleum, we can continue to move away from reliance on politically unstable supplies of foreign oil and toward a healthier and safer future.

At $60 per barrel, we’re sending $500,000 out of the country every single minute just to buy petroleum. In 2005, the money we spent on petroleum imports was equivalent to about one-third of our national trade deficit. Reducing petroleum use through greater efficiency and by producing biofuels domestically could help alleviate this economic burden while creating new jobs on farms, in the auto industry, and throughout the economy. It will take investments to get there. In the near term, government assistance will be needed to help fund research and development and to provide continued incentives for more ethanol pumps. Given the oil industry’s slow response so far on the issue, we also need the government to continue to require increasing amounts of renewable fuels, especially those that also reduce global warming pollution.

Global Warming and the Environment

Many of the environmental problems our country faces today result from our fossil fuel dependence. These impacts include global warming, air quality deterioration, oil spills, and acid rain.  Among the gases emitted when fossil fuels are burned, one of the most significant is carbon dioxide, a gas that traps heat in the earth's atmosphere. Over the last 150 years, burning fossil fuels has resulted in more than a 25 percent increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Fossil fuels are also implicated in increased levels of atmospheric methane and nitrous oxide, although they are not the major source of these gases.

Climate scientists predict that if carbon dioxide levels continue to increase, the planet will become warmer in the next century. Projected temperature increases will most likely result in a variety of impacts. In coastal areas, sea-level rise due to the warming of the oceans and the melting of glaciers may lead to the inundation of wetlands, river deltas, and even populated areas. Altered weather patterns may result in more extreme weather events. And inland agricultural zones could suffer an increase in the frequency of droughts.

Clean air is essential to life and good health. Several important pollutants are produced by fossil fuel combustion: carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, and hydrocarbons. In addition, total suspended particulates contribute to air pollution, and nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons can combine in the atmosphere to form tropospheric ozone, the major constituent of smog. Carbon monoxide is a gas formed as a by-product during the incomplete combustion of all fossil fuels. Cars and trucks are the primary source of carbon monoxide emissions.

The use of biomass crops to replace petroleum will greatly reduce dangerous emissions. Like petroleum, ethanol and biodiesel release carbon dioxide as they burn, but the plants used to create the fuel need CO2 to grow – creating a closed “carbon cycle”. The CO2 released during the combustion of biomass materials is recaptured by the growth of the next years crop. Unlike fossil fuels,  biomass combustion causes no net increase in carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. In addition, substantial quantities of carbon can be captured in the soil through biomass root structures, creating a net carbon sink. Many other bioproducts help reduce pollution because they do not create the dangerous fumes and vapors caused by petroleum products, and they are often bio-degradable as well.

Health

Every year over 5,500 people in the US die from asthma. Children are particularly susceptible, and the incidence of the disease is doubling every ten to fifteen years. This rise can be traced to increased environmental pollution, from both household sources and industrial and motor vehicle pollution. An extensive body of studies has found strong associations between asthma and other respiratory health concerns and direct exposure to motor vehicle pollution resulting from residing or attending school near major roads with high traffic levels. Also implicated are the plastics and other petroleum products used in homes and buildings, such as carpeting and insulation. The “outgassing” of plastics used in building products creates serious indoor air quality issues which are known to cause increases in asthma and other serious allergic reactions. Asthma is not the only health problem linked to petroleum products. Cancer, immune disorders, retarded development in children and a plethora of other life-threatening conditions have also been attributed to increased exposure to petroleum-related pollutants. 

Increasing our use of plant-based products reduces our exposure to many of the harmful effects of petroleum products and tailpipe emissions. As an example, replacing diesel fuel with biodiesel in school buses would cut their emission of diesel particulates up to 47%. According to the American Lung Association, Diesel particulates are a major cause of childhood asthma, and are encouraging schools to make the switch to biodeisel.

National Security and the Economy

According to US Department of Energy “Although the U.S. has reduced its use of petroleum as a share of its economy, there is a growing dependence on imported oil. In 1973, net imports of petroleum made up 35 percent of petroleum product supplied (consumption). For 2000, this share has risen to over 50 percent and is expected to reach 64 percent by 2020….Viewed from a long-term perspective, inflation, measured by the rate of change in the consumer price index (CPI), tracks movements in the world oil price. Not only do oil prices constitute a portion of the actual CPI, but downstream impacts on other commodity prices will have a lagged effect on the CPI inflation.”

The National Biodiesel Board states, "If the true cost of using foreign oil were imposed on the price of imported fuel, renewable fuels, such as biodiesel, probably would be the most viable option.  For instance, in 1996, it was estimated that the military costs of securing foreign oil was $57 billion annually.” 

That cost is obviously far higher now.  Oil pipelines in the U.S. and abroad remain top targets for potential terrorist attacks. Alaska is spending $91 million state and federal dollars this year to protect the Alaska pipeline.  "That pipeline is a very difficult thing to defend," said Drew Dix, the state's homeland security coordinator. "You can't guarantee anything. The terrorist has the advantage."

Our continued dependence on petroleum is causing serious concerns for the future of our nation. Our economic, environmental and personal safety and those of generations to come are at risk if we don’t do everything in our power to make a change to a greener, safer, homegrown energy source.  Iowa is in a unique position to lead the nation and the world into a brighter future by wisely using our natural resources to provide the raw materials necessary to make that change.

Building the infrastructure to grow our bioeconomy is the first step. A level playing field for home-grown businesses and local entrepreneurs, support for farmers to explore diversification into a wider variety of more sustainable energy and fiber crops, and training for Iowa’s workers to take advantage of this new market are all going to be necessary to make our goal of independence from foreign oil a reality.

"This material was prepared with the support of the United State's Department of Energy. However, any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the DOE."

For a complete set of references and links to other information on bioproducts, visit www.gotoplanb.net/gapri