Conference board report tackles ethanol

Thursday, November 10, 2011

by SUSAN MANN

GreenField Ethanol Inc. chairman Ken Field says a new report outlining the ethanol industry’s positive contibutions to Canada’s economy is great but unlikely to silence critics.

Released November 7, the Conference Board of Canada’s report, called Ethanol’s Potential Contribution to Canada’s Transportation Sector, was funded by the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association.

Field says the ethanol industry has been under attack from vested interests like the oil industry that don’t want to see ethanol in gasoline. But the study contains comprehensive and intelligent research that dispels several myths surrounding the industry.

Field says one myth is it takes more energy to produce ethanol than the amount of energy it generates. That may have been true 30 to 35 years ago but “we know that the new ethanol plants that have been built in the last five to 10 years would produce at least two times more energy than you put into it.”

The conference board’s study concludes that ethanol “should be part of Canada’s energy mix,” notes Len Coad, director of energy, environment and technology policy for the conference board. Other observations in the report include:

•    Ethanol production in Canada has reached almost two billion litres and it will continue to grow. The industry contributes about $1.2 billion annually to the Canadian economy.

•    Ethanol also contributes to reducing Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. A 10 per cent ethanol blend reduces greenhouse gas emissions by four to six per cent compared to gasoline, while if a 100 per cent ethanol blend were available greenhouse gas emissions would be 40 to 62 per cent lower than those from gasoline production and use.

•    The industry generates an estimated $925 million in government revenues during the construction phase for ethanol plants and annual operations bring another estimated $240 million into government coffers.

•    Government support for the industry in Canada is estimated to average $260 million annually from 2006 to 2012.

•    The biofuels industry accounts for more than 14,000 person-years of employment during the construction phase and more than 1,000 permanent jobs once plants are in place.

Coad says the conference board is always upfront about who funds their studies so “there’s no impression that we’ve attempted to put forward an advocacy piece. We just don’t do that.”

During contract negotiations with clients, the conference board makes it clear it is independent and it will publish what it finds, he explains. “We don’t give them (clients) the right to participate more than anyone else would in the review process.”

The conference board has two knowledgeable people read each report to determine if there are gaps in the analysis along with any errors or omissions in its reports and “whether the conclusions flow from the analysis,” he says.

For the ethanol report, Coad says he had four independent reviews read it. The readers had nothing to with funding or doing the study.

To do the ethanol study, Coad says they looked at reports that covered both sides of each of the issues. BF