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 ...
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.
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).
THE WSJ and the EPA ... two really credible sources, NOT!
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.
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.
"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!
By far and away most coal is burned in generating plants.
Google on something to the effect of "ddg gasification" and take your pick.
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?
......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.
The same corn used as ethanol feedstock is also used as food. This author, and you, apparently were unaware of this.
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.
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.
There goes the dried flower arrangement.
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.
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.
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