Posted on 09/27/2014 1:10:15 PM PDT by NYer
At the risk of inviting all the usual charges of being politically incorrect, I once again put before you the strange practice of burning food for fuel. The video at the bottom of the post details some of the human costs associated with the increasing use of corn, grains, and other crops for fuel.
There is a tendency for environmentalists of our time to think very narrowly about their issues. It is a praiseworthy thing to seek to reduce pollutants and other things that have negative environmental impacts. The Catechism summons us to good stewardship of the earth, the environment, and our natural resources.
However, the human cost of significant changes (to include higher taxes, the elimination of certain technologies altogether, and other things) should be part of the equation. This is especially true in terms of how it affects the developing world. Yet in my experience, the human cost is almost never presented honestly.
Whatever good intentions environmentalists have, the planet, the climate, and the environment seem to be the overwhelming focus of their concern, at least for the most radical of them. And if human beings are considered at all, we are collectively just a big problem: there are too many of us, we do lots of bad stuff, and it seems that the earth would be better off without us.
So here’s an edgy video, from the National Geographic video site, no less! For the record, let me say again that it is a bad idea to burn food for fuel. And if the video below is correct, it’s going to get worse unless we have an honest conversation and come to some consensus that burning food for fuel IS bad.
Stay tuned; this issue is bound to heat up. I pray that common sense will prevail over what is most certainly a bad idea, one which will harm the poor disproportionally.
I know that I normally use my Friday blog for more light-hearted fare, but this video is what popped up in my video queue today. I’m glad to see the concerns are spreading.
The Hidden Costs of Turning Food Into Fuel
I am not engaging in the “food for fuel” argument. I am saying you should never depend on an unreliable source of energy, which is what ethanol is, since it is always susceptible of being destroyed by weather or pests.
It is even stupider when you start calculating the amount of reliable energy from other sources (petroleum products, hydro-electrics, etc.) that must be expended to grow this in the first place. That is, the energy needed to prepare the soil (presumably by tractors, etc.), fertilize, kill pests, harvest, etc. When you add that all up, it exceeds the energy benefit you get out of ethanol in the first place.
I have absolutely no problem with people freely deciding what they want to do with their own goddamn cars and homes, I do have a problem when they coerce me or anyone else to use ethanol as an engine fuel when we prefer not to.
Here in NYS, pumps are clearly labeled with a sign that reads: "10% ethanol". Perhaps this link will be helpful.
you’ll be relieved then to remember that the main use of corn in food (aside from feeding tasty animals) is as high fructose corn syrup for those tasty fat-making sodas:
Today’s corn crop is mainly used for biofuels (roughly 40 percent of U.S. corn is used for ethanol) and as animal feed (roughly 36 percent of U.S. corn, plus distillers grains left over from ethanol production, is fed to cattle, pigs and chickens). Much of the rest is exported. Only a tiny fraction of the national corn crop is directly used for food for Americans, much of that for high-fructose corn syrup.
Thanks for your post #15.
Corn isn’t corn isn’t corn. Dented and flint kernel corn (field corn and indian/pop corn) is mainly used for animal fodder, even after it is used for making ethanol.
Sweet corn is 100% for human consumption, but makes up a very tiny percent of the corn grown.
The only problem I see is in subsidy, remove it and let economics determine what is best.
Biodiesel has one thing in its favor, and that is top cylinder lubricity. This property was lost when the EPA mandated ultra low sulfur diesel requirement took effect. 2% biodiesel brings back the top of cylinder lubricity. Source is several major fleet operators, a privately held refiner whose owner is hated by the libs, and a major provider of lubricating oil additives.
bump for my tagline.
Stop in at an airfield. AvGas in ethanol free.
Same for crude oil. When you add up the energy required to locate, drill, extract and refine the energy inputs are nearly the same.
I think he's talking about huge corn and soy crops being transmuted into substitutes for gasoline.
The Left used to squawk about those same corn and soy crops being "wasted" by feeding them to meat animals (chickens, pigs and cattle ) because of the net loss of calories and especially proteins. Now they seem to think it's OK to let them be burned, not by cows but by internal combustion engines.
As I said, let the economics determine it.
The false presumption is that the corn crop is a constant,and if not used for fuel would still exist as food. But that is not a given.
You would say it's all based on the market, but poor people don't have enough money to be "in" the market. The market may eventually adjust itself, but not soon enough for these people to survive.
Having grown up row-cropping corn and soybeans, I can tell you that crop yeilds per acre have more than doubled in 30 years and have increased 10 fold or more in the last 100.
There is also substantially less ground being tilled for row crops now than there was in 1970, so I don’t follow with the assertion that available productive land is being consumed.
The market is the market. Stop paying market prices and watch the farmers stop growing corn. Its that simple. The percentage of acres put to corn (vs. wheat and soybeans)is higher now than before ethanol.
Conversely, subsidies for ethanol have perverted the market and corn prices are artificially high. Without the subsidies, corn based food (mainly meat, eggs, milk in the USA) would go down and ethanol prices would go up (likely leave the marketplace). Poor people are well served by a productive market, because without it they starve.
The economics of land use are not debatable. Land used for growing corn for bio ethanol cannot be used to grow food crops, thus driving up the cost of food crops. The govt shouldn’t be mandating ethanol use in fuels, which they do.
mmm...
Are crops used to feed livestock “food crops”?
One-third of the content of corn used for ethanol is used as animal feed for livestock. That one-third is very high protein as protein is not used for making ethanol. Thus, ethanol actually subsidizes the production of protein.
Acres planted in corn in the USA had been going down for decades until the ethanol boom.
Do you really believe the world needs more starch and sugar for food?
If you create a requirement for bio ethanol via govt edict, which is essentially what has happened, of course the number of acres in corn increases. That’s basic economics.
From what I can tell, we are doing this largely to create a hidden corn subsidy.
I never considered it a hidden subsidy. Its pretty direct.
Well, it’s hidden to those unable to understand basic cause and effect, which based on recent election results would seem to be about half the electorate.
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