Ethanol Pushers

Instead, the employees fueling up this morning are pumping a blend of biodiesel, a fuel made from soybeans. Others are powered with compressed natural gas.

Don't get Swearngin wrong; he has nothing against ethanol. But it does have some clear disadvantages compared with other farm-based fuels, including biodiesel.

High blends of ethanol require flex-fuel engines, whereas biodiesel can run in any diesel vehicle in the city's fleet. To dispense E85, Swearngin would have to install different underground tanks, but biodiesel flows fine through the aging Gasboy pumps. Besides, drivers get far fewer miles out of a gallon of ethanol compared with gas, whereas biodiesel packs as much power as typical diesel.

"The trend in Midwest fleets is biodiesel," Swearngin says. "I can't tell you when or if I'll ever use ethanol."

Of course, when the 10-percent mandate takes effect, Swearngin will use small amounts of ethanol like the rest of the state.

But, if Kansas City's air pollution experts have any say, the metro may get an exemption from the law.

James Joerke, air quality manager for the Mid-America Regional Council, says his organization is not anti-ethanol. But it is pressing the governor's office to let Kansas City off the hook because the 10-percent blend could push the metro out of compliance with EPA ozone standards.

"Yes, it is a little bit cleaner," Joerke says of ethanol. The corn alcohol is an oxygenate, so it helps fuel combust more fully, he explains. But the problem with the 10-percent blend is that it makes the fuel more likely to evaporate. So while residents pump their fuel at the local gas station or let their cars sit in a hot parking lot while they do their grocery shopping, the 10-percent ethanol blend known as E10 allows smog-forming pollutants to ease into the atmosphere more readily. Because the past two years have produced a troubling number of ozone alerts, the city is in danger of violating EPA standards if it doesn't clean up its ozone act during the coming year.

It's not just the experts who are beginning to consider ethanol's drawbacks. Consumers, reading recent critical editorials and articles in the likes of Forbes and Car and Driver, have begun to question ethanol's bold promises.

As Johnson County residents file into an excessively air-conditioned lecture hall at the University of Kansas' Edwards campus in Overland Park, they glance through glossy handouts with a smiling mug of U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore set against a clear blue sky and the image of a wind turbine.

The August forum is optimistically titled "A Call to Energy Independence." Trying to dispel a palpable sense of frustration, the Lenexa Democrat talks of putting a man on the moon.

"Our nation has an unhealthy dependence on foreign oil, and as we continue to rely on politically unstable nations for oil, we will continue to be entangled in foreign conflicts, which threaten both our economic and national security," he says gravely. "But if we set goals, if we act now, we can make a difference. Remember back several years ago, there was a call for putting a man on the moon. We set a goal, we met that goal, and we can do the same in regard to energy."

During her turn among panel speakers, Sue Schulte of the Kansas Corn Growers Association boasts that just that morning, she added another ethanol plant to the energy resources that Kansas contributes to the nation's independent-energy goals.

But the audience is skeptical. One man has heard that ethanol plants use tremendous amounts of water. A woman asks about the possibly overstated air-quality improvements. A woman affiliated with a fuel retailers' association points out a gap in communication between ethanol producers and station managers.

Moore is quick to qualify his shoot-for-the-heavens opening statements.

"Some people always want a silver bullet," he says. "But sometimes, that's just not the way it is."

In fact, even proponents like Schulte acknowledge that ethanol is no silver bullet. "A lot of people come up to me and say, 'Well, you know, can ethanol really be the solution to our energy problems?'" she tells the crowd. "And I have to say, 'No, it's not.' But ethanol is a part of the solution."

In reality, even the corn-ethanol industry's most optimistic projections make up just a sliver of the solution.

Richard Nelson, an engineering professor at Kansas State University, has spent 16 years researching fuels derived from plants. He says corn will never contribute much to America's energy needs.

"What I began to realize," he says, "is that the gas market is 140 billion gallons [per year], and diesel is 60 billion. If we're going to make a dent in that, it's going to take some land base to do it. What is that land base going to use, and can you sustain it over a 10-, 30-, 50-year period of growth?

"I think we've woken up to the fact that we can't produce 140 billion gallons from ethanol," he says. "It's just not going to happen."