Posted on 01/04/2024 10:36:02 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Use land for food, not folly.
Climate change activists increasingly target agriculture as a primary source of greenhouse gas emissions and pollution. Too often this translates into condemnation of gentle cows or the pleasures of meat-eating, instead of drawing attention to proper farming practices and land management. This is especially true with respect to water use and the ethanol industry.
American agriculture has continued to be dominated by ever-larger farms and producers, increasing productivity and economic growth and amplifying vital water resources’ drawdowns. This is apparent in water-precious regions such as Arizona and California, but also includes Idaho’s exploding dairy industry and Arkansas’ astoundingly productive poultry economy.
Growing alfalfa for cows (or for export to China), and corn and soy for chickens, requires substantial amounts of water in addition to what is used for the animals themselves. Corn and soy require chemical applications that erode soils and contribute to water pollution. The larger the scale of operations, the more significant the environmental impacts – especially on water resources.
Voices calling to curtail carnivorous dining are howling up the wrong cornstalk: Reassessing the impacts of ethanol production and livestock management methodology would leave the American palate intact. These are problems not of animal pollution but of animal husbandry and sensible land management.
The United States leads the world in biofuel production. Of the 92 million American acres planted to corn in 2023, approximately 40% will be processed into ethanol to meet subsidized mandates in Americans’ fuel blends. Ethanol incentives have pushed up corn prices, but also encouraged farmers to reduce lands used in (carbon-sequestering) conservation programs and expand corn cropping to less desirable soils and slopes. The combined effect is to make ethanol production a much less attractive environmental alternative than has been presented.
Corn is a particularly soil-draining...
(Excerpt) Read more at libertynation.com ...
It takes 9 to 10 gallons of water to make one gallon of beer*. This is a well known industry fact that is not widely publicized. That is just in the manufacturing process. This article talks about the water needed for the growing process, etc. Question is how much water is needed to manufacture ethanol.
* This includes water needed to clean vats, etc.
Ethanol mandates for gasoline are now a third rail subject. No politician from either side of the isle is going to touch them for fear of retribution from the Corn Growers associations.
approximately 40% will be processed into ethanol to meet subsidized mandates in Americans’ fuel blends.
= = =
I suggest:
Put two nozzles at the ‘gas station’.
One with gasoline and
The other with ethanol.
I’ll bet the users pump some ethanol, take it home for consumption, and do not drive much more at all, thus decreasing ‘gasoline pollution’.
Uncle Earl was quite proficient in producing ethanol.
bkmk
**Corn and soy require chemical applications that erode soils and contribute to water pollution.**
While I am not a fan of using chemicals on cropland, the fact that herbicides have greatly reduced tillage practices (thereby leaving crop residue on the surface to help prevent erosion), soil erosion is much less than, say, 30 years ago and before.
Hogs raised in confinement buildings may seem unethical to some folk, but if one goes to vintage aerial photo sites, and look at midwest farmsteads of the 1960s, one can see the dirt (or mud) hog lots were commonplace.
Almonds are killing California rivers.
90 % exported outside the US.
Yep, and ethanol eats up my Quadrajet Pontiac carburator.
Not really.
Gas is cheap enough (inflation adjusted) that ethanol is not the new hotness anymore. EV’s are.
What is left are the smaller plants that are making it for feed lots (DDG is good cow feed), and the wet mills that are using it to control byproducts.
And for the “Grow food”, grow what? I see a lot of city people rail against corn, and no one really understands why corn is grown. It is the most carbs per input cost out there. That and the demand for say, carrots is many factors smaller.
Yep
That and the new genetics for hogs have them so lean, they would die outside.
The hogs I raised growing up are what you see on TV now as “feral” hogs, not what you buy at the store. They loved being outside.
It's no longer about cheaper gas, or cleaner air. It's about a de facto subsidy to grow corn to sell to the distillers.
No more ethanol mandate in the gasoline motor fuel blend, no more need to create ethanol, no more demand for the corn that makes ethanol, more p.o.ed farmers with tons of grain on their hands with no market.
I've seen it before when a candidate suggests removing the ethanol requirement, and the Iowans revolt.
Read the article. It burns hotter in small engines. That includes motorcycles, lawn mowers, marine outboard engines.
Iowa is ONE state of 50. It's wrong to screw the other 49 to make the Iowa corn farmers happy. There are food shortages on the horizon. There will be plenty of market for corn.
I agree. But who holds the very first caucuses in the nation every Presidential Primary season.
“It takes 9 to 10 gallons of water to make one gallon of beer”
Where does this water go? It just doesn’t disappear. H²O even at the atomic level is retained. Just like carbon is.
The Model T engine had lever on the carburetor that allowed the burning of either gasoline (benzene) or alcohol. Why? So farmers could produce their own fuel. Which they did.
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