Spending billions of tax dollars and my dollars to build ethanol plants using commonly-known technology is a waste of resources. Nothing is being learned.
PS - corn-based fuel (ethanol) is biofuel.
First corn is a grain. Second dino fuel is better than a cycle of carbon into the air and then back to the plant. Third people get hungry their governments screw them, grow up. Ultimately we in the industrial world will adjust. Subsistence economies will adjust. For the last thousand years people have starved. Some will starve tomorrow. The “strong” evidence is that people will need assistance tomorrow for the same reason they needed help for the last 30 years. Has nothing to do with ethanol. More mouths than food. Can this be fixed? Yes but not by you or me or the us or by unesco. These people need to feed themselves, period. Why should our land be the source of their food? They have land and people so they should feed themselves. If they want food to buy we can sell them some but we have needs to. The people who need food most should work really hard to stop their idiot governments from messing up.
The government should stay out of the ag business for starters.
Over the last 5-8 years many of the fields around here have been converted to corn.
The big issue I see is that the climate here is hot and dry, corn absorbs and evaporates an astronomical amount of water each day, and without irrigation it’s going to fry in the fields very quickly just as sure as the sun will come up tomorrow.
Since very few around here will irrigate their crop they simply let it BBQ and collect without any harvesting expenses.
So not only is the corn crop lost, the wheat that is not grown due to the corn is also not being sown and harvested.
Living in a farm town in farm country, it’s impossible for me to drum up sympathy for any alleged financial plight of most farmers. They’re far better off than most people who work in other fields.
While it’s claimed that raising crops ia money-losing deal, you should see the bidding crowd that accumulates every time even a tiny plot of ground comes up for auction.
ah, but, where do you get the food? it doesnt appear on the shelves at wal-mart.
yall complain about the world running out of gas, and then you turn around and say
"no more bio-fuels!"? the world cant run on bio diesel, but the midwest can.
another thing, there is tons of crap corn sitting in bins, rotting away. you wouldnt believe what you can turn into E85. stuff you dont want to eat. and cant.
What steams me is driving by these fields in the late spring and seeing them all lush and green, followed a short few weeks later by hot dry weather wilting the stalks and cobs to the ground.
Eventually they drag a disc over the entire shooting match and plow it all under. It just seems wrong to me to eliminate a wheat field and replace it with a corn field which is then allowed to evaporate.
And speaking of subsidies, the governement (a.k.a. taxpayers) even pays for terracing the fields. A farmer doesn’t even have to take care of that for himself because a subsidy does it for him. A neighbor of mine about 2 blocks away owns a tractor/dozer business and makes a considerable amount of money doing it.
calm down a second.
1st, corn has to dry. if it isnt dry, it cant be stored. the other option is to use fuel to run a dryer to dry the corn. its best to let it sit even into winter because its cheaper then paying to dry them, when it can be done by doing nothing.
2nd. crop rotation: you can plant a wheat field, but not forever. minerals have to come back. wheat one year, corn the next, and alfalfa after that.
3rd. land is not solid. it moves. a lot. terracing keeps dirt and stuff out of your water, and helps with erosion. you dont want dirt over the roads, tractors getting stuck in mud tearing up the field that could be feeding you.
not everybody gets terracing. there is a set amount of money that goes to a county, and you can apply to get terraces, cover a well, a new silo and such.
after you apply, they do a points system to see if you are the best candidate for some of the money.
not everybody gets something. usually there is only 80k-200k per county.
its not a lot of money. some of these “subsidies” rival that of pocket change. the paper used to make the check is worth more then the money its worth.
take a farming course at your local tech school. you’ll learn it isn’t about sitting around collecting cash from the government. there is a crapload of red tape everywhere.
Maybe its the EPA that is the one that is dictating that Ethanal is used in our gas. The EPA makes the fuel company’s sell oxidized gas in the hot summer months. That are two ways to do this 10% corn oil or a man made chemical called MBTE. It was the choose of most of the fuel suppliers to use MBTE instead of the corn oil with would have caused no harmful health issues. MBTE on the other hand has poisoned all of the drinking water in the USA. It had to be, by law from the states to ban this stuff. The oil company’s then started buying up the corn oil to controll the price.
You’re not following me completely. The point I’m making is that these corn fields are not being harvested at all. The entire crop as it’s grown is allowed to fry and plowed completely under. Not one kernel of corn is hauled to storage; green, dried out, or otherwise.
How is burying it underground accomplishing anything?
And it’s not a matter of rotating crops because in the case of one 80 acre tract just south of me, they’ve been growing and plowing under corn every year for the last 7 years except this past one. In that case, they let it go to weeds.
I fully understand the red tape angle but in spite of the claims that crops cost more to grow than what they bring, the farmers around here do very well, although to listen to them you wouldn’t know it.
Many own condos in Angel Fire, NM, condos in CO, live in new homes that cost 40 grand more than the median home price here, and in one case; a farmer even gave his grandson a new Shelby Cobra to match the original mid-60s Cobra he had purchased for him several years before. And they ain’t givin’ away either one of those for a pittance.
A friend of ours (retired 15 years ago from wheat farming only) has a NET worth of 1.2 million and that does not include land, vehicles, etc. That’s their savings in the bank.
And several farmers here have sat around and prayed for a disaster to take out their corn. Tornado, hail, drought, whatever; they want it gone.
Maybe because the gov. subsidizes their crop insurance?
If the subsidies are so small and not worth the paper they’re written on then why all of the uproar when any mention at all is made of cutting them?
there is a reason for everything.
I dont know where you are, but dont assume every farmer has it good. feel lucky that your area is good.
that corn that supposedly gets plowed under, is preventing erosion, and is putting minerals back in the dirt. instead of paying big bucks for fertilizer. I learned about this a few weeks ago at the tech school.
go to weeds? yep. the government now has a thing where (if it qualifys) you let it go for 10 years, you get paid a couple bucks for it. also, there is a “green” factor involved. isnt saving the planet what you want?
praying for disaster is real. again, a branch of the government has a thing, that if you sign up, and disaster strikes, you get a bit of money.
“If the subsidies are so small and not worth the paper they’re written on then why all of the uproar when any mention at all is made of cutting them?”
because of the un-educated. a few thousand bucks isnt a lot, when you have to split it up amongst several countys. people focus on the dollar figure, and forget about the number of people that have to split it. opening a check for $0.17 aint fun.
any other questions?
“We live in a free-market economy. Price will push ethics aside. Right now, it’s more profitable to grow grain for biofuel.”
And the farmers in Afghanistan or Colombia who grow opium because they get a lot more money for it than for regular crops? – Not disagreeing with you, but perhaps emphasizing the point that free market philosophies must be tempered by ethics. Government subsidies don’t count much here, because the gov’t subsidizes all sorts of agro-business.
Back on topic: I can’t find a justification for corn-based ethanol. Sugar cane ethanol looks like a winner, and Brazil’s way ahead of us in conversion to ethanol fuels. Corn seems like a loser any way you slice it.
Forget small farmers,they have to have a day job to keep the lower 40-(40s) going,yes there are some rich play farmers around here-theres little money in small farms.I wonder sometimes what we are going to eat when the good arable fields are converted to duplexes and strip malls.
But certainly convert the degrading surplus into Biofuels-Kevin
Certainly would work in Brazil,why do we have such a stiff tariff on imported ethyl alcohol? I suppose most fuels are toxic,but I would sooner spill an ounce of alcohol on my hands,then gasoline-Kevin
I would forget about a “collapse” in the oil market. There will always be temporary inventory surplusses, causing blimps in in prices. Some very prominent people forecast $20 oil because of the recession. It did briefly dip into the $30s area, but is now up to $73 again in spite of an ongoing US recession.
We won’t likely see $147 oil anytime soon again because that was a speculative peak.
If ALL US corn grown was converted to gasoline, it would only amount to 15% of total US gasoline consumption.
The excess capacity in the Middle East is grossly overestimated; those countries have not been adding to their reserves in recent years, in spite of high prices. Oil producing capacity in the US, Mexico, Indonesia, China, Venezuela, Nigeria and a number of other oil producing states is DECREASING!
So, draw your own conclusions; within the lifetime of your children oil will get back up to $150 per barrel and be considered a bargain. This will happen with or without ethanol production.
Clearly you are not an Ohio farmer.
You will ALWAYS find a small group of people who it benefits. But from a broader view…financially and ethically it’s bad for the VAST MAJORITY of 300 million people in the US.
What would make biofuels ethical (and simultaneously practicable) is making fuel out of waste products or byproducts. Making it out of a product is insane; you’re destroying one product to produce another.
Don’t listen to the guys with Exxon stock who tell you cellulosic sources are baloney; lots of people are working on it, turning agricultural waste (and even grass clippings) into not ethanol but butanol. Bio-butanol is the way to go, since it packs more punch than ethanol, but isn’t as hygroscopic, blends well with gasoine, and needs no special gas pumps and fewer engine modifications.
Look into it.
I believe it goes beyond defensible to the status of necessity. There have been many comments here critical of our farm subsidy program. There is one huge and compelling reason for those programs. Americans want an abundance of cheap high quality food. In reality, when you go to the supermarket, it is you who is receiving a federal subsidy. Our government mandates a percentage of ethanol in gasoline. This creates the demand which, in turn, provides the opportunity for farmers to profit which, in turn, keeps them running efficient operations which, in turn and notwithstanding acre conversion, allows them to provide you with an abundance of cheap high quality food. I believe the amount of food available to the starving is directly proportional to the amount of food available to those who are not starving. How could it be anything else?
And how bizarre - If Americans cut their calories by one-third, we would be a much healthier nation. As it is, we are a nation of grossly fat people who are headed for an early grave because of what and how much we eat. Look at our children. It’s just horrible.
People who produce ethanol in foreign countries don’t vote in US elections! Brazil can undercut Iowa and Kansas produced ethanol easily and without subsidies, and that would have lost Bush votes in those states.
I heard dat! I feel sorry for the Kids,I’m not gonna blame them,as adults somehow we have let the ball leave the court(“Fries with that?”) It makes me feel like crying sometimes-I love our progeny,was there onetime myself-the hastening of days-Kevin
The US is probably the only country in the world where food is TOO CHEAP! Although we have a lot of kids eating junk food and getting fat, we also have a lot of adults who eat the right foods, but 'way too much of it. An excess of good calories will make you fat just the same.
Eating at a Perkins restaurant I really have to pick through the menue to find something not loaded with calories.