Ethanol could leave the world hungry

Cnn.com ^ | 8-16-06 | Lester Brown

[Hydroshock]

The growing myth that corn is a cure-all for our energy woes is leading us toward a potentially dangerous global fight for food. While crop-based ethanol -the latest craze in alternative energy - promises a guilt-free way to keep our gas tanks full, the reality is that overuse of our agricultural resources could have consequences even more drastic than, say, being deprived of our SUVs. It could leave much of the world hungry.

We are facing an epic competition between the 800 million motorists who want to protect their mobility and the two billion poorest people in the world who simply want to survive. In effect, supermarkets and service stations are now competing for the same resources.

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This year cars, not people, will claim most of the increase in world grain consumption. The problem is simple: It takes a whole lot of agricultural produce to create a modest amount of automotive fuel.

The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol, for instance, could feed one person for a year. If today's entire U.S. grain harvest were converted into fuel for cars, it would still satisfy less than one-sixth of U.S. demand.

[Hydroshock]

Movie theaters and fish fries hardest hit.

[mcg2000]

ummm ... how much land are we paying farmers NOT to harvest????

[50sDad]

Dear God, are these people ever happy?

[ClearCase_guy]

Malthus was right!!!

[P-40]

The growing myth that corn is a cure-all for our energy woes

I pretty much quit reading there.

[steve-b]

Bravo Sierra. All the government has to do is quit paying farmers to not grow corn, and there'd be enough to eat, turn into ethanol, and build a mile-wide bowl of Corn Chex.

[2banana]

If we use the socialist farming methods (like in Zimbabwe) - there will be plenty of food (at least for the party elite).

[cripplecreek]

I wasn't aware that people ate a lot of corn stalks and sugar cane.

[from occupied ga]

This just shows what a truly poor choice ethanol is for a motor fuel. Not to mention that a number of studies show ethanol is a net energy consumer ie you use more fossil fuel energy to produce the ethanol than you get back out of the ethanol you produce.

[Graybeard58]

Ping.

And it's Wal-Marts fault too.

[VeniVidiVici]

If today's entire U.S. grain harvest were converted into fuel for cars, it would still satisfy less than one-sixth of U.S. demand.

Oh brother. Here we go again with the "will only supply one-sixth of U.S. demand" argument.

I get tired of these idiots and their arguments that we should never do anything about energy self-sufficiency as it's all only a drop in the bucket.

[jwalburg]

My friend's husband is a consultant for people building ethanol plants. He says in only a few years they will be turning garbage into fuel. Corn is just a stepping stone.

[steve-b]

Stop it. You keep introducing this nonsense, people keep correcting you, and you try it again in the VAIN hope that nobody will notice that you're spinning the same nonsense.

[hlmencken3]

B as in 'B', S as in 'S'.

The high food value of corn - oil, protein and fiber - is not used to make ethanol and is used to make people food (mostly by being fed to livestock). Ethanol is made from the starch in corn, which isn't highly valued nutrition-wise.

[Fintan]

The growing myth that corn is a cure-all for our energy woes

I pretty much quit reading there.

 

I pretty much stopped reading here: Cnn.com

[Hydroshock]

I know, btu this does make me think that coal gasification is a better solution for most of our energy needs. I personally would not be suprised if in 5 years I go to my local wallyworld for gas and get a mix of oil, grains, and coal in my tank.

[betsyross1776]

Any thing to keep us dependent on foreign oil. The truth is the gov in our country actually pays the farmers not to plant half their fields so they can import from other countries. We would have no problem feeding our selves and growing corn. Only ones who would have a fit are the trouble makers in the middle east, who black mail the world with oil and of course the oil companies.

[Graybeard58]

This is straight from the PETA types who wish the world would eat grain instead of converting grain to meat, notice too that they get in their slams at Wal-Mart.

While I agree that ethanol is not the answer I don't agree with their reasoning.

[DungeonMaster]

I knew this was coming.

[IamConservative]

I wonder if the impact on the fresh water supply isn't a much bigger issue. We are never going to grow enough corn in the US to replace our use of oil. For ethanol to be viable, it will need to be made from something that is a much more prolific grower/producer than corn. In either case, the volume of water requried is tremendous.