Ethanol's clean air benefits clouded by greenhouse gas emissions
Author: Jennifer Bjorhus and MaryJo Webster
You can't see the greenhouse gases pumped out the stacks with the water vapor in the air, but they are there - more than 178,000 metric tons in 2019 alone. Eighteen of Minnesota's 19 corn ethanol plants are among the 100 facilities expelling the most greenhouse gases in the state, according to a Star Tribune analysis of data from the U.S. Combined, the state's corn distilleries produced more than 1.7 million metric tons of the climate poisoning gases in 2019. Producers have made headway shrinking the overall carbon intensity of corn ethanol with better crop yields and more efficient distilleries. Minnesota's total corn ethanol production from 2012 through 2019 rose 25%; the greenhouse gases from the plants rose a much smaller 5%, the EPA data shows.