According to Forbes, you’re paying far more for ethanol blended gas than you think you are. Read the following link for the details.
http://blogs.forbes.com/energysource/2010/11/29/the-most-wasteful-ethanol-subsidy/
Both of these articles support what I've said earlier. The one in Scientific American outlined the slow development converting ethanol from new sources other than corn around 2007. If we abandon the support for ethanol it will destroy the development other non-food alternatives. This is what is happening! Corn ethanol took off around 2002 when the federal government sent a clear message to the country that we were going to wean ourselves off foreign oil. Before this (and for the next several years) corn was selling for $2/bushel (history attached); small farmers were going broke (and being subsidized to stay afloat). In 2007, the presidential candidates abandoned the support of ethanol as a renewable fuel. How stupid are we? What other result is going to happen when we stop supporting an alternative to big oil then later say "see I knew it wouldn't work". What chance has any new industry have standing up to big oil without some government support?
As far as taking food from starving countries, how many of you remember growing up hearing "you better appreciate and eat all your food - there are millions of starving children in the world." We all heard that before we started making ethanol from corn. Most of the corn used for ethanol is for livestock; the corn left over from making ethanol is as good or better for livestock (Cattle).
Again by support I'm not referring to government handouts, I was talking about promoting it as a viable alternative to gasoline. Like I said before, stopping the ethanol subsidies is fine. Now lets do the same for big oil ( as outlined in the Forbes
article “the same mountainbike” mentioned) saying the subsidies were going to big oil. Why didn’t the article go on to say “Why would we subsidize oil companies when they already have the largest guaranteed market in the world?” Am I the only one seeing the dirty oil fingerprints all over this?
Here is the link to the corn price history and its impact on food prices.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/February08/Features/CornPrices.htm
Subsidies for oil amount to maybe one cent per gallon. Fine with me to get rid of them, but they’re nothing significant. Getting ethanol from corn has had no positive impact on cellulosic ethanol. Corn ethanol production is a centuries-old process. Cellulosic ethanol has been ‘right around the corner’ since the early 1900’s. The idea is old, the technology to do it has never become economic.
Guess how much land we’d have to plant in switchgrass to replace just 10% of our gasoline? Approximately the entire state of Oklahoma! Biofuels can not replace gas, we simply don’t have enough land.
And this ‘wean ourselves from foreign oil’ is a myth. Ethanol does nothing to provide all the other oil-based products which we’ll need anyway. Diesel use is growing, gas is stagnant to declining.
Texases - I never said ethanol would totally replace gasoline. I was saying we should have E10, E15, & E85 as alternatives to straight gasoline. Everyone can choose to buy what they want. Who the heck are you to keep telling others things they write on here are myths, then write similar things that are vague to support your viewpoint? A lot of things boil down to common sense. The idea of developing products in the US that replaces products from other countries is better for our economy as the $ are more likely to stay here.
Who am I? Someone who disagrees with you. And I think I’ve been pretty specific, nothing vague about my opinions, which are based on the facts I’ve been able to obtain over the years.
I never said anything about ethanol replacing gasoline, I said that it would take the state of Oklahoma covered in switchgrass to replace ONLY 10%.
And if folks want to use ethanol once all subsidies AND ALL GOVERNMENT REQUIREMENTS are removed, fine. But right now it’s a required component of gas, which, in my opinon, is a terrible waste of money.
Mantaroc, please tone it down and stick to the arguments, instead of attacking texases via the “Who the heck are you?” approach.
Thats fine that you disagree, the whole purpose of this is for everyone to express their opinion. I also have years of experience in this area, am confident with what I’m writing, have been very specific, and tried to include common sense (as can we really rely on all the info we get from articles on the internet?); otherwise I wouldn’t write it. Of course we will never wean ourselves totally off foreign oil. Buying it from Cananda and Mexico (once it stabilizes is okay. Corn oil, soy oil, etc. is used to make BioDiesel. Currently we are starting to spin the corn oil from the DDGs (corn after being processed for ethanol) is now being developed to make Biodiesel. This is supposed to make the DDG’s an even better cattle food source . Are you saying Oklahoma (or any states nearby) wouldn’t benefit from $33 billion/yr in ethanol revenue if they grew switchgrass and converted it? Back using the field corn that is used for ethanol as a food source. I’ve worked on many farms over the years and wouldn’t want to eat any of it.