Posted on 05/31/2011 1:44:23 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
For feed. DDG (the spent grains) is better feed for cattle and chickens that raw corn. Cows don’t need all the carbs, and love the stuff.
No, you’re not getting the error of Pimmental’s methodology.
Pimmental was including the energy costs of making the steel for farm equipment and the food the farmer eats AS THOUGH it would never have been consumed if only the farmer didn’t turn his corn into ethanol.
This is an entirely false assumption. The farmer is going to farm. He’s going to buy that equipment, regardless of whether or not there is ethanol in the fuel market. There are plenty of farmers selling corn to ethanol plants running equipment from the 1970’s. When we farmed, I think the most recent pieces of equipment we had were mid-90’s vintage. Most all our tractors were from 1979 or earlier, our tillage equipment was from the 1970’s as well. The energy that went into those machines is a “sunk cost.” It has been spent, there is no way to get it back, and what is more, if the farmer is going to continue growing food, he’s going to buy steel in the form of farm equipment.
The energy input accounting for the food the farmer ate was even more laughable. The farmer could, in some mythological world (which is most of academia) forego the energy consumption that comes from using steel in farm equipment if he chose to not farm *at all*.
But the food intake of the farmer can be “solved” by only one thing: Killing the farmer, preferably before he’s born so he never even increases his mother’s consumption of food.
That’s what is utterly bankrupt about Pimmental’s methodology. The steel energy costs are going to remain the same, because the farmer is going to either farm something else or the equipment pre-existed ethanol policy. The energy the farmer takes in as food is going to remain in place until he dies, regardless of what he does with respect to making ethanol.
How about that! Reminds me of the discovery that the ver volatile “waste”produced during the manufacture of kerosene — gasoline—was useful. By question is: Is there are use for the carbs besides going into ethanol?
Sugar. But a wet mill is a different animal, as is the feed. That and a wet mill is much more expensive that the “dry” mills that make ethanol.
My old plant had a nice still out back that made drinkable alcohol as sideline. That market is very tight, and they later sold the potable still.
But, but, why would farmers grow corn if it isn’t kept artificially high by ethanol subsidies? They might start growing something else, and then what will we use to make ethanol, which nobody wants in their car, so has to be subsidized, so the farmers will grow corn to make ethanol, which nobody wants in their car...
Legalize pot. That’ll give farmers something to grow that needs no subsidies.
If you took the same methodology for oil that Pimmental used for ethanol, you have have to factor in the recent wars.
The study is a joke on many levels, made by a man who wants 75% or more of the world to die off so he can live in is fantasy land.
I’m for that. Do away with subsides!!
And today’s successful US farmer uses a lot of science, too !! Most I know are applying fertilizer at the seed bed in measured ounces adjusted for soil condition by sectors in every field ! In my little corner of NW NJ “organic farming” is practiced - i.e. chicken manure is used to add needed phosphorus and nitrogen - and even that’s a measured application ! “No till/min till” is the standard to preserve soil condition and improve tilth. Which, as you know, means a lot of carbon is sequestered annually. Any more farm “run off” is almost unseen outside of extreme weather events.
What concerns me more is any local home/garden big box is a potential toxic site with the vast amounts of herbicides, pesticides and concentrated fertilizers stocked. And unlike farmers, anyone - sans any knowledge, training or demonstration thereof - can purchase/apply/dispose of serious agricultural chemicals in any manner they deem appropiate. And there are a lot more of these untracked/monitored individuals than farmers. >PS
bookmark for later read
If a corporation is supposed to pay X% of their profits in taxes and they pay less than X% of their taxes in profits then they are receiving a subsidy.
If you think corporations are paying too high a tax they you should advocate lowering X. All deductions are really subsidies. If a flat tax makes sense it is with regard to corporate taxes. We should not be encouraging or discouraging businesses in anyway via the tax code. All this does is give lobbyists a reason to exist.
I realize that all taxes on corporations ultimately get passed on either as wage reductions or price increases, but there is no realistic way we are going to get rid of the corporate income tax any time soon. In the meantime, the more deductions we eliminate, and the more we lower the overall tax rate the better.
Screw Grover Norquist, Delay, and all their scumbag lobbyist buddies!
Um, “mileage” was a poor choice of my words.
Put it this way (so a non-farmer has a relative idea):
On average (I know it could vary greatly), how much fuel would a typical operation use to harvest a 100 acre field of corn or soybeans? (That’s what gets planted in the field across from my place.) A ballpark figure is fine.
Thanks!
And you know this how?
OUCH!!! Not lemon juice? ;-)
Very weak, noob, horribly weak “argument.”
Ok. Someone told me “close to $5” today, so that makes sense.
Bottom line, if corn dropped from its current price around $8/bushel to, say, $7.50/bushel, due to the removal of ethanol subsidies, corn farmers are generally going to be ok. Granted, that good times are supposed to make up for bad times. And granted that this assumes other factors (demand from China, economy does not get much worse, etc.) will continue to hold prices up. Right?
Thanks for the info.!
I know some folks that would buy pure ethanol (not denatured) for $3.00 a gallon if it avoided the taxes associated with it.
I could also sell them limes and mixers.
/johnny
Fuel *just to harvest*? ie, just combine it?
A good rule of thumb is about 2 gal of diesel per acre for a combine. Larger combines might be able to use less, owing to efficiencies of scale.
On one acre of corn, for irrigated or optimum dryland conditions, you can expect about 150 bushels of corn. Each bushel of corn can produce at least 2.5 gallons of ethanol.
So, rough figures:
Diesel consumption: 2 gal #2/acre, * 100 acres is 200 gallons of diesel.
100 acres times 150 bu/acre is 15,000 bushels, times 2.5 gal/bu, gives 37,500 gallons of ethanol off that 100 acres.
There’s more diesel that goes into getting the corn out of the field, there’s fuel that has to be used to auger the corn into the bin, there’s power or propane that has to be used to dry the corn down to target moisture percentage. Then to get the corn to market, there’s diesel to run the truck, etc. So the fuel balance looks wildly positive if you consider JUST the diesel for the combine. All I’m saying is that there’s more involved.
As long as everyone is clear about the difference between a subsidy and a tax credit, it’s great. Tax credits that allow businesses keep more of their money are good. Subsidies from the taxpayers, bad.
Right now, the governor of Alaska is undoing some of the higher taxes SP saddled the oil companies with when she was governor. She took money from business to dole out to voters. That’s not the free market.
It is the free market when Alaskan “voters” are the OWNERS of the resource. She got a better deal for the “owners” at the expense of oil businesses that have had record profits recently.
Sounds exactly like the free market when you are allowing what you own to be used, and the person using it is making huge profits, to renegotiate the terms of use so that the owners ALSO make more out of the deal.
Sounds like a “win - win” scenario that the free market excels at.
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