Posted on 07/26/2007 5:46:51 PM PDT by PJ-Comix
Grand Rapids, Mich. - Ronald Reagan once said that the most terrifying words in the English language are, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." His one-liner immediately comes to mind when looking at the problems behind the federal government's campaign to boost production of corn-based ethanol with a massive 51-cent-per-gallon subsidy.
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
Give me a break. I quoted you. You are full of crap, and spare me the “I grew up on a farm” garbage.
Bingo! Very perceptive!
. . .
The fed govt's role should be to facilitate the building of infrastructure, and BTW we would bankrupt Iran if we do it quickly enough...
It appears that you are undermining your own argument. How, exactly, are we going to "bankrupt Iran" by reducing US oil consumption, when according to your own statement, growing demand in China and India will more than replace the US demand?
Ethanol - what a bargain - one acre of good farmland tied up for four months to produce fifty gallons of product - when are the greenies going to smarten up and realize that their alternate energy schemes are all so inefficient that they’ll bankrupt the country trying to implement them - or is bankruptcy really what they’re after.......
Well, I can see we are not going to agree, but before I quit for the night I’ll try this:
1- 3 mil barrels of oil a day more in US production would kick the bottom right out of prices. And we have the oil.
2 - There simply isn’t anyway now or 5 or 10 years from now we can produce ethanol in amounts significant enough to impact petroleum needs.
3 - The impact of accessing the clean coal we have in the continental US would be logarithmically greater than any potential ethanol production could be.
4 - Usually over looked in these discussions is the fact that the majority of a barrel of oil does not go to gasoline. Petroleum provides many thousands of products that can’t be made from biofuels.
Iran at the moment is totally dependent on oil revenues to pay for not only the day to day expenses of a country, but it’s nuke program, support for jihaddy’s in Iraq and a military build up.
“IF” we could get Ethanol rapidly into use in the US, the world’s current largest consumer of oil would no longer need as much oil
Eventually China and India would pick up the slack in the long term, in the short term, Iran would be bankrupt.
BTW, you do know that different types of corn have different qualities, yes? Ever tried to eat feed corn? I once was sold feed corn ears at a store. I tried boiling it for two days (because I wasn’t paying fuel costs), and it still wasn’t edible.
Those are all short term things, 3 million barrels a day, how about 4 billion people who want cars in the next ten years?
Your 3 million barrels assumes a oil market where “we” dominate in consumption, in the near future, it won’t “We” it will be “us”.
IMO, coal has a role in either power plant fuel, or liquifying it and refine it into normal crude, the last time I checked, oil over 45 dollars a barrel meant that fuel from coal was priced competitively with normal oil.
But every 5 years or so, the number of people who want that fuel is going to go upwards, demographics is destiny I’m afraid childofthe60’s as China and India grow more prosperous, they will want more Americanish things, like cars and 24/7 electricity.
Corn stalks/husks and grasses are a major feed for dairies, they are not unneeded.
That was not a complaint and that remark is out of line.
Even assuming that retail milk prices were determined by the dairyman's cost of production (they aren't), the influence of the price of corn would be minimal. A Holstein dairy cow will produce about 8 gallons of milk per day. A $.50 increase in the cost of corn translates into an average increase in the cost of a lactating cow's daily feed ration of about $.15, or $.02 per gallon (and even that assumes the dairyman has no ability to substitute other ingredients such as ddg's in the ration).
I expect its pretty hard on the fuel pump and injectors as well.
The author of that piece is very intelligent. I like how he writes
>Only a fool would use his food for fuel.<
Particularly when it takes more petroleum to produce the equivalent amount of ethanol.
Talk about the dog chasing its tail!
Go look at the CBT charts and rethink your position...
How much corn do you think a lactating dairy cow will consume in a day?
I take it that you really don’t have a whole lot of experience in agriculture, do you?
Ping
Agave are dying from fungi among other parasitical attackers; they must grow to a certain age for tequila production so if they are sickly or dying they will never make an economical crop.
The soil best suited for agave is totally unsuited for corn; a lot of amendment and irrigation will be necessary to switch over.
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