As I said in an earlier post, I have no idea why growing plants, to make oil, to make fuel is the Left’s darling, and growing plants, to make ethanol, to make fuel ain’t.
The problem with WASTE veggie oil fuel is that there isn’t enough waste oil to go around, and growing soybeans for fuel has all the same problems as growing corn for fuel. Realize that one gallon of Gasoline represents 30,000ish dietary Calories, so filling one’s car up is a half-million Calorie affair.
Yes, I think that waste veggie oil (and waste motor oil, BTW) should be burned as fuel. I also think that the same folks making fuel from the French fry grease ought to be making 190-proof from the potato peelings. That’s a fundamentally different isuue than growing food for fuel.
This issue doesn’t really split down left/right lines-- it’s almost entirely a rural/urban divide. The midwestern senators and congressmen who are its main support base are pretty evenly split between Republican and Democrat, and are all pretty moderate.
Really, if anything it’s the darling of the middle. Except for the fact that it doesn’t actually do what it’s supposed to, it would seem like a good compromise between doing nothing (the right’s position) and drastically changing our way of life (the left’s position).
farmers are clinging on as it is. their going under left and right. do you want them to starve? there’s a large ethanol plant to the south. if you jump the ethanol boat, they get axed. 100+ out of work, and less demand for surrounding jobs. you want them to starve? and thats just in this area.
now, are these starving people in your numbers, here in the US? if they are oversea’s, its not econmically possible to fly it out there.
Wow!,but lets make them sovereign states anyway,what do you have in mind?Something like the EEC?No disrespect ,I think you have great idea.Some rich people and groups have more money then the GDP of some of these “Nations”-Kevin
The government subsidizes corn regardless of what it is used for: plastic, food ethanol. It won’t create competition for the existing corn, it will create competition for fertile land. And if more corn is grown, I pay more tax dollars for subsidies. Meanwhile, farmers are making just as much, big oil is making more and the average Joe American is footing the bill for the new discrepancy.
Corn production is not a free market because the government controls the price.
“First, ONE researcher (Prof. Pimental, of Cornell U) has found ethanol to be enegry-negtative, everyone else has found it to be at least modestly positive.”
Who are these people, and who funded their research? If the sponsors have a stake in the outcome, then the research is interesting but not compelling. I promise to find almost any outcome you want as long as you pay enough. So do most researchers.
Farm subsidies are only partly about keeping farmers in business-- it’s more about keeping food prices affordable and stable for everyone.
If we had to pay the free-market cost for food, including things like the cost of capital and the risks run by farmers competing in an unregulated market, the price of food would vary by magnitudes from year to year, and during the bad years you can bet you’ll be paying a large percentage of your income on food, if you’re lucky enough to be able to afford it at all.
jt; the National Geographic recently had a comprehensive article on alternate fuels, including biodiesel and ethanol Their conclusion, based on researching all the publications to date, were that corn ethanol took about 85% of the BTUs to produce compared to what it actually delivered. Some of these BTU inputs could be renewable energy of course, but not in likely in Kansas or Iowa.
Ethanol from sugar cane, as produced in Brazil took about 15% of the BTUs to produce. And Brazil did not need to import any of these energy inputs!
Their conclusion was that ethanol from corn was not an environmentally responsible fuel.
Please bear in mind that gasoline from crude oil consumes a great deal of energy for getting it out of the ground, transporting it and the final refining. At least 18% is consumed in making the final product.
“A billion people will continue to starve REGARDLESS of how we manage our corn crop. U.S. farmers are not willing to feed the worlds excess population for nothing.”
One way that the USA can provide foreign aid is to buy surplus grains and donate them to needy people. I’d rather see that than giving money to governments that take a huge share of the cash before providing the little, if any, aid the provide to their citizens. Why give a panhandler cash? You just feed their bad habits.
“Farm subsidies are only partly about keeping farmers in business-- it’s more about keeping food prices affordable and stable for everyone.”
I don’t think that we go from the system that exists today to the oil oligarchy immediately. It seems to me that economies of scale (large, corporate farms) can work satisfactorily without subsidies. Or do they exist on farm subsidies, too?
The real issue is, will China’s and India’s burgeoning car population slurp up enough gasoline and diesel fuel to off-set the diminishing volumes sold in the United States. If so, the global price of motor fuel will continue to rise…But if Government policies and mandates in The States continue to to drive consumption down, then there could be another price collapse in the oil markets which might fuel higher consumption and the cycle repeats itself…This makes biofuels investment risky business indeed…