Ethanol could leave the world hungry

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

[P-40]

If you really want energy independence ramp up coal synfuel and use more diesels.

That will go over well. Which candidate will run on that? Can poll numbers be negative?

[muawiyah]

I just responded to the coal issue a couple of items up the thread.

BTW, one of the ways we can reduce the cost of corn and other crops substantially (in terms of total net hydrocarbon energy consumption) is to build atomic power plants to produce the electricity that fixes vast quantities of atmosphereic hydrogen in high-nitrogen fertilizers.

[sportutegrl]

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/031128.html

It's am oldie, but I can't post the WSJ article because it requires subscription. At any rate, if ethanol was the answer to our energy woes, then WHY DOES THE GOVERNMENT IMPOSE A TARRIF ON IMPORTED ETHANOL? (Hint: Think ADM and the food pyramid, 9-11 servings of grain, yeah, right).

[rollin]

THE WSJ and the EPA ... two really credible sources, NOT!

[agere_contra]

That is an excellent article. Pimental seems to have done the sums. 54,000 BTU net loss everytime we make a gallon of Ethanol, or about 1.7 to 1 loss ratio. It's not even close.

[from occupied ga]

$1.00 a gallon gas and diesel.

I agree about the coal synfuel - I understand that coal synfuel diesel comes in at about $40 - $45/barrel, but there are some either ardent tree huggers or people who are swilling at the taxpayer trough on this thread who try to shout down alternatives to ethanol.

[tobyhill]

This is BS. The corn that makes ethanol is still good after the process for feedstock, it's called distillers grain and it's different than the Hybrid Corn that humans consume.

[RoadTest]

"Ethanol could leave the world hungry"


Burning up the word's food and smoking it out the exhaust. One of the worst of the bird-brained ideas the Liberal useful idiots being used by the Communist world agenda have ever pushed!

[from occupied ga]

besides, coal has many uses beyond energy production and should be husbanded for the indefinite future.

By far and away most coal is burned in generating plants.

[Mr. Lucky]

Google on something to the effect of "ddg gasification" and take your pick.

[sportutegrl]

I know why don't the sorry third world bums start growing their own food stock?

Because the US Government subsidizes grain production in the US and encourages overproduction. This excess is given to third world countries for free in food aid handouts. I have read articles in WSJ about farmers who can't compete against free. Can you?

[Auntie Toots]

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

Yup, there is plenty of land enrolled in government farm programs now...the farmers could plant fence row to fence row again..we are not going to starve. And neither are the animals.

[TKDietz]

"The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol, for instance, could feed one person for a year."

Who could live a whole year on 9 bushels of corn? That's about what it would take to make 25 gallons of ethanol. The ethanol producer would also get more than 160 pounds of animal feed and some liquid CO2.

[Mr. Lucky]

The same corn used as ethanol feedstock is also used as food. This author, and you, apparently were unaware of this.

[muawiyah]

Yes, that is unfortunately true.

We should also be husbanding our limited oil resources as well.

These things are much more valuable as manufactured items than as the waste byproducts of incomplete combustion.

[P-40]

TARRIF ON IMPORTED ETHANOL?

If you are talking about importing ethanol made using sugar, you will pay a tariff because it involves sugar. Big Sugar is pretty twisted, even compared to Big Corn...both of which make Big Oil look like choir boys.

[Loud Mime]

The water that is used to produce the crops and the fuel and fertilizer used to plant and maintain the crops is not worth the small energy gain; we'll pay for it in the future.

[sportutegrl]

I'm thinking cattails, broom corn, and reedgrass first.

There goes the dried flower arrangement.

[IamConservative]

I believe it takes more water to refine oil into a gallon of gasoline than to make a gallon of ethanol.

I live near where they are looking at making an ethanol plant and the water usage is the primary topic of debate. Is really my only source of information and could be specific to this location I suppose. Ethanol manufacture will also use water if the crop used to produce it has to be irrigated.

[Let's Roll]

No - this is all part of the wall-to-wall, 24/7, constant barrage of all bad, all the time so the exhausted American voter will finally vote the "good" guys back into power.