Posted on 08/29/2006 5:55:39 AM PDT by 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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More about bio-fuels Why Wal-Mart wants to sell ethanol
E85 is available at only a tiny fraction of gas stations. But the giant retailer is poised to change that. (more) Manure mountains to fuel ethanol plant One company's drive to locate domestic sources of energy is taking a turn into the barnyard. (more) Soybeans that give you gas Argentina is a prime market for making and selling renewable biodiesel fuel thanks to cheap land and labor, as well as bumper crops of soybeans. (more)
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
But....Global Warming (trademark, Algore LLC) should expand both the growing season and the Northern extent for grain. Win-win.
Keep driving those SUVs, folks!
Has anybody been to the corn palace?
"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."
What he said!!
In fact, if the gov got out of business of business entirely, thermaldepolymerization, ethanol, and other biodeisel programs could be flourishing.
These are not the solutions to petroindependence, they are some solutions.
It is a bad bet to understimate Americans' capacity for innovation. It is also ill advised to underestimate government capacity to stifle innovation under the weight of beuracracy.
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Lots of tasty venison to be eaten with all that corn growing everywhere, feeding nice fat deer.
Ah, Yes , but the one in Mitchell is an energy sink not a producer!
Right between the eyes!
Reminds me of some Andean tribes that were too busy burning dung for heat instead of using it for fertilizer to grow food, and ended up starving to death.
If you forget the lessons of the past, you're doomed to repeat them.
Dr. Tad Patzek, a petroleum and chemical engineer at UC Berkeley, has researched this question. He has carefully studied the amount of energy consumed in producing ethanol versus the amount of energy produced.
"Ethanol production from corn is a fossil-energy-losing proposition," Patzek told the Canadian National Farmer's Union:
"Total crap, which has been refute on this forum countless times
No my friend you the one who is full of crap and I have news for you. Your ignorant opinion doesn't refute thermodynamics."
details if convenient...
I recognize that ethanol isn't an end all solution but it is a start. When the first oil was pumped in Pa. the cost was equal to about $700 a barrel price adjusted to today's pricing. Back then, only about 20% of a barrel of oil could be converted into gasoline. Today more than 80% can be converted into gasoline.
The simple fact of the matter is that necessity truly is the mother of invention and the need exists.
I have made no comment on this other then to say it should be interesting see what happens in the next few years.
Yes of course. And the de-ethanoled feed is better for the livestock. That still doesn't make Ethanol a fuel sans subsidy - it just makes the subsidy cheaper.
If you want to reduce fuel dependance: drill in ANWR and double refining capacity. Subsidising ethanol - subsidising ANYTHING - cannot be the answer to America's fuel requirements.
Distillers dried grains are a more readily digested animal feed than the unprocessed corn was to begin with. As long as the market continues to recognize the feed value of DDG's, they will be sold as animal feed, otherwise they will be used as boiler fuel.
Just FYI:
A 100 million gallon/year ethanol plant uses about the same amount of water as a town of around 8,000 population. The heart of the Corn Belt (where most ethanol plants are located) isn't likely to run short of water.
I believe it takes more water to refine oil into a gallon of gasoline than to make a gallon of ethanol.
Precisely. The amount of unused arable land in the world continues to RISE not decline. (Of course that statistic was from a UN study, so maybe I should take it with a rock of salt!)
I've read some lame excuses against the use of Ethanol .... but this is the lame-o-ist of them all.
The solution to a potential shortage of corn is to grow more corn. The best thing Federal and state agricultural officials can do is to stay out of the way of market forces.
fyi
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