[taxesareforever]

There goes the pie in the sky dream of low priced fuel.

[1COUNTER-MORTER-68]

It's Shocking !!! Shameful Waste !!! Awful Thing To Do !!

Shame On George Bush !!! All That CORN !!! Po'Mexicans !!!

Make Whiskey With All That Corn !!!...;0)

[OwenKellogg]

Kinda like my reply on this thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1773981/posts


... when someone asked "Now what exactly are we supposed to be saving by using corn ethanol?" ...

I replied:

"By using corn ethanol for fuel, we increase the price of food products, thereby increasing the price. It will eventually bankrupt us to continue to feed the world. While this ethanol thing gets legs, the environmentalists will attempt to shutter the oil business once and for all through a variety of legislation to make it too restrictive and taxed too heavily. Once we are bankrupt and the oil business has been successfully shut down by the leftist environmentalists, it's back to the stone age for us, which has been the leftist's plan all along. See?"

The law of unintended consequences applies here, but you've really got to wonder if it is really unintended.

[sphinx]

But it's much worse if you are a poor Mexican surviving on corn tortillas.

But it's much better if you're a Mexican peasant farmer trying to make living while the U.S. dumps subsidized corn on international markets. "Feeding the world's poor" is a nice warm fuzzy slogan that often masks the sabotage of Third World agriculture.

Not that this is a problem for liberal elites -- Third World farmers who can't make a living back home can always sneak into the U.S. to do jobs Americans don't want to do.

[Poincare]

Uncle Sam gives ethanol manufacturers a 51-cent-per-gallon subsidy.

The total subsidy works out to quite abit more when you figure in the subsidies for the corn itself, for transportation, and the tax abatements at the pump. Lots more.

[ChiMark]

The law of supply and demand interupts shangri-la. The farm lobby has been
pushing ethanol for over a decade but they can't deliver the
needed supply. Never could.

It's all about basic economics 101. The yield of ethanol per acre of corn is small. The scope of the ethanol craze would require most of the U.S. to be under tillage for corn.

Let's go to some other moronic bio-fuel solution like using
used toilet paper or shoe string.
I resent having to pay more for whiskey.
This could be a boon for those bootleggers.

Hey, Otis! where'd ya get the hooch?

[colorado tanker]

Well, lessee. Taxpayers have to subsidize ethanol over 50 cents a barrel and we have to keep out cheaper imports with a big tariff. Then, it still isn't enough so's we'll have to "bail out" the coming overproduction capacity. Now we find out all this government intervention is causing instability in Mexico much the way the war on drugs is in South America, turning whole countries over to the communists.

Yep, we always ought to trust the government over the market to give us just what we deserve.

[greasepaint]

whoever wrote this, is mentally ill.

a kilo of corn sells for less than two pesos

[Ninian Dryhope]

"55 percent, from 5.5 to 8.5 pesos."

Yes, from $0.35/pound to $0.45/pound. BFD. So a frigging pound of corn tortillas cost a whopping $.45 for a pound.

[Fierce Allegiance]

ping

[G-Man 1]

Raping the farm land to plant one type of crop. No crop rotation destroys the land. I'm reporting you to the FFA and the 4H. Beware.

[Smokin' Joe]

Never happy, are they? He leaves the border wide open and all they do is gripe. A-maize-ing. And still "Bush's Fault"

[corbie]

lest we forget: ethanol also trashes engines, unless they're specially adapted to it.

we've watched the sad demise of a lawn mower and snow blower, the rehabilitation of a generator, and car-gasket deterioration.

not to mention the sheer obscenity of feeding people/animal food to motors.

gentlemen, start your engines (with salt and butter additives).

[Bon mots]

The EU has passed legislation forbidding the use of food crops for fuel production, so palm oil and other oils like this are out. Jatropha and things that grow in deserts, are in!

Why don't we let people grow Jatropha in the desert?

Another good bet would be the farming of algae!

[Overseez]

I always thought that biodiesel was more interesting than ethanol... it's more efficient too. The best choice would be to make it from algae... just look at this chart:

---

Yields of common crops

Crop	kg oil/ha	litres oil/ha	lbs oil/acre	US gal/acre
corn (maize)	145	172	129	18
cashew nut	148	176	132	19
oats	183	217	163	23
lupine	195	232	175	25
kenaf	230	273	205	29
calendula	256	305	229	33
cotton	273	325	244	35
hemp	305	363	272	39
soybean	375	446	335	48
coffee	386	459	345	49
linseed (flax)	402	478	359	51
hazelnuts	405	482	362	51
euphorbia	440	524	393	56
pumpkin seed	449	534	401	57
coriander	450	536	402	57
mustard seed	481	572	430	61
camelina	490	583	438	62
sesame	585	696	522	74
safflower	655	779	585	83
rice	696	828	622	88
tung oil tree	790	940	705	100
sunflowers	800	952	714	102
cocoa (cacao)	863	1026	771	110
peanuts	890	1059	795	113
opium poppy	978	1163	873	124
rapeseed	1000	1190	893	127
olives	1019	1212	910	129
castor beans	1188	1413	1061	151
pecan nuts	1505	1791	1344	191
jojoba	1528	1818	1365	194
jatropha	1590	1892	1420	202
macadamia nuts	1887	2246	1685	240
Brazil nuts	2010	2392	1795	255
avocado	2217	2638	1980	282
coconut	2260	2689	2018	287
oil palm	5000	5950	4465	635
Chinese tallow	5500	6545	4912	699
Algae	79832	95,000		10,000

- Note: Chinese tallow (Triadica Sebifera, or Sapium sebiferum) is also known as the "Popcorn Tree" or Florida Aspen.
Source: Chinese tallow data, Mississippi State University
Source: Used with permission from the The Global Petroleum Club

Typical oil extraction from 100 kg. of oil seeds

Crop	Oil/100kg.
Castor Seed	50 kg
Copra	62 kg
Cotton Seed	13 kg
Groundnut Kernel	42 kg
Mustard	35 kg
Palm Kernel	36 kg
Palm Fruit	20 kg
Rapeseed	37 kg
Sesame	50 kg
Soybean	14 kg
Sunflower	32 kg

Source: Petroleum Club (with permission)
The energy content of biodiesel is about 90 percent that of petroleum diesel.

[LZ_Bayonet]

"At the margin, watch for more of them to throw up their hands and head north, to a neighborhood near you."

How about to a bumper-to-bumper freeway near me? I could shut my engine, put it in neutral, and pay a couple of illegals $10 to keep pushing my small car along with traffic for the half-hour it takes for traffic to start moving; while I sleep. And there's the gas I'll save. Hmmmmm, forget the illegals, have you ever seen those weight loss ads where they state that the companies fee is only $1 for every pound the obese person loses? I could probably get some obese Americans to do this, lose weight, AND PAY ME.