For at least the last two years scientists have predicted that the coming years dead zone would be the largest on record but it has not happened. There are always lots of articles written on the prediction that the dead zone will be the largest ever seen but few articles are written after it is determined that a new record hasn’t been reached. This of course leaves everyone with the impression that the dead zone just keeps getting bigger.

The record was set it 2002 at 8500 square miles. Since ethanol production has increased from 2.13 billion gallons in 2002 to 9.0 billion gallons in 2008 without another record seems to me to suggest that blaming ethanol may be a stretch.

So what should the government do? First off: no harm. Instead of trying to mandate specific technologies and risk locking us into using the wrong one. Washington should create incentives to help the market choose the best approaches. One step would be to reward consumers for conservation: There are vast opportunities to make our homes, businesses and vehicles more efficient, and to make our economy stronger in the process. Another step would be to open the ethanol debate and let corn stand on its own if it is going to be the major biofuel of choice. Another step would be for Congress and the President to come up with an energy policy for the country. This will probably not happen because of the politics. Gee, you talk about the fine lines of the Energy acts, but never mention what has happened to the environment from growing ethanol corn.

A positive suggestion? Stop growing corn as a biofuel. Ethanol corn is only going to make the “The Dead Zone” get larger. How about the corn growers find a better pesticide than Atrazine to use. There are natural pesticides being made from food grade products that could be a solution. EcoSmart Technologies in Atlanta, Ga. makes such products and these products are being used extensively in agriculture markets. Their products are not suspect carcinogens and towns in the Midwest would not have to filter these products from their water.

Well, since I jumped on the latest “bandwagon” and reported about the environmental damage being done by growing ethanol corn, your answers to these problems would be appreciated. You are questioning my credibility because of the facts in this post which are the truth?
Please tell me and the blogging world that the environmental problems listed in this post about growing ethanol corn are not true. I hear the cry in the wilderness from: “The Dead Zone”, our lands, our wildlife and water supplies as they cry out “SAVE US AND STOP KILLING US”!

“(Sec. 224) Amends the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to direct such Secretary to establish R&D programs for: (1) increased biorefinery energy efficiency; and (2) retrofit technologies to enable biorefineries that exclusively use corn grain or corn starch as a feedstock to produce ethanol to accept a range of biomass, including lignocellulosic feedstocks.”

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR00006:@@@L&summ2=m&

I don’t think we need to open the ethanol debate, only educate consumers on the benefits of finding new ways to create it. Changing the rhetoric from ethanol=good to ethanol=bad helps no one.

I know, a cry in the wilderness…..