In a recent post Phil asked, “So are we better off strictly recycling, or with a mix of recycling for metals and plastic, while reclaiming energy from paper and other organic waste?”

There’s an interesting parallel between recycling and “reclaiming energy.” Recycling allows you to use the same raw materials over and over. Reclaiming energy allows us to use carbon over and over.

Fossil fuels release carbon that’s been sequestered since the fossils they were made from were living. Ethanol releases carbon too, but it’s the product of plants that sequester carbon while they grow (paper and organic waste sequestered carbon recently). Instead of a one-way release of carbon, we’d get to take advantage of a carbon cycle. This makes it closer to being carbon neutral.

But NPR reported today on a study that apparently shows that ethanol is worse for the climate than gasoline. Their reasoning: when we devote more of our corn crops to ethanol, world food production is shifted to places like Brazil where rain forests are slashed and burned for farm land. And burning of rain forest releases a lot of carbon.

This highlights the importance of using things other than food to make ethanol. Making cellulosic ethanol from biological waste (like corn stalks) or switch grass could be carbon neutral. Using land that’s not being used for crops wouldn’t be a problem. Algae for diesel and ethanol can be grown in the desert.

Unfortunately that’s not the message that most people will take away from that study. “Ethanol is worse than gas.” Well, no. Ethanol can be much better than gasoline for the environment. We just have to be careful about unintended consequences. Perhaps it’s time to end corn ethanol subsidies.