Gas Tanks Could Guzzle Half Of US Corn Yields

Science News ^ | 2-3-2007 | Janet Raloff

[flashbunny]

the ethanol bots will either dismiss this or not see any problem with it.

[IronJack]

A lot of alarmist claptrap, but even if it's true, so what? The wealth stays in this country, while our foreign debt declines dramatically. Farmers in Iowa and South Dakota get America's energy billions, instead of some goat-plugging sand-chaser. What's not to like?

[xcamel]

"Never rely on your basic food source to run the engine of your economy"

[Taichi]

Not only is ethanol not cheap but it will make eating more expensive and it pollutes and is less efficient.
Looks like a real Win-Win to me.

[xcamel]

and it costs more energy to produce than it provides.

[southernerwithanattitude]

Thats what I don't understand about this whole ethanol thing. The yield is so much lower for corn than sugar cane and something called "switch grass" why do they keep pushing corn?

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

"These three crops compete for much of the same land."

How well I remember the rice paddies of Illinois...

[xcamel]

because corn (ADM) pays the bills for most of the midwestern politicians..

[Normal4me]

We are going to starve the Mexicans...;-)

[proudofthesouth]

Rush as reported several times this week that studies show that ethanol produces MORE smog than regular gasoline.

[SoftballMominVA]

Article in the WaPo last week about how corn prices in Mexico are shooting through the roof and average people cannot afford to buy tortillas (did you know the average Mexican family of 4 eats a kilo of tortillas a day?) People are having to switch to the cheap Ramen-type noodles for food. The reason? The corn harvest is being used for ethanol.

[TYVets]

We're Doomed !

[southernerwithanattitude]

I'm all for useing food as a weapon. IOP every time OPEC meets and decides to raise oil prices we should be meeting and raiseing food prices right along with them. If you notice almost all of the oil produceing countries can not feed them selves.

[Wiseghy]

I'm no ethenol bot, but it seems like this doesn't factor in increased production, or ethenol generation from grasses and other emerging methods.

[SoftballMominVA]

Oh sure, we all knew that! We are either going to die of Global warming, global freezing, hurricanes, tornados, meteors, or slooooooow poisoning. I've given up caring how I will die. One way or another, we will all meet our Maker.

[marron]

why do they keep pushing corn?

I think its because we grow corn.

I suspect the peanut growers will push peanut oil. The producers of other ag products will probably look to get in on it as well, figuring out how to turn their byproducts into something marketable. Where I live the almond growers have been doing it for years, there is a power plant up the road that burns, or did burn at least, almond waste as its primary fuel. Not sure where it stands lately.

Sugar is probably better, and you can imagine the sugar growers in the Gulf Coast will be trying to figure out how to get in on it as well.

[Anti-Bubba182]

This is like the hydogen scam. Most of the hydrogen used in vehicles is made from Natural Gas, which should be used mainly for home heating.

[TYVets]

Regardless of what "they" say, you did not learn that from The Weather Channel or CNN?

[mkjessup]

Look folks, use logic here: corn is of limited nutritional value anyway, and you can prove it to yourself:

Next meal, eat a can of corn. The whole can.

Watch your bowel movements. You will see that corn again my FRiends. This is a universal law at work.

Now if the human body cannot digest kernels of corn, and if those kernels exit the human body mostly in the same shape they went in, that ought to tell you something.

Stop trying to digest corn, and use it for something more useful, i.e., ethanol.

What could be simpler? ;)