Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 04/22/2008 9:04:11 AM PDT by Virginia Ridgerunner
The willingness to try, fail and try again is the essence of scientific progress. The same sometimes holds true for public policy. It is in this spirit that today, Earth Day, we call upon Congress to revisit recently enacted federal mandates requiring the diversion of foodstuffs for production of biofuels. These "food-to-fuel" mandates were meant to move America toward energy independence and mitigate global climate change. But the evidence irrefutably demonstrates that this policy is not delivering on either goal. In fact, it is causing environmental harm and contributing to a growing global food crisis.
Food-to-fuel mandates were created for the right reasons. The hope of using American-grown crops to fuel our cars seemed like a win-win-win scenario: Our farmers would enjoy the benefit of crop-price stability. Our national security would be enhanced by having a new domestic energy source. Our environment would be protected by a cleaner fuel. But the likelihood of these outcomes was never seriously tested, and new evidence has shown that the justifications for these mandates were inaccurate.
(snip)
Taking these together -- the environmental damage, the human pain of food price inflation, the failure to reduce our dependence on oil -- it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that food-to-fuel mandates have failed. Congress took a big chance on biofuels that, unfortunately, has not worked out. Now, in the spirit of progress, let us learn the appropriate lessons from this setback, and let us act quickly to mitigate the damage and set upon a new course that holds greater promise for meeting the challenges ahead.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
We...are...not...burning...our...food.
More left wing Malthusian sloganeering. Say it enough times and it becomes true.
....and #2 can be used to heat homes, maybe fuel jet engines (on a regular basis), convert all car sales to biodiesel (economics of expensive gasoline will kill the sales all by itself), all railroads and trucks, generators...
While a small part of the wholesale cost of corn might be attributable to the price of oil needed to run the tractors to farm it, mostly corn price at that level is based on supply and demand. And that wholesale price has shot up greatly, as demand for corn outstrips supply — mostly because of the large demand for corn by the ethanol factories.
That’s not something we have to have an opinion about, we can simply look at the numbers.
The cost of bread and other final products ARE effected by the cost of shipment.
The less fortunate folks in the Rep. of Panama depend on rice as a main food staple.
About 3 months ago, a 5-pound bag cost $1.86.
This week it is up to $2.47.
I don’t know how these folks are going to survive as food prices keep going up and up.
Non-corn ethanol
I get tired of repeating this---but the ONLY foods that should go up as a result of "ethanol demand" are those that use whole corn--the reason is that ethanol production only removes 1/3 (the carbohydrate fraction) of food value---the rest goes right back into the food chain. Increased planting of corn for ethanol should INCREASE the total food supply.
That’s not something we have to have an opinion about, we can simply look at the numbers."
So post the numbers. I haven't SEEN any numbers that prove any such thing. I've only seen a lot of opinions that sing about "burning food for fuel is bad", but no detailed analysis.
"The cost of bread and other final products ARE effected by the cost of shipment."
And my contention is that this is the major driving factor behind most of the price increases.
The numbers
http://www.cbot.com/cbot/pub/static/files/snd_cbt.pdf
The increase in corn production has increased more than the demand of corn for ethanol so far.
1971-1975, 1977-1980, and 2007 to now is all periods of rapid increase in all commodities prices including farm products.
Was those periods of high prices caused by shortages or devaluation of the dollar?
..cost of shipment, imagine paying $1000 dollars to fill up, that’s what truckers are facing right now!
This is the most bizzare and puzzling statement in a very bizarre and puzzling article.
Congress took no chance at all. Congress reflexively passed feel-good legislation knowing full-well that there was no serious risk that any individual member of congress would be held accountable for the predictably dismal consequences. They do it almost every single day, especially so-called "environmental" legislation. The stink from this particular lawfart is just a little too strong for even the LSM to ignore.
The beneficaries are easily identifed (farmers, farm suppliers, ethanol manufactures, Archer-Midland-Daniels) the consequences are visited more diffusely on the many. The beneficaries have an intense interest in fighting any change to a particularly bad law.
The old cars were using one carburator for eight cylinders with the outside cylinders running “right” and the inside ones running rich, to avoid burning valves. If all you ever did was to switch to fuel injection you’d run very much cleaner and going from that age to our present computerized cars you essentialy eliminate 99.999% of the pollution the old cars produced. There’s no comparison at all. Occasionally you get “classic” (i.e. 60s junk) auctions at Manheim indoors on a cold day and the people are standing there gasping and wiping their eyes and asking themselves how the world ever lived through the decades of those cars.
This is why the catalytic converter is a mistake, High Pressure Fuel Injection would cleanly burn each molecule of fuel w/virtually no waste.
Anyone with a plant mister can understand the more finely you spray the more coverage you get.
Right now the fuel rail pressure on cars is barely more than dribbles out of you kitchen faucet on a good day.
Get it up a few hundred pounds & bang!!, more power, better mil-age & no waste.
The cat. conv. is just an incinerator burning up in a wasteful fashion gasoline the engine could not or would not, make power out of.
Instead we let bureaucrats decide we need catalytic converters, sealed systems, arbitrary mileage and emission standards and a thousand other feel-good solutions that stifle real innovation.
That is a great example. The bottom line, which ties in with this article about ethanol, is that government interference in industry and markets always causes more problems than it solves.
Yes, and it should have been vetoed.
What about the shift of land from soybean and other crops to corn? That also drives up food prices for the crops that are in shorter supply as a result of the corn/ethanol boom. Around my house last year it was (almost) nothing but corn fields, instead of the 50/50 mix with soybeans that it normally is.
What other factors would be driving soybean and other food prices through the roof? I'm sure growing affluence in China, etc. is a factor, but ethanol demand definitely looks like a part of the general equation, as agricultural land and resources shift in the direction of filling it.
Here goes- First of all article is bullcrap.. Those writers don’t know a horses ass from a tractor tire. In the last 15 years the amount of corn produced went up from
8 billion BUshels, to almost 14 billion BU, 15 years ago
hardly any was used for ethanol. Now 25% or 3.5 billion
bushels is used for ethanol, leaving 10.5 billion BU
for feed and food use.Which is a 31% increase for food
and feed, over the 8 billion BU of 15 years ago.
And the high protein feed from ethanol plants is more
valuable than ethanol.And it makes up the equivalent
of half of the corn used for ethanol.Ethanol
is really just a usefull by-product, the way the system works. And the bins all have corn in them to get to the
next harvest. We still export. The cost of producing
has went up due to high energy costs. Most extra corn acres
have come from idle land and former cotton land.
Very little from soybeans, wheat, orchards, etc.
We had a worldwide surplus of cotton, so much so, that
African cotton growers sued our guys in the WTO, for
dumping cheap cotton hurting their farms.The price of farm commodities is also affected by the many nations who
used to export grain, hurting their starving people,
that have cut back on exporting. They finally realize
they shouldn’t be hurting their own. Foreign exports of
grain to world markets has beem cut over a 1/3.
And it is right thing for counties like China to
feed their own 1/4 of the worlds people...But this causes
a bigger demand from countries that don’t have much
agriculture. Another factor is a 1/3 of farm product prices
are being driven by huge influxes of speculating
money. The speculating money in ag products has went
up 20 times in the last 8 years. They’re doing the same
to it that they’ve done to oil.
There is 450,000 barrels of ethanol everyday adding to
our fuel supply. It didn’t start last fall, it has
been increasing slowly for years as farmers geared up to
produce corn for it, but still also increasing by 31%
the amount for feed and food. It is the major increase in motor fuel supply that has helped to moderate prices. It is a dollar a gal lower than pump price of gas.
Granted there are food problems in some countries due to their not having good ag economy or a way to earn
what the price has been driven up to, but these are places
where they don’t produce a good living, due to
political factors, culture, they only want to be
terrorists, afternoon siesta is too long, etc.
If people concerned enough, those making big bucks
in screwing us on oil, and screwing up prices with
the speculating... can pass the hat and send food.
There an article(FR) about a meeting of ME and VEN oil ministers and others in UE, blaming food price increases
all on ethanol, with no mention of the screwing they
are giving us on oil, driving up costs.
There is an article on FR By Investors Daily blaming
all food rises on ethanol and no mention of the
part their constituancy/speculators are playing..
So thw WAPO in in good company with these bunch
of scum. Ed Hubel.
“Food-to-fuel mandates were created for the right reasons.”
These fools never learn that, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Of course I’m sure they’re more than eager to replace the ethanol mandate with another mandate that won’t work.
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