Buy Feed Corn: They’re about to stop making it… (grain-based biofuels alert)

Beacuse of the evil conspiracy between American family farmers and the Council on Foreign Relations.

No complaint about Kellogg’s dude. They add value corn just like the hog producer. However, they have to pass on increase costs just like anyone else. The only thing is that corn is probably the smallest input. Even if corn doubles in price, that only accounts for a few pennies in extra input cost. So don’t blame the higher cost of corn flakes on the corn farmer.

You must not have lived through the 19th and early 20th century...

I think if you look into it, history is on my side with this one...

Besides, you make my point. We may have had foreign oil dependence in the 70’s but we did not have food dependence did we... the dust bowl was the last time we had to import staples into this country. I think you would find it was a lot more uncomfortable than the Oil Embargo.

My points and opinions stand.

— lates
— jrawk

We may have had foreign oil dependence in the 70’s but we did not have food dependence did we did not have food dependence did we

Fortunately, we were much less dependent on foreign oil sources at the time and that is no longer the case. Depending on which reports you read, we are also now a net food importer. If that 4" hole you speak of were in America, I'd be all for using it.

"No they didn't include the feedstock energy of the soybeans. That is my point, they left that out. Let me quote your favorite source Wang."

Uh, in the biodiesel paper, the descriptive paragraph spefically stated that they DID include the energy of the soybeans. If you would have bothered to read down JUST A LITTLE FURTHER (to Table 125), you would see the results including ONLY the fossil fuel input, as separate items and without the included feedstock energy.

The Wang paper is talking about ETHANOL, not biodiesel. There's not one word about biodiesel in the Wang reference, so your quote simply doesn't apply. Also note that the percentages you quote are only for the fossil energy USED, and nowhere does it refer to how much "indirect solar energy" is harvested by the investment of that fossil energy input. That information IS in the Wang paper, though. Most of the studies for ethanol cluster around 1.25 MMBTU harvested per 1 MM BTU invested.

"What the biofuel people are really doing is converting cheaper domestic sources of fuel, primarily coal and natural gas into a diesel replacement. I don't have a problem with that except that it is expensive both in terms of money and energy"

Wrong. Both ethanol and biodiesel have positlve energy balances. A small amount of fossil energy is used to harvest a larger about of indirect solar energy.

Again, from both Tables 6 and 125 in the biodiesel paper--it requires 0.33 MMBTU of FOSSIL ENERY to harvest 1.0MMBTU of biodiesel--a VERY large net energy gain.

"The 11,000 Btu balance difference is still not enough to make ethanol a positive energy source. According to the MIT report ethanol is at best a break even energy source. Why not just be honest and admit that it is welfare for farmers?"

Pimentel includes a lot of other erroneous assumptions besides just his error in fertilizer.

"I simply made the statement that farmers try to maximize their acreage efficiency. I don't know of any farmers who try to make their farms less productive unless they are being paid by the government not to grow something. Is that your point or do you even have a point?"

Firstly, your point is wrong--what farmers try to do is maximize PROFIT per acre. In "most" cases, this is done by maximizing efficiency, in others, by reducing costs. In my local hometown area, quite a few farmers had converted corn acreage to beef pasturage, because the COSTS per acre were drastically reduced.

But MY point, which you keep trying to weasel around, is that, because farmers HAVE maximized production efficiency per acre for production of corn (and other crops), that much acreage once used for corn has been withdrawn from corn production, and so is available very quickly to increase corn production. And in fact, in a post up-thread in this very thread, it appears that production of corn has ramped up SO rapidly, that the expected $4.00/bushel for corn for the fall harvest will NOT materialize, and the price will be significantly lower.