Ethanol's Growing List of Enemies

Business Week ^ | March 19, 2007 | Moira Herbst

[Paperpusher]

Don't we pay farmers NOT to grow things? Why not try to get them to plant more.

[Leisler]

Ethanol, in this country, uses more energy( fuel ) than it produces.

If Ethanol wasn't subsidized by other taxpayers, and was taxed like any other fuel, it would be way, way more expensive per gallon, let alone by power( something like 1.15 gallons of eth is needed to supply the power of a gallon of 87 octane gasoline.)

[Red Badger]

...likely to lead to chaos in other sectors of the economy.

Already has. The Grocery Sector.......Margarine, Corn Oil, Milk, Pork, Beef, Chicken, Eggs... anything remotely involved with corn is already up and getting higher.............

[freedomfiter2]

EXACTLY, and because there are so many ethanol plants going on line there is a glut of it and the cost in many areas has dropped to $60 ton. The whole thing balances out. Corn way up ... DGs way down. DGs are so concentrated with proteins, vitamins an minerals it must be mixed with normal rations and increases the productivity of beef cattle as much as ten percent. All this BS about cost of food going up because of ethanol production is just that... so much BS.


You're rigth. With additional corn production due to the higher prices, the actual cost for feed should eventually drop. It's the changeover period that will be rough.

[irish guard]

I agree....let Brazil sell us their cheaper ethanol made from sugar cane....

We have replaced one source of energy we won't allow our producers to drill for in our own country with another, that is driving the cost of beef, chicken..heck even cheese higher. This is moronic. Count me out on the ethanol bandwagon.

[MarkL]

every gallon of ethanol produced, is 2/3 of a gallon of petroleum that no longer needs to come from the middle east.

I've been against ethanol for quite some time. First off, butanol is a much better fuel, much closer in potential energy to gasoline. Secondly, it's easier to get from a wider selection of sources. And most importantly (IMHO), you're not setting up a competition between foodstuffs and energy sources.

Mark

[anglian]

"...The farmers will get rich anyway you work this..."

This is a problem?

From the perch of his $180,000 six-row combine, churning through cornfields that stretch as far as the eye can see, John Phipps has a rare view of American farm policy.

Today, he calls himself an "industrial farmer" who uses computers, technology and science to get the most out of the 1,800 acres of corn and soybeans he plants in an area of Illinois where the weather and soil are ideal for farming. The strategy has paid off with bigger and better yields.

Yet to Congress and federal agricultural officials, Phipps and his wife, Jan, are struggling family farmers. Last year, the government sent the Phippses a check for $120,000. Thousands of similar checks arrived throughout the Corn Belt, even as many farmers had bumper crops.

Federal Subsidies Turn Farms Into Big Business

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/20/AR2006122001591_pf.html

[anglian]

Let Brazil sell us their cheaper ethanol made from sugar cane....

ADM has signaled its determination to maintain corn -- for which it has billions of dollars in assets geared toward buying, moving, storing, and processing in place -- as the main ethanol feedstock.

How cash and corporate pressure pushed ethanol to the fore.......

http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/12/06/ADM/index.html

[greasepaint]

where do you get that BS?

the liquid-fuel energy gain is more that TEN-TO-ONE.
look at the top-right graph on page two, from Argonne National lab
http://www.ncga.com/public_policy/PDF/03_28_05ArgonneNatlLabEthanolStudy.pdf

the rest can be home-developed energy from the US

[greasepaint]

if you don't like subsidies, you should like the
current, higher, crop prices.

subsidies are getting priced-out

[gakrak]

It's a whole lot cheaper to convert sugar cane, and cattle don't eat sugar cane. Amen.

[greasepaint]

anything is better than sending money
to ragheads

[Ben Ficklin]

Overlooked in this discussion of ethanol subsidies is how they relate to ag subsidies.

It is inevitable that US ag subsidies will have to fall because of the related WTO impasse.

In this case, the ethanol subsidies have the potential to replace ag subsidies. And while ethanol subsidies benefit only corn producers, there are stories in the media of cotton producers planning to convert part of their cotton acreage to corn to take advantage of the higher demand. Soybean and rice producers will shift also.

[Repeal The 17th]

A feller told me the ground is so flat out there,
that when you looked way out in front of you,
all you could see was the back of your own head.

[dalereed]

"someone else will turn the corn into ethanol."

Let them burn that lousy fuel then.

Eliminate all the subsidies ons it and we won't have to put up with it.

[greasepaint]

nothing lousy about ethanol.

people building high compression engines,
love the stuff.

find some other 105 octane, at a pump.

ethanol, excellent fuel.

[Colonel PK]

Do you think it is possible that ethanol is produced to insure that food is limited for the population?

[thackney]

The problem here is we won't buy ethanol from anyone but corn producers. Brazil wants to export to us, but we won't lower the import tax.

In 2006 we imported 3.5 Billion liters (925 Million Gallons) of ethanol from Brazil. They do more than want to; they export more to us than anywhere else.

US is largest, but Brazil most efficient ethanol producer

[Leisler]

BS? Watch your mouth boy.

From that poor, short, incomplete argumentative report, "..The following graph illustrates the total energy needed to produce a unit of ethanol is more than needed to produce a unit of gasoline.."

I knew that.

Further, if it wasn't for one arm of the FedGov keeping us from driving diesels small cars, like they do in Europe, if the rest of us weren't subsidizing farmers, ADM, and ethanol companies. If ethanol energy producers were taxed at the same rate, and if consumers then had free choice between high cost gas/eth mix and lower cost higher mileage/power producing gasoline then ethanol would be toast.

Hey, if you want to burn it, and only you pay for it, fine. But get your tax subsidize, get with the tax rates and compete in an unforced compelled to buy by government scam out of my pocket and tax forms.

If ethanol is a scam. If give me enough subsidizes I'll make horse drawn wagons come back.

And why don't horses come back as they are the original grain powered engine? Because there are costs when fully accounted for that make it less economical. Same with ethanol. Full, fair it isn't economical. As a example in the report is the 'other petroleum' by product from the refining of gasoline. What you think that is making money? It's more than grain feed brings in from eth. But being a government report, and bait for economic suckers, it's isn't accounted. Also, why gasoline, the (almost) most expensive fuel? Why not diesel fuel that is cheaper and more powerful? We know what that would do to the supposed eth advantage. But, again, one would have to look outside one's mental envelope, if possible.

[RetiredArmy]

Yup. When that steak at the steak house starts costing $150.00 for 8 oz NY Strip, then folks are going to whine.