[curtish]

flashbunny,

The same corn cannot be used for food and fuel. The demand added by the SUBSIDIZED Ethanol industry WILL drive up the price of corn. Did you know that ethanol is both less efficient than gasoline and pollutes more? As long as we are burning Middle Eastern and South American oil our own oil is waiting safely in the ground for future use. Why burn ours when we can buy theirs? Yes, we could stop burning their oil but wouldn't that piss them off even more?

[Keith in Iowa]

>>>The same corn cannot be used for food and fuel.<<<

That is pure, 100% bullsh*t.

WHAT'S IN A BUSHEL OF CORN?

Each bushel of corn can produce up to 2.5 gallons of ethanol fuel.  Only the 
starch from the corn is used to make ethanol.  Most of the substance of the 
corn kernel remains, leaving the protein and valuable co-products to be used
in the production of food for people, livestock feed, and various chemicals.  
For example, that same bushel of corn (56 lbs.) used in ethanol manufacturing 
can also produce the following: 

The wet-milling process:		The dry-milling process:
31.5 pounds of starch		10 one-lb. boxes of cereal
or		and
33 lbs. of sweetner		15 lbs. of brewer grits  (enough for 1 gal. of beer)
or		and
2.5 gal. fuel ethanol		10 eight oz. packages of Cheese Curls
and		and
12.4 lbs. of 21% protein feed		1 lb. of pancake mix
and		and
3.0 lbs. of 60% gluten meal		22 lbs. of hominy feed for livestock
and		and
1.5 lbs. of corn oil		0.7 lbs. of corn oil
and		and
17 lbs. of carbon dioxide		17 lbs. of carbon dioxide

The corn oil is used in producing food for human consumption.  For example, 
1.5 lbs of corn oil from a bushel of corn is equivalent to 2 lbs of margarine.  
The 21% protein feed is used in making high protein livestock feed.  The 
carbon dioxide is used as a refrigerant, in carbonated beverages, to help 
vegetable crops to grow more rapidly in greenhouses, and to flush oil wells.  
Only the starch of the corn (carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen) is used to make ethanol.  

[Mr. Lucky]

The same corn cannot be used for food and fuel

Someone has given you bad information. Distillation of the corn removes only the starch. Not only do all other nutrients remain in the distiller's dried grain, but they are in a form much more easily digested by ruminants than the whole corn was to begin with.

[Concho]

Those of us who grow the grain like the price driven up. Higher market prices translate to lower subsidies. Ethanol is not made just from corn. The plants throughout the Great Plains are using corn and/or milo.

When the enzymes are perfected, then the ethanol plants will be able to extract ethanol from straw and woody fibres. In this area, that will use up crop residues that are somewhat of a problem now and burned from the fields, and also the brush and cactus that invades the pastures, which by the way is a renewable resource.

[TKDietz]

I don't know that ethanol is driving corn prices right now. I think prices today are where they are mostly because of bad weather, drought, etc., that made yields lower than expected. Also, I believe fewer acres were planted because prices were too low last year. Still, we produced way more corn than we needed. More from the last harvest was exported than was used for ethanol, and much of what is exported is dumped at rock bottom prices on world markets.

Corn prices have been too low for farmers to make a living for years. It's not such a bad thing that corn prices go up. Most crop subsidies, including those for corn, are based on the market price for the commodity. The government settles on an amount corn farmers need to make to stay in business and then pays a subsidy to make up the difference between the actual market price and the price they come up with. When market prices go up, the crop subsidies go down.

A lot of new ethanol plants and expansions on older plants are coming on line. This will increase the demand for corn and drive the price up some, but only temporarily. They'll just grow more corn. In the past we've had several million more acres devoted to corn than we do now. We aren't even close to the point yet where we are running out of farm land to grow more corn. Obviously we would reach that point eventually if the ethanol industry kept growing and kept using corn as the main feedstock, but we have a long way to go before that will happen.

The growth in the ethanol industry will end up slowing down though unless they can find other cheaper feedstocks from which they can get far more than the 400 or so gallons of ethanol they get per acre with corn now. Demand for ethanol will drop if the price gets too high, and if the cost of the feedstock keeps going up the price will go up past what people will pay. The government mandates will insure that ethanol producers will sell a good bit of their product still, but they already produce more than enough to satisfy the demand created by these mandates that require 10% ethanol in all gasoline in a couple of states and several densely populated large cities throughout the country. A lot of people will pay a good bit more per mile for ethanol produced by American farmers and American ethanol producers than they would pay for gasoline. But there is going to be a limit to just how much of a premium these people will pay to support American farmers. When people stop buying it, prices will have to come down to win them back, ethanol plants will become much less profitable, and then of course the number of plant expansion and new plants being built will drop way down.

Ethanol is neither the answer to all our problems nor some horrible thing we have to stop or suffer major negative consequences. Unless they can come up with a way to produce thousands of gallons of it per acre at a low per gallon cost, ethanol will never satisfy anything more than a small portion of our fuel needs. It will however, help us keep many billions of dollars every year here in this country where that money should stay. It will provide another market for farmers and hopefully move prices up some so that they can stay in business without tons of subsidies. It's not all bad. I'd sure buy it if it were available in my area just so that I'd be supporting American farmers rather than someone like Hugo Chavez or some backstabbing crazy Arabs. I wouldn't mind paying more for it either up to a point.