Although technology has changed the world for the better, nonetheless, the technology of using corn as a fuel or source of energy, an alternative for oil, has been an ongoing debate during the last few years. Many cars in industrialized countries use biological fuel, or oil containing ethanol produced from corn, as a solution for the global energy problem. The truth is that using corn as fuel has greater consequences than the pollution from gasoline used in cars. Therefore, corn, food for humans, should not be used as an alternative for oil.
Many people in industrialized countries believe that ethanol is an ideal substitute for oil because of the dangers oil poses. Oil pollutes the environment as burning it produces carbon dioxide (CO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) which change the weather and poison our bodies.
Depending on oil as the primary source for energy is logical, even though it is non-renewable, man cannot deplete the amount of oil under the earth. The other sources used instead of oil are not as effective as natural oil. Solar energy and the energy that is produced from wind movement or the movement of waves in the ocean are dependent on weather and its changes to increase or decrease energy, and man has little control over their production of energy.
The price of oil is inflated which has effects on every product by its dominant position in the sources and generation of power and the transportation of goods and services. For example, the price of oil increased by more than 100% in recent years, which increased the price of food and increased the inflation of products and services prices worldwide. However, processing corn to make fuel is also expensive.
The need to change to corn from oil is exaggerated. Technology can control oil pollution; using platinum in cars (catalytic converters) to change carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide is a perfect example, as described in “The Element Platinum” on the Jefferson Lab website.
Building environmentally-friendly factories that recycle solid waste products is another example of technology control. Intensifying the exploitation and use of natural gas reserves as Aramco in Saudi Arabia are doing and as described in an article in “A special file on achievements of the oil sector in Saudi Arabia”, from Oil & Gas World Magazine, is yet another way of utilizing alternative energy sources.
The oil problem is political; industrialized countries like the United States and China have refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, which is aimed at protecting the world from greenhouse gas emissions, and thus to reduce both the world temperature and the size of the ozone hole. CO2 emissions from the United States alone between 1900 and 1999 were 283,302 millions of metric tons, as shown under “Cumulative CO2 Emissions” on the Global Education Project website. The United States has become the biggest contributor in the world of polluted gas. Despite this fact, the government of the United States refuses to reduce the amount of its CO2 emissions because it is in an economic race with China and India. See also “Kyoto Protocol” as discussed in the New York Times (Dec 12, 2011).
The amounts of natural gas in the earth can never be exhausted. In the Middle East the kingdoms of Saudi Arabia and Iraq have trillions of barrels of oil – enough for the whole world for a very long time. The problem is not the availability of oil but the technical ability to extract it. The oil in Alaska is a typical example; it needs only the correct technology to produce it and to protect nature’s reserves. The “World Reserves of Oil, Coal and Natural Gas” figures given on the Global Education Project website indicate the reserves available worldwide.
The increased price of oil in the last 10 years is due to trade reasons not oil unavailability. OPEC, the group of countries that monopolize the production of oil, and countries such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Emirates, meet every two months to decide how much oil they want to supply to the world. Another reason is the weakness of the US dollar, the standard international currency for oil trading. The oil is as good as gold or timber; if we compare its price with the price of gold, the truth of the dollar weakness will be evident. Referring to the Gold Price website, the price of gold in 2001was about $300 per ounce. In 2011, it climbed to a price of $1800. The United States dollar has steadily declined in the past ten years.
There is no reason for industrialized countries to destroy the ecosystem to produce corn as fuel for their cars. The ecosystem depends on the carbon dioxide and oxygen circle and the important part of this circle is the forest which absorbs the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and produces oxygen. By cutting down forests, the industrialized countries are destroying the ecosystem in order to produce biological fuel. The biggest “lung” of the Earth is the Amazon forest in Brazil; parts of the Amazon forest are destroyed daily, and its huge trees that took hundreds of years to grow are cut to be replaced by corn fields to make fuel for cars.
Using food suitable for human consumption as fuel for cars is one of the threats to the lives of humans. It is responsible for hunger and for the price increases of food and property. Farmers who generally cultivated different types of food are now cultivating only corn.
According to “Higher Food Prices can be blamed on Corn”, an article on the Great Global Warming website, “Corn is used to help feed hogs, chickens, dairy cows and is a vital ingredient for cereal, corn syrup, soda, candy, and other food products. Of 10,000 items in a typical grocery store, at least 2,500 use corn in some form during production or processing.”
Hunger kills thousands of people as a result of the use of the technology which provides the human food to be used in cars. Many countries in Africa and Asia depend on their food supplies from agricultural countries. Therefore, those people are exposed to starvation and death when the industrialized countries use their surplus corn as fuel. In an article entitled “U.N.: Famine in Somalia is killing tens of thousands” published in the Washington Post (July 20, 2011), the United Nations has reported that most of them were children. This is happening while the factories in industrialized countries burn billions of tons of corn converted to ethanol.
The biological fuel technology is one of the worst technologies known to humanity. This enemy gives our food as fuel to cars. It kills poor people with famine in desert countries such as Somalia. It will kill our children and grandchildren. In the United States, oil stations provide ten percent of the ethanol oil. One gallon of pure ethanol is produced from 18 pounds of corn. According to “Corn causes Pollution” an article on the Great Global Warming website, a car using twenty-five gallons of pure ethanol will burn four hundred fifty pounds of corn – enough to feed one person for one year. As described in an item “Higher Food Prices can be Blamed on Corn” on the Great Global Warming website, in 2006 the United States used twenty percent of its corn crop to produce 6,000,000,000 gallons of biological fuels and the government suggests about 7,500,000,000 gallons for this year, 2012. This census is from the United States only; adding all the countries that use biological fuel, the numbers are astronomical. Imagine how many people die of starvation in the world – imagine the horror of this crime.
The industrialized countries should stop using food for humans as ethanol for their cars. This biological fuel that is produced from corn is not the ideal alternative to oil. This policy takes the food of humans and threatens our future with death from hunger, while it refuses to distribute the required amount of oil needed, and to stem the high cost of oil.
Works Cited
“A special file on achievements of the oil sector in Saudi Arabia”. Oil & Gas World Magazine. Web. (n.d.). 20 March 2012.
“Corn causes Pollution, Global Warming and Higher Food Prices – How Great is Corn Really?” Great Global Warming. Web. (n.d.). 20 March 2012. http://www.greatglobalwarming.com/>.
“Cumulative CO2 Emissions 1990-1999”. Global Education Project. Web. (n.d.). 20 March 2012. http://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/earth/energy-supply.php#3.
“Gold Price”. Web. (n.d.). 20 March 2012.
“Higher Food Prices can be Blamed on Corn for Ethanol”. Great Global Warming. Web. (n.d.). 20 March 2012. http://www.greatglobalwarming.com/>.
“Kyoto Protocol”. New York Times. Updated Dec 12, 2011. Web. 20 March 2012.
< http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/k/kyoto_
protocol/index.html>.
“The Element Platinum”. Jefferson Lab. Web. (n.d.). 20 March 2012. http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele078.html.
“U.N.: Famine in Somalia is killing tens of thousands”. Washington Post. July 20, 2011. Web. 20 March 2012. < http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/un-famine-in-somalia-is-killing-tens-of-thousands/2011/07/20/gIQAbV3iPI_story.html>.
“World Reserves of Oil, Coal and Natural Gas”. Global Education Project. Web. (n.d.). 20 March 2012. http://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/earth/energy-supply.php#3.
