The Hidden Cost of Ethanol Subsidies
There has been much talk in recent weeks about corn subsidies in Iowa: Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty had the guts to suggest the elimination of the subsidies in the heart of the Corn Belt, and Sarah Palin has also mentioned an end to farm subsidies as well.
It would seem corn is back on the radar after having fallen off after the 2008 election, when ethanol was no longer a convenient club with which to beat the Bush administration.
Before that particular fight was over, however, former President George W. Bush had signed legislation which required 40 percent of the U.S. corn harvest to be slated for ethanol production, and for massive subsidies to make corn economically viable.
We are now reaping the unintended consequences of those decisions. Accepting as fact that American farmers are the most productive in the world, and also accepting as fact that the agriculture sector is one of the few sectors of the economy which is performing well, we’re still faced with a problem.
Coming off the third-highest corn harvest in U.S. history in 2010, the carryover (unsold corn still in the elevators) is a bare two weeks’ worth of grain at current and projected usage rates.
This is precariously low, the lowest in modern history. The only time the carryover was lower was in the 1930s — during the height of the Dust Bowl.
The problem here is the mandate, which assumes that corn — which is used in pretty much everything from plastics to baby powder to animal feed — will continue to see record yields. I live and grew up in Kansas, the heart of the Farm Belt, and the idea that every year will be a bumper crop is what we call urinating into a moving air mass.
This year could be a bad year; much of the corn in the eastern cornbelt is late getting into the ground, and from west Texas into Nebraska we’ve got the worst drought in 40 years. Parts of western Kansas have gotten no more than a quarter-inch of rain since the beginning of the year. This means the corn stocks could slip still lower.
We need corn to fee this growing nation, not to fill our gas tanks. We have more than enough fuel alternatives in and around this country to stop this ethanol madness. We should start drilling for oil off our coast and in Alaska in a big, big, way, start taking a look a cleaner-burning coal, and use a lot more natural gas. Not only would that help us with our energy needs, it would also create a lot of jobs, something Obama seems to be opposed to these days. Leave corn to what it does best, feed people and animals. It was a nice idea but very impractical and very, very, expensive.
This ethanol madness could be put in proper perspective if the author had actually stated some dollar costs for the subsidies paid to corn growers (and if applicable, to the refineries) for producing ethanol for our gas tanks. My suspicion is that the numbers are huge. Free markets are the only way to reduce the damaging government influence on our economy. Our “Money Tree” has been harvested to death, with everybody hitching a free ride for a share of the bounty, and it has to stop. Our Members of Congress have to man-up and do what’s best for the country instead of passing out the money tree harvest to their constituents. Contrary to Joe Biden’s declarations, you can’t pay off the bills by borrowing even more money.
Indeed, this whole “clean, renewable energy” is nothing more than politicians capitalizing on the “dog and butterfly”. The dog being the self-righteous hippies who think you can power cars with corn and the butterfly being the unattainable utopia that they believe will follow. Of course, the dog will never catch the butterfly…and in the off-chance that it does, it will kill it. But hippies never see that. Their minds are filled with “u-hope-ia” and “change” and all these ideas they think are oh-so-wonderful without ever being properly critical of what-could-possibly-go-wrong?
But I submit that if every loose-liberal hopey-changey idea were allowed to be put into practice unfettered and un-hindered, you would see…well, Spain and Greece. Need I say more?
The most important statement in this articlemismthat George Bush signed the bill mandating the 40%. This is what happens when you elect non-conservative Republicans as President. Never again. This single unintended consequence is sufficient for all of us to discard Romney and any others whonhave that itch to moderate and do that things to get along with their liberal colleagues. This yearnit has to be Palin, or Santorum, or Cain or Pawlenty.
No Romney, One McCain per century is plenty.
So, this hoopla over subsidies…Can you tell me why the ethanol is such a mistake? I do not see why. I grow corn. I sell to the ethanol producer. In turn the ethanol producer gives me the distillers corn back so I can use as feed corn. They only removed the ethanol. We can feed our nation. Always the non-farmer who gets their panties in a bind – someone who has no idea how it works on the farm. The article states that it “may” turn the US into a net importer. “May.” Hasn’t happened and I do not see it happening. Go talk to some people who are doing the work, and quit passing bull puckey info around. The next story about this will filled with more horror stories then this one!
Farmer Bob Iowa 3500 acres corn and soybeans
Peasant Bob – There is nothing wrong with your corn or your ethanol. There is everything wrong with the governemnt telling me I have to buy it. This used to be a free country with free markets. Back then, I would have bought your product if it beat the competition on cost and quality. Now the goverment forces me to buy your inferior (as a fuel) product. I’d rather put real gas in my tank and buy some corn-fed steaks.
You cheer while the government takes away my freedom because it lines your pockets? I work for a medical company. You shouldn’t be forece to use my products or services either – but it’s going to happen.
Enjoy paying me against your will.
Take Farmer Bob and multiply him by millions and you have some idea why this is an uphill fight that we will most likely lose. To many people have to much to lose and are quite willing to ride this plane into the ground before they give up one dime.
And that includes the 535 pimps and whores in Washington.
535 pimps and whores in Washington.
Don’t forget the US Supreme Court justices who declare this annual, several trillion-dollar corruption in DC perfectly constitutional. As long as it remains so, no fundamental changes will ever happen.
I suggest that the huge portion of corn produced for ethanol does not come from family farms but large industrial ones. And, it increases the price of corn world wide. The farmer’s argument is false when it consumes more energy – dirty energy at that – to produce ethanol from corn that is produced by the product. Net negetive results are almost always the end product when government strays from actually governing into social or economic engineering.
I grow landscape palms. Should the government force you to plant them around your house or business?
If corn based ethanol is such a good idea why does the government have to subsidize it and FORCE us to buy it?
“Can you tell me why the ethanol is such a mistake?”
Because it is a ZERO sum game, It takes as much energy to make the ethanol as it produces in a car. End of subject. All it does is drive up the price of other corn based products and actually it truly sucks as a automotive fuel, does your gas powered farm equipment like to run on it? I know my small engines hate it, and even my motorcycle does not run as well on it. Ethanol also attracts water from the air accumulating in the fuel system over time. Now take this lovely “gas” with 10% ethanol in it and store it for 90 days……lets see if your car runs on it then?
While I respect the fact that your a farmer (grew up working on a friends dairy farm) it is nothing more than a false economy, the government subsidies make it “cheep” enough to compete with straight oil and natural gas. With out those subsidies corn based ethanol could never even come close to competing with other energy forms.
For there to be any true benefit here we need to look at other sources that don’
t need “help” from the Government to stand on their own.
COMA4 – Were it a zero-sum game, it would be neutral. Anything that needs an unending subsidy is not a zero-sum game but a negative-sum game.
Coma4, I believe that the production of ethanol is not merely calorie neutral but calorie negative. In other words it takes more than one calorie of input to get one calorie’s worth of ethanol. The profit in ethanol is from the byproducts of the distillation process and it is a bad idea to mandate the use of ethanol for fuel. I say this as a farmer but I do see why corn farmers like it.
Just to add to your excellent points: a gallon of gas/ethanol blend will not go as far as a gallon of straight gasoline so you are going to have to buy more of it to go the same distance. We have so much useable energy in this country that this policy makes absolutely no economic sense. As far as the environment is concerned, one major volcanic eruption can undo the effects of all your mitigation strategies in a matter of days. To think committing economic suicide to save the planet from us is even possible, shows the depth of ignorance of the environmental extremists. This is nonsense! We are living in a warming period which is orders of magnitude better than living in a cooling period or, even worse, an ice age. The little ice age led to famines, plagues and all sorts of disasters that killed millions!
If ethanol is so great, why must the government subsidize it. Without the subsidies, it would not be economical. On top of that, there are heavy tariffs on sugar ethanol, imported from Brazil, that is less costly to produce, to make corn ethanol more competitive. No matter how you look at it, the tax payers are paying you to plant corn. And why should we? Enough is enough.
Dear Taxpayer-funded Bob, 100% of our non-automotive engines (and the majority of automotive engines) are not designed to run on ethanol, it wrecks them, and voids the warranty. If you need a better explanation that that, then how about the fact I don’t get a choice in whether my equipment gets wrecked, the government is forcing me to wreck my equipment, AND I get to pay my taxes to you for the privilege. Ethanol pollutes more, it costs more and finally, it is less efficient than gasoline, so other than you filling your pockets with my tax dollars, where, exactly, is the benefit?
I’m wondering how much ethanol is required, by your implements, to grow your corn? You and I know that your equipment won’t run on ethanol. The energy used producing the ethanol is more than it contains. The whole thing is start to finish STUPID. The 40% set a side is crazy. When the subsidies end it will be Brazil getting the 40% premium, not you. I hope for your sake you are not all in corn, when that end comes.
A point to ponder, If I am wrong I loose nothing. If you are wrong you loose the Farm.
Yup, plowsharin’ Bob, YOU are what’s wrong with America today. You have the same attitude as a drug pusher. It’s not YOUR fault that ethanol helps destroy critical engine parts. It’s not YOUR fault that gas is so expensive. It’s not YOUR fault that the government is addicted to spending money oh-so-stupid ideas. Why? Because YOU are comfy, and taken care of by uncle sugar. Yup, guaranteed income with your corn subsidies. Tax dollars given to you for doing the socialists’ bidding. You see no harm because in your little piece of the universe, you’re doing just fine. You are no better than the Wisconsin teachers union that feel they are entitled to tax money for free health benefits and higher salaries.
So, ask yourself what you would have to charge per ear of corn if you were selling it to a food company at the farmers’ market? Oh, what’s that you say? You don’t have to go to the farmers’ market because your corn is already paid for…a guaranteed amount from the government? Yeah buddy. All you have to do is grow it and cut it and ship it off. Easy for you. Less costly labor.
Way to go. I wish my job was like that…a guaranteed sale because I know the government wants it. Wouldn’t matter to me what it cost. Sounds a lot like cash for clunkers. Take in a really worthless car, and the GOVERNMENT gives big dollars so long as I destroy the engine, which costs about $20. Wow. Such great planning.
Plowshare Bob, you are a socialist.
Or is it “Sideshow Bob”?
So, you see a fire in your kitchen garbage can, it MAY burn your house down, then again, it may not.
The corn crop went in late, far fewer acres have been planted, yields are likely going to be lower, reserves are virtually nonexistent, and 40% of what is grown has to go to the ethanol producers. Yeah, I’m with you, let’s wait and see if food prices go through the roof and people actually start to riot over food shortages and an already bad economy becomes a biblical disaster. Silly alarmists!
I’m a farmer, but burning corn for auto fuel has to be one of the dumbest things we are doing.
Since the US is a net exporter of corn as we in the US put ore into our fuel tanks and leave less for export we not only increase the price of food at home, we also increase the price of food around the world. Corn is a basic staple stock and therefore the nations hardest hit by higher corn prices are poorer nations.
The refusal of the US to drill for its own oil has the same impact on world oil prices. The more we refuse to drill for our own or cut back our own supplies the more the world price of oil increases and those most vulnerable to higher oil prices are the most hurt.
Selfish, misguided environmentalist whacko policies harm nit only American consumers but hurt consumers around the globe.
When do we fight back against these radicals?
A separate question is, who funds the radical environmentalists? Do we via tax breaks and grants from the bureaucracies like the EPA?
Let’s have a story on who funds those that want to cripple our economy.
David Horowitz and John Perazzo have written a dandy little booklet “From Shadow Party to Shadow Government,” which very plainly shows that George Soros, now an American citizen, has bought the Democratic Party lock, stock, and barrel. His billions are being used to elect the far-left candidates, fund groups like ACORN, and generally work to destroy our nation. That’s why any candidate running as a Democrat can’t be trusted to do what he promises, because if he doesn’t further Obama’s plan he won’t get reelected or be given an important role. Vote Democrat at the peril of our very way of life.
There is an article in June 2009 National Geographic that points to a much more frightening turn of events regarding food and poorer nations. The thumbnail on the article is that food production in the 3rd world has been declining and in some areas is on the verge of collapse. The ethanol policy may be condemning millions to death by starvation.
When one thinks things could not get worse Big Government steps in to demonstrate how wrong one is!!!
“…condemning millions…” of people who hate our guts and are doing their best to kill as many of us as they can… “to death by starvation.” And this is bad…how?
The overwhelming majority of those millions are children, not old enough to know we exist! Do you actually believe that a food crisis in the Third World has no impact on our security? If you think we have an illegal immigration problem now, you ain’t seen nothing! The Third World is at our back door. Does that clear things up for you?
Not a bit. The more our enemies have to pay for food the less money they have for weapons to kill us with. The more children that starve the fewer adult terrorists. The more we feed the more that need feeding. I’d rather burn the food than feed a terrorist.
This is why we probably had the wisest, most learned group of people to write our Constitution. They thought they had the federal gov’ment contained and restrained by the Constitution. Boy, were they wrong! This is exactly why the role of the federal gov’ment needs to be limited. Is there anything that the federal gov’ment has touched that they haven’t screwed up? They have screwed up the family, the food supply, the fuel supply, your medical care, education, and the financial system.
The only solution is to elect truly conservative legislators. The “masterminds” just screw up everything. They are the smartypants that think they know more than us rubes out here in flyover country. They belong in the ivory towers where they can pontificate, but not implement their disasterous policies.
“If we were directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we would soon want for bread.” — Thomas Jefferson
Farmer Bob:
What’s wrong with ethanol…
Try replacing fuel lines,fuel pumps and other parts in your older vehicles, lawn mowers, chain saws and the like. Plus ethanol produces less energy than gasoline.
I want you to pay my repair bills…it’s only fair…you guys are getting the subsidies.
Can you share the proof that ethanol destroyed any of your parts on any of your equipment? Somehow ethanol-blended fuel has been working fine since the late 1970′s in various parts of the country. To think that any of the equipment manufacturers, whether that be car or small engine, make a different version of their equipment for Kansas, than Maine, than Florida, than Texas, is just plain mistaken logic.
In point of fact, in order to use E-85 you must replace all of the above parts. Additionally, as any mechanic will tell you, even 10% blended ethanol becomes extremely hygroscopic. There are issues with excessive water inside the engine. Mechanics have been cussing that for years.
I agree the mandate remains a terrible idea. But my 05 Accord has had nothing but gasohol and is at 150,000 mi. with no recommended tune-up, no new plugs, no seals, no sensor change, nothing except a serpentine belt, and gets 28-34 mpg. Apparently it likes gasohol. What do we do for a fuel oxygenator if we get rid of gasohol?
Plus, don’t forget to actually pay attention to those racing applications you’ve so prominently mentioned in the thread – seen a NASCAR Race lately? Probably not, you do come across as too ‘hip’ for such pedantry, but isn’t it remarkable that right as the banners proclaiming NASCAR’s commitment to “Green”, Responsible Ethanol are scrolling across, they do the little pop-up speed numbers? And is it just me, or are those speeds consistently 20-30 miles per hour slower than when they used evil, evil gas? And they sure seem to be stopping more often to put more fuel in. . .sounds like a PERFECT replacement. Crappier performing underpowered cars that have to stop for gas more often. If that doesn’t hit all the consumer wish list high notes, I’m sure Detroit (and the DC crowd) are totally confused as to why.
fuelin’: Proof? The proof is in your owner’s manual: use of anything but straight gasoline voids your warranty. I called Honda and Mercury Marine to specifically ask if they meant ethanol, and yes, using ethanol voided my warranty.
I just recently had to replace the carburetor in my Honda tiller because of damage caused by ethanol enhanced fuel. I was told by the repairman to only use gasoline (which is available at only one station in town.) Will do the same now for all my small engines. See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25936782/ns/business-consumer_news/t/mechanics-see-ethanol-damaging-small-engines/ or search for small engine damage ethanol. Symptom: tiller would run for about 5 seconds before being starved of fuel.
I was for unsubsidized ethanol decades ago as I saw what Brazil had been doing since the 1970′s with US made engines. It had enormous success with sugar cane and waste to fuel. The use of the corn residue from alcohol production for cattle feed or human consumption has never broken the cultural, transportation or information barriers stopping its use as food, thus it has become a drain on the corn product available for human consumption. So methanol may be a better alternative fuel for the future.
It has less energy than ethanol, but that is overcome a bit by more efficient engine operation. As a former startup engineer in the energy field, I look for a solution that is the least expensive and most practical with the greatest chance of success. Conversion to methanol requires minimum infrastructure changes to fueling stations and not much to vehicles as our multi fueled E-85 cars have shown. Brazil has, I believe, 88% of vehicles on E-85 and is serious about E-100. We have a problem with utilizing E-85 since there are few fueling stations available as the CA state government found out.
Why not M-85 instead of E-85. Indy cars and dragsters burn methanol; it’s $7 a gallon now. With the new technology for obtaining productive natural gas fields in new areas of the US, that increased natural gas supply can be used to make methane for methanol as can biomass materials, our landfills. What is also interesting is that the methane from gas hydrates found at the bottom of deep lakes and in the oceans offer a natural resource that is beyond belief.
Where are you $7/gal for methanol? You’re getting ripped off. Try $1.28/gal … http://www.methanex.com/products/methanolprice.html
Methanol can also be made from any biomass.
The downside to methanol is its high toxicity. Small doses can cause blindness.
I would prefer that methanol not have the ubiquousness of automobile fuel.
It is my understanding that the idea it to burn the stuff not drink it! In the same vein I don’t know of any mixed drinks with gasoline as an ingredient.
Lets all ask ourselves this question-Do I believe anyone in the beltway Republican establishment will do anything to repair America?
No…..Econ 101: we wont run out of corn. There is no cure for high prices, like high prices. The market will ration corn supplies, and cut useage. The savy end users have priced in corn needs. The speculating end users will get priced out of the market. The market always works.
Ethanol maybe adds 5 cents to a box of corn flakes…and yet reduces gas price at the pump by est. 50 cents…….
Really…..its a propaganda game by Big Food and Oil to #1—allow big food to keep wide margins on corn for food and industrial use, and #2 by Oil to not replace crude by amount of Oil we import from Saudi’s…..
……..and to keep the ave. joe farmer “down on the farm” in bib overhauls. Face after the 80′s farm crisis Farmers built the ethanol infrastructure themselves with their own investment (much unlike current wind/solar welfare) in response to critisim they needed new markets to avoid agric swings in prices.
Do subsidies need to cut phased out YES……h@ll yes……..but not for the reson many cite. Its much like Palin lies pushed by the dem’cats: b.s., but the right falls for them as easy as the left.
“….reduces gas price at the pump by est. 50 cents…”
First, that’s the subsidized price. Unsubsidized would be less. Second, add in the effect of higher food prices that would cancel out any additional savings, then where are we? Exactly where we are now, paying higher taxes to subsidize Big Ethanol and the farmers.
Regarding “Big Oil” – they don’t care how much oil is or not imported, how much oil is used by the consumer, etc. They are still going to make a profit no matter what. They have a captive market. Many are now investing in ethanol, solar, wind. They could care less about global warming, they roll with the punches. Stop the myths about “Big Oil” and learn more about the economics of energy production. Have they ever made “excess profit”? Absolutely. But they don’t put the money into a bank or in a mattress. They plow the profits back into the company, growing jobs, increasing salaries and more exploration and drilling. That’s why the Democrats have never been able to pin anything on “Big Oil”.
Let’s cut subsidies to oil companies and ethanol producers.
““….reduces gas price at the pump by est. 50 cents…””
Garbage, once one factors in the fact that ethanol has less than half the energy content of gasoline.
What orifice did that get pulled out of?
don’t you mean it raises the cost of a gal of gas by .50$ because it sure does not lower it.
I’m a farmer, too. I don’t grow corn. I raise animals for their fiber – angora goats and angora rabbits. I also have chickens and sell their eggs. I have other critters, too. Ducks, guineas, peafowl, etc.
Animal feed has skyrocketed in the past 2 years. What used to be really cheap feed, chicken scratch, has doubled. DOUBLED. If anyone who advocates ethanol thinks that is not raising food prices, well, ya’ll are in need of some remedial math.
I am amazed that no one wants to discuss energy subsidies, not just ethanol. The petroleum industry receives billions in subsidies through various tax credits, deductions, advanced appreciation and just plain payments. It is a net importer, not only in petroleum, but also growing in refined products, like gasoline. The petroleum industry has been subsidized in some fashion for 100 years. If you want ethanol to stand on its own, it needs to be on an even playing field, and the ethanol industry will welcome it.
As far as food prices around the world, higher prices can actually stimulate local production around the world, as they can finally make money. In the U.S. we have price support programs to ensure that when the price of our food is below production price, farmers still get paid so we ultimately always have food. Other countries simply rely on our cheap production, as they have no similar system.
And finally, methanol is not the answer. In fact, the comment earlier is mistaken. The IndyCar Series did run methanol, but they have been running ethanol for years, and all of the other racing series are following suit.
Please be specific. I just read Exxon’s annual report. Their effective income tax rate was over 40%. In addition, they expensed something like $70 billion in tariffs, duties, sales taxes.
Those breaks don’t sound all that great. Canada’s corporate income tax is 15% now – I think they would take that instead.
Dude, you’ve got some seriously bass akwards perceptions of how the whole thing works, and it looks like you’ve pulled your major arguments from whackadoodle talking points with no basis in reality.
The ‘oil subsidies’ that have been the topic of much harpy shrieking of late is actually just grumbling to impose additional taxes that have only been dreamed up as ways to squeeze more money for government coffers out of the overall energy transaction funding stream. Who pays for this ‘subsidy repeal’ (again, a euphemism for increased tax levies) ultimately? Consumers, at the pump, where it is passed on by the entire chain of producers and suppliers that, although probably being ok folks, are not in it for the charitable aspects. Oh, and those ‘obscene profits’? Yeah, they’ll continue to look like really, really big numbers that no one grasps the significance of, since they amount to just about the equivalent of the pocket lint left over after it’s all said and done.
The only thing we DO agree on here, is that Corn ethanol is NOT the answer. I’ll go farther than that, and call it for what it is – one of the absolute dumbest large scale ideas that mankind has ever dreamed up or inflicted upon itself.
fuelinggood; One of the facts ethanol from corn proponents don’t mention is it takes more energy to produce and get to market than the ethanol contains. Where does that energy to produce ethanol come from? If you say fossil fuel, you know COAL, OIL . . . you win the prize. We could import sugar cane ethanol from Brazil cheaper than make ethanol from corn. That includes the cost of shipping. If I were a corn farmer I’d be lovin’ it, till the subsidy runs out.
Nobody ever mentions this, but it is critically important. Gasoline needs oxygenation. MTBE’s were the oxygenator of choice until they were found to be a carcinogen and infiltrating water tables, lakes, ponds and streams. The only oxygenator that was economical enough to take the place of MTBE’s is ethanol. I believe that is still true. So aside from whatever value ethanol has as a fuel extender, and that is highly debatable, it is necessary as an oxygenator.
Subsidies should expire by stages, and let the markets absorb the blow over time.
My guess is you know little about real fuel, racing gas has many more blends that are NON oxygenated and most times perform the best. There are now some custom blends that use various agents to boost the oxygen levels to 3 to 6 % these work on lower compression engines or “stock” type racing classes to produce more power than those engines could on higher octane fuel.
The Oxygen that is in regular pump gas is there because the gas contains substances that do not burn well and cause higher emissions compared to good proper fuels in engines with enough compression to do some actual “work” . All in the name of making a buck the refineries use substandard ingredients and then “add” oxygen to correct the emissions “for us”.
George Bush, all of Congress, Farmer Bob, Lawrence of Lutz, and the author, fail to grasp the worst long term result of America’s insane political energy policy, BTUs (an amount of energy) decided by technically ignorant people. That is not an insult, I know nothing about politics, or farming; I am an engineer, spent forty years studying a very complicated topic.
America’s error is two fold:
On ethanol – Henry Ford developed a really competitive killer app, a cheap means of transportation. It made him rich. He figured that its fuel would be ethanol, corn liquor, as every farmer since Plymouth Rock, had a still. This transportable product, booze, was the bedrock of our commerce. Ford was wrong, gasoline was the better fuel, cheaper and more powerful. Diesel oil was also coming on strong, but it requires a stronger block, heavier castings, due to the increased pressures. Ford relented, changed the orifices in his carburetor, and made more money. The hydrocarbon industry exploded. And the O ring industry adapted.
The error, is that America has abandoned the economic signals of commerce. Today, fortunes are made, or lost, by who you know. If you buy a Congressman and get the ethanol subsidy, you are wealthy. If you can erect barriers to Brazilian ethanol, you keep your wealth. If not, go work as a greeter at WalMart.
Every year a farmer makes a bet on the market, and decides what to plant. If he loses the bet, and can survive, he plants something else next year. But the huge loser is the engineer who spends ten – twenty years or more becoming the world’s foremost authority on some arcane aspect of ethanol engineering. Or coal handling. Or nuclear fuel rod design. Or residual oil processing. Or natural gas fracking.
When the US jerks its energy laws, that engineer loses his life long career. he is laid off. His home, family, kid’s education, retirement is no longer viable. You do not know energy policy until a subordinate engineer leaves your office, after a quiet talk, goes home and puts a gun to his head. After several such events, you comprehend the effects of US energy policy. American engineering schools, long ago, dropped coursework which is vital to energy production. Their graduates could not find work. Engineers leave the profession in mid career to become real estate agents, stock brokers, bulldozer operators, mechanics, and plumbers. Maybe farmers, I never knew one.
America’s energy policy is suicidal, because it is centrally planned, like the USSR. It no longer evolves naturally, due to market forces, stimulating the required human resources to make it prosper. If a few Senators are plied with liquor, and vote differently, ethanol will die in America, farmers will plant soy beans next year, and some middle aged Professional Engineer will go work at Wal Mart. This is the real result of our insane energy policy.
Mr. Hails,
Actually I agree with you. This article was simply on the dangers of our low carry over stocks of corn and what the idiotic 40% mandate is doing. The bottom line is every time the government mucks about in the markets we see issues like this. What should be driving energy policy is not the environmental fad du jour, but what works and the markets.
Let the markets settle it out. In the mean time, can we please drill? We have plenty of oil and natural gas. As Charlie pointed out earlier this week, Shell now has a process to turn natural gas into gasoline and diesel fuel — a process which is economical with oil at $20 a barrel and which creates a cleaner fuel to boot.
Again, let the market sort it out.
STOP WITH THE LIES!! Is this web site driven by big oil money!!?? I cannot believe that anyone in their right mind would question our need to move to alternative fuels. The ethanol mandate was the ONE good thing that criminal Bush did! We have to move to alternative sources NOW. What are we going to tell our kids in 20 years when the climate is irreversibly changed? When the average temp in July in NYC is 115 degrees! What are you going to tell them!!! We need to require ALL American corn farmers to produce only ethanol. We MUST move to wind/solar/geothermal/waste renewal/horse. It’s shocking how blind everyone on this site is.
Hystrionic much?
There’s a basis of a kernel of good sense in the WE’RE ALL GONNA DIEEEEEE! presentation here, but, and speaking of removing blinders – can you please give the rest of us even the tiniest little clue as to why it is that the most ardent ‘defenders of Gaia’ almost consistently yell the loudest for the implementation of probably the crappiest and worst conceived ‘solutions’ to a problem that can’t even convincingly be described or proven?
We’ll wait.
So, this is the hottest the planet has EVER been? EVER? LOL
Yeah, lets move to horse (equine) power. LOL
The horse-power bit leads me to believe it’s a troll. A pretty clever one, too.
“Troll”? What are you, a Charlie Sheen fan? I’ll say this for you “Jonk”, you are a detail man (or woman). As the great Frank Vincent once yelled to Joe Pesci: “Now go get your horse shoe!”
As you get your prime quotes from Hollywood celebrities, I can only surmise you’ll get your 115 degree NYC temperature readings from the steam pipes during a remake of the “Seven Year Itch” skirt blow scene.
http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/weather_stations/
Alternative energy is fine, BUT it has to WORK and it has to COST not more than 10% MORE than what we have now. Like it or not the whole world is driven by MONEY and if you and your ilk crush the entire economy by making energy cost 2 to 5 times more….You will be living in a tent under a old bridge. The entire system is driven by energy and money, they go hand in hand. I for one am never going to settle for any socialist scam to ram “gaia worship” up my rear end. If it so important get an engineering degree and figure out how to make it work……or shut up hippy!
I agree with you to a point; considering all of the things we can make out of petroleum, we are INSANE to simply burn most of it. But let’s be realistic; alternative fuels can not replace oil for years. Some of them require modifications to motor vehicles (such as going to unleaded gas did), some will require rebuilding of distribution infrastructure (such as natural gas, which would ALSO require vehicle modifications), and some, like electric or hydrogen-fueled vehicles, merely shift the problem to stationary power plants (and the only proven non-greenhouse-producing power plants that can be built in sufficient numbers to produce enough electricity for the batteries or hydrogen production are nuclear; happy now?). There is NO low-hanging fruit in the energy field left; it has all been found and is either in production or has been proven to be uneconomical, absent government intervention (which is the point of the article; in some cases, things which WOULD be economical are not because of government intervention, such as ethanol from non-corn sources, since the government subsidizes ONLY corn-based ethanol). Don’t invoke conspiracy theories about suppressed inventions, such as 100mpg carburetors; with literally billions of dollars to be made, either by production or graft, such things would be in production. And, finally, you will get more traction by acting like you think other people in this debate are wrong, rather than evil.
And, if you want my green creds, among other things I have been driving a Honda Insight hybrid for over 10 years. And discussing energy and the environment with reason, rather than exclamation points.
I think global warming is a crock, but even if you think its true, why all the mandates and special interest subsidies, with the huge market distortions and unintended consequencies, and every special interest lobbying gov for their particular subsidy. If you must reduce carbon use, just pass a carbon tax, and make it revenue neutral by cutting other taxes so it doesn’t contract the private sector, then let the free market take care of it. You accomplish the same goal, reducing carbon use, by the most effecient economic methods, but without the huge market distortions, without the stifflying gov control, and the lobbying and graft. But no, we can’t rely on the market, we have to let big gov decide everything. Personally, I dont think most of you econuts really give a hoot about the planet, you are just using phony environmentalism to promote big gov and one world socialism.
Horse? Seriously? We should use horses for transportation? Is that what you mean? Or do you mean we should use horses to plow fields? Are you out of your mind?
I can’t imagine how far back in the dark ages we would have to be if we are using horses for anything other than pleasure and moving cattle around.
Do you have any idea how long it would take to ride a horse to work? What about stabling these horses in a big city? And then, there is the poop! Horse poop in the streets? Who is going to shovel all that poo?
And then horse shoes – they cost a lot more than tires. I pay $158 every 6 weeks for my farrier to trim hooves and shoe just the front feet of my horses.
I know because I have two horses here on my farm. For pleasure.
You really need to see your mental health specialist about your delusions!
But just think of all the green jobs that would be created Beth! All those farri… oh yeah you have to heat the shoes don’t you. Um, well but all the pooper scoopers … oh yeah methane from the horses patoot. Well but the people to hose down the streets… oh, yeah, cholera from the poo washing into the water supply.
But horses! No more oil!
Oh for the love of … Don’t be more of an idiot than God made you. Require all farmers to produce only ethanol? *sigh* Where to begin. First, farmers don’t produce ethanol, they produce corn, the refineries produce ethanol.
Second, do you have any clue how much of the food supply is dependent on corn to one degree or another? Pretty much all of it. Corn is in everything. It’s used in the manufacture of some plastics, for animal feed, for sweetener, for the love of Pete baby powders is nothing but corn starch!
While we’re at it madam (you seem female to me) you are aware that it require energy to create ethanol right? So where do you propose we get that? Wind? Hardly. It’s hugely inefficient and environmentalist whackjobs such as yourself won’t allow the power lines to be built because they, no kidding, “will disrupt the mating habits of the lesser prairie chicken.” Solar? Again, inefficient and the environuts won’t let us build solar farms in the Mohave because it might disrupt the fragile ecosystem of the desert. Geo? Great stuff Geothermal plants, but only useable where there’s natural steam. Kansas? Fuggedaboutit. Hydro? Again you need water, and we haven’t built a new hydro plant in generations because of the envirowhacks yet again.
T’would seem you greenweenies always seem to turn up every time someone wants to build an energy production facility. Tell you what, you want us to all turn to your “green” energy sources, then you idiots get out of the way and let us build them. Until then, no one wants to hear it.
Such an emotional outburst, must be a Demoncrat, they get hysterical on occasion.
Just plant industrial hemp and be done with it, an acre of hemp will produce four times the ethanol as an acre of corn.
See how simple it is, now go back sleep, conservatives are watching out for all the evil boogeymen that are out to get you.
Stop paying farmers to NOT grow corn, and let the market find its equilibrium.
They’re called Market and Government. Government has more than it can handle doing its job and should NEVER interfere with markets. Presently, government is failing – miserably – at both, to the detriment of the entire world.
And no politician should ever trade my freedom for campaign cash or votes from any interest group – but it happens all the time. Americans are getting fed up with it.
Why are we letting environ-MENTAL terrorists destroy our country?
This article is false.
There is no mandate that 40% of America’s corn be turned into ethanol.
“As the primary ingredient of chicken feed, which accounts for 55 percent of the wholesale cost of whole, ready-to-cook chickens, the cost of corn has increased from about $2 per bushel in 2006 to more than $7.50 per bushel. This increase has resulted largely because 40 percent of the corn crop is being diverted into federally mandated ethanol usage …”
I direct your attention here sir:
http://www.meatpoultry.com/News/News%20Home/Regulatory/2011/4/US%20chicken%20industry%20Cut%20ethanol%20mandate.aspx
A quick Google search turned up 2.7 million results on the subject. I refute you thus. Care to try again?
Sir,
A link to the actual law mandating 40% of the crop turn into ethanol would be preferred.
The outcome of *a* mandate may be 40% of the crop (as I noted, it’s not actually a full 40%), but I think Dr. Zubrin means to say that the mandate as-stated, that 40% of all corn in grain elevators go to ethanol distilleries, does not exist.
You are correct sir that the mandate refers to ethanol production, the net result of which is roughly 40% of the corn crop goes to fuel. This is because the mandate requires ethanol be produced from corn. The effect is the same regardless of the actual language.
Patrick,
You make some dire predictions, so I had to check for myself. Based on the USDA numbers, the corn used for fuel ethanol isn’t quite 40% of produced supply; there’s an inefficiency in there somewhere.
But the big deal is the carryover issue. According the the USDA numbers, production between 2009 and 2010 dropped 600 million bushels, while both Ethanol usage and “Food, Seed, and Industrial” usage increased about 400 million bushels each. The decrease in carryover is more than made up for by those changes, only 29% of which is the increase due to ethanol.
While an extra 8 days of carry over (that portion accounted for by the percentage of increased ethanol consumption) would be nice, we’d still only have 60% of the carryover of last year.
Incidentally, over that period, corn imports increased from all of 8 million bushels (0.05% of the total supply) to 20 million bushels (0.14% of total supply). We’re not in danger of becoming net importers of corn any time soon.
This holds only so long as corn production continues to rise. This is not a given. I live and grew up in a farm area — Kansas. You are going to get to watch the price of bread go up this year because Kansas wheat farmers, primarily in the western half of the state are having a terrible year. We get one bad crop year with stocks low, and the government continuing to mandate a huge portion of the crop going into fuel not food and we have a problem.
I’m not making predictions here, simply noting possibilities. It would require a perfect storm of events to cause the issue described above. But those things have a way of happening from time to time. I simply suggest that the government stop interfering in the markets.
Sir,
I, too, grew up on a farm – we grew corn and wheat, primarily – near the area of which you speak. It was dry there, and it’s been dry where I am, in the TX Panhandle area. The wheat looks downright ugly. Wheat is going to be rough this year. But that would happen without ethanol mandates.
I agree that the government shouldn’t interfere in markets. I’m merely pointing out that there are other factors at play than just that interference (2010 was a down year, and overall consumption was up, regardless of an increase in ethanol use), and that the results are less dire and immediate than you imply (prices will increase, but we won’t be at the mercy of anyone for supply any time soon).
A personal story. One that convinced me we are gaining nothing from ethanol subsidies. Don’t need the debate about the science. Sheer mathematical data.
For over a year and a half due to a transfer, twice a month, I drive a 1,000 mile trip from Oklahoma to Texas: same car (2008 V6 Accord), same temperature, same roads traveled comparison – virtually all highway miles. I have two stations at which I fill up: Store ‘A’ is a popular independent retail chain that sells an ethanol blend of up to 10% advertised on pump; Store ‘B’, a Valero station advertise 100% gas and is 20 cents a gallon more expensive. Both are 87 octane. I’ve tried and tracked both on numerous times – and these results have been consistent now for 34 round trips.
From Store ‘A’, I have consistently gotten between 26-28 mpg (Up to 10% ethanol).
From Store ‘B’, I have consistently gotten between 29-32 mpg. (0% ethanol).
When I figure the total costs of the trip of burning more gallons vs. higher per gallon costs, it’s basically a wash. So what in the hell are we getting for our ethanol subsidies besides higher food costs?
Mr. Richardson,
Though on the whole I agree with you, there seems to be a problem with part of your argument, unless of course I misunderstood something. You admit that a portion of the corn used for ethanol is returned to the market as animal feed. You then claim that this means 27% of the corn is “used up”. But ethanol isn’t responsible for the demand for animal feed, is it? So this 27% would have been used as animal feed one way or the other (with or without ethanol), wouldn’t it? Don’t get me wrong, from my modest understanding of the matter ethanol sounds like an entirely bad idea, and certainly gov’t has no place making such mandates based on unproven theories (global warming, or climate change, or whatever they’re calling it now), but it is important to make sound arguments. What happens, by the way, to the other 1/3 of the corn used for ethanol? Does it just go to waste?
Roughly 40% of the corn crop goes to ethanol production, of that 40% roughly 2/3 of that 40% is returned to the food stream as animal feed. The part that is NOT returned is roughly 27% which is simply used up as part of the ethanol production process.
Thank you for the clarification. I thought you meant 27% of the total corn produced, when evidently you meant 27% of the 40% which goes to ethanol.
Um, no, roughly 27% of the TOTAL corn crop is used up never to be reclaimed in ethanol production.
First, ethanol is made from FEED corn AFTER the proteins are removed … There is NO competition for food!
For the majority of ethanol plants in the U.S., the key co-product of ethanol production is dried distillers grains (DDG). This is the high protein feed product that remains after LOW-VALUE starch is removed to make fuel. Ethanol production has not reduce food availability either for humans nor stock. So its really either put it in production for fuel or have the gov’t buy and store it as part of price supports.
Aside from that, it’s not an either/or proposition with corn.
The production of ethanol from corn uses only the starch of the corn kernel. All of the protein, minerals, and nutrients remain. One bushel of corn produces about 2.7 gallons of ethanol AND 11.4 pounds of gluten feed (20% protein) AND 3 pounds of gluten meal (60% protein) AND 1.6 pounds of corn oil.
Next, we should focus on METHANOL rather than ethanol. Methanol is already available at a lower price per BTU than gasoline without a subsidy. Plus methanol can be made from nearly any biomass.
Cars can easily be made to automatically adjust using ethanol, methanol, or gasoline or any combination. Remember, the US make autos for the Brazilian market. They have the technology and it’s only a couple of hundred dollars per car. The real issue is why doesn’t congress mandate that all gasoline engines be flex-fueled?
Remember, the manufacturers must make the cars for the Brazilian market flex-fueled (up to E100) … Brazil is out in front of us on this one. What’s our problem? They aren’t sending money to nations that finance terrorists every time they fuel up.
And it’s all about flexibility! If a person wants to burn straight gasoline … no problem … gas price goes up and want to burn E85 or M85 … no problem.
It’s also about security and the economy. If we burn methanol made in the US then the money stays in the US and we don’t have to worry about protecting the oil lanes. It reduces the trade deficit and puts money back into the US economy … It’s win-win for the US.
I’m not a big fan of ethanol but least at let’s debate it without false scare tactics like it’s taking away from our food supply.
Just remember this … Wet spring cuts corn crop, prices to stay high … Don’t be blaming the food prices on ethanol.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Wet-spring-cuts-corn-crop-apf-2236080739.html
A quick example of one more problem with ethanol subsidies I have personally seen:
My hometown is in Appalachia and very poor. The local government got a grant for an ethanol plant as a means of stimulating the local economy. They then went out and convinced the farmers to change over almost all of the local production to 100% corn in order to meet the requirements for full-time ethanol production.
Less than a year after the plant was completed, the grant dried up and the plant couldn’t afford to run without its subsidy. The first harvest for corn which was primarily supposed to go to the ethanol plant, had very few buyers. Subsequently, the prices dropped and the local farmers took huge losses for the year….not to mention they developed way more land for corn than needed and costs (including interest on loans) are going to be draining any revenue streams for years.
In a nutshell: An ethanol subsidy that dried up has severely hurt an already hemorrhaging economy in middle America.
Lobo, while you obviously understand the nuances and stats of ethanol production much better than some neophyte like me, I understand a little about biochemistry. To say this:
ignores the fact that the consumption of long chains of sugar molecules called starch (like corn) is what keeps about half the world from starving to death.
If you are suggesting that the production and usage of ethanol hasn’t directly contributed to higher food prices, I am not buying your argument. The increase in the amount of corn used to produce ethanol has exerted upward pressure on corn prices, boosted the demand for cropland, and raised the price of animal feed. Is anybody farmer disputing that?
And that in turn increase the costs of food commodities like meat and dairy, with the retail price of food following.
It would appear to me another mandate from our government is the last thing we need at this moment.
I, too am having trouble with this whacko argument. Any animal, such as a chicken, needs both carbohydrates and non carbs (fats, proteins, what Loco defines as “high value” stuff) in order to live and grow. Ethanol production removes the carbohydrates and converts them to alcohol which is burned to carbon dioxide and water. From whence, then, does the chicken get its required allotment of carbohydrates? In other words, if I feed a chicken a pound of corn fresh off the cob, what weight of chicken do I get to eat? If I first reduce the food value of that pound of corn by converting the carbs to alcohol, NOW how much chicken meat do I get? It HAS to be less.
Hemp for fuel. Read the history of this plant, before the naysayers strike it down. This plant could be grown all over the USA, and used for ethanol. We would not need to use corn. The debate could end right now.
How about using fuel for fuel? If hemp fuel can compete on it’s own against other sources without causing us to starve to death because all the farmers start growing fuel crops instead of fuel crops, I’m all for it. Otherwise, let’s burn what was meant to burn, is cheap and abundant, and will get our economy moving again-coal, oil, and natural gas!
I had trouble following your calculation. As I understand it, 40% of corn production is diverted from food to fuel production, but of that 40%, 2/3 is returned to food production as animal feed. Thus, the net amount diverted to from food to fuel is 1/3 times 40%, or about 13%. I think I have done the calculation correctly based on your description of the process. Please point out why your calculation differs from mine.
This impressed me as a rather poorly informed article. There is no mandate to convert 40% of our corn crop to useless motor fuel. The mandate is for ethanol use. The subsidies don’t go to corn farmers, they go to ethanol producers and fuel blenders. The mandate results in increased prices for corn and this benefits corn growers. Getting rid of the subsidies won’t hurt corn growers one bit and they will only present a minor inconvenience for ethanol producers or blenders. They will simply pass on any lost profit margin to the consumer in the form of higher prices. The government has MANDATED the use of ethanol, thereby assuring a demand.
If we want to stop this madness we have to end the subsidies AND the mandated use of ethanol in motor fuel and let the free market decide the outcome. Using ethanol as motor fuel is like burning your clothing to heat your home.
As I have stated several times, the mandate is indeed to ethanol production, the net effect is to mandate a certain percentage of the crop ends up in gas tank. While the subsidies are to the ethanol producers the net effect is to artificially prop up the price of corn, thereby creating a net subsidy for farmers. Basic economics, if you eliminate the ethanol subsidy the price of corn will necessarily drop since you are no longer artificially propping it up.
There are other subsidies, well hidden, to ethanol production.
In last month’s issue of “Trains” they covered a “short line” in Iowa. It was doing next to no business because its tracks were in such poor shape.
ADM wants to build some ethanol distilleries along the lines so the short line gets a big grant from the Federal Railroad Administration to upgrade their tracks to get ADM’s ethanol to market.
That loan is a hidden subsidy. Granted, it is an infrastructure improvement but one that would not have been requested if there was no ethanol mandate.
The real reason for ethanol is the lower gas miliage, and destruction of fuel lines in cars 1998, or before.
The special interest groups that get paid from the auto industry, and oil industry may not know the above facts, but those who work on cars do.
Sneaky Globalists.
The sinful growing of grain for fuel instead of food has driven up the price of food and has caused famine in countries around the world. It is immoral and highly unethical and must stop now.
Linda, please. We’re going on just one century of getting our fuel from beneath the ground. For the other ~4,900 years of humans using horsepower, fuel came from the same fields food came from. That we didn’t need fuel from cropland for a hundred years or so is an outlier in the human experience. Were those 5 millenia “immoral and highly unethical?” Give me a break.
Present the appendage you wish broken. Your response is bogus! The immorality of turning corn into ethanol is not only the unnecessary conversion of food to fuel, but converting it at a loss. The conversion requires more energy from fossil fuel than the output ethanol contains. Much of the 3rd world farms as they have for thousands of years and can not produce enough food to feed the country’s population. What is to be faced is not people missing a meal now and the but large numbers dying, that’s hundreds of thousands, possibly millions. That is the definition of immoral! You might wish to check out the June 2009 National Geographic. It is, for agriculture, pull a rabbit out of the hat time.
Your arguments over whether the ethanol mandate is cost effective, and how much of the corn or fuel is wasted in the process is meaningless. The simple answer is repeal all mandates and subsidies. If ethanol is as cost effective as its proponents claim, it will continue to survive in the free market, if not it will not and should not.
Small subsidies and mandates may make sense to get a new technology started, but once it is, it should survive on its own in the marketplace. Of course the problem is once any subsidy/mandate gets started, the people that benefit from it refuse to let it die, even after it has clearly outlived its usefullness. For that reason, it is probably better to oppose ALL mandates and subsidies, even if they are small, and appear to be beneficial. We should definitely end all ethanol mandates and subsidies.
Same with “green jobs”. Gov subsidies do NOT create jobs, since any money used to create them must be sucked out of the private economy, either as taxes, debt, or extra costs for mandates. They merely transfer jobs and capital from one place to another, usually with a big loss in gov burocracy, lobbying, and graft. Same with jobs supposedly created by the stimulus package, or the jobs supposedly created by the health care bill. Jobs “created” that way only benefit one sector, gov burocrats, politicians, and lobbyists. No wonder one of the few cities in the country still adding jobs now is Washington, DC.
An acre of industrial hemp will produce four times the ethanol as an acre of corn. Problem solved.
Of course the solution is to simple for mealy mouthed blowhard politicians to comprehend, please vote intelliget people with character into office, it’s an old concept, just hasn’t been tried very often since 1776.
Back in the 1980s, friend Earle Gavett and associates at USDA did an evaluation of ethanol and its economics and published the results: The stuff cost more to produce than it was worth. At least it got published by USDA, but then got buried by the politicians. Soon thereafter if memory serves, corn and ethanol interests got Congress to put a prohibitive import levy on South Americans’ ethanol produced from sugar cane. And now it looks like gas stations will have to pump gas with, not just 10% but 15% ethanol. Can anyone explain why? I’d hazard the guess, and again it’s politics. Meanwhile, thanks to Congress etc., we are on the brink financially of bankruptcy. U.S. ethanol policy is one reason. Also, an early argument for ethanol was that we were running out of oil.
That has turned out to be baloney, as recent finds in the Gulf and development of cracking technology have made clear.
First, I am both a engineer with 7 patents and a farmer in western Kansas.
I don’t put too much faith in stories about fuel mileage in modern cars. Too many variables with no control group to discern data errors. But for the record, regular gas and E10 gas has nearly the same amount of energy. 114,000 BTU for the regular gas, while E10 has 112,000 BTU of energy content. All things being equal, you might see one to two percent change in mileage. If the grades of the gasoline were the same, the E10 would have a higher octane, which would allow the car engine to advance it’s timing slightly for better performance. But since the ethanol does this, the oil companies can use a lower grade of gas to make 87 octane E10. It also allows them to get about 3% more gasoline from a barrel of oil.
When you process grain into ethanol, you are removing the carbohydrates, and are left with about 18 pounds of proteins used for animal feed around the world. This is much less expensive than shipping whole corn, and the missing carbs can be easily made up from local grasses. Currently DDG sells for about $2.20 for that 18 lbs of protein which is much less than what whole corn sells for.
The amount of corn in corn flakes is rather insignificant. Packaging, marketing, sugar, transportation and mark-ups at each level of distribution accounts for about 90-95% of the cost.
China is the real reason that ag commodities have shot up in price. All that cheap crap they export to us has given them the money to eat more meat.
Finally on the issue of energy to produce ethanol, currently the BTU return is about 38% higher than what it takes to produce it. But much of that energy is in the form of natural gas, in running irrigation wells, heating the distillery, and to produce NH3 for fertilizer. But if you just look at liquid fuels used to produce ethanol, the return is over 6 BTU of energy from ethanol for 1 BTU from oil
You might be an engineer with patents (those patents wouldn’t haven anything to do with ethanol production and sales, would they
), but I’m afraid Edmunds experienced the same thing I do when I’m fueling with ethanol – far worse gas mileage. And I’ve heard this complaint from many a person.
Can’t believe all of us are wrong…
http://www.edmunds.com/fuel-economy/e85-vs-gasoline-comparison-test.html
Actually my patents have to do with semiconductor capital equipment.
You should note that I was talking about E10 fuel, not E85. Flex fuel vehicles are the dumbest idea ever put forward. Any engine that runs on 87 octane regular fuel has far too low of a compression ratio to efficiently use E85 fuel. If an engine was set up to run on E85, it would perform better than regular gasoline if you compare BTU input to miles output. Look at diesel powered automobiles, the fuel contains around 130,000 BTU, yet the mileage is often 30% better than a gas powered version of the same car. While the energy content of diesel is only 14% higher than gasoline. All due to higher compression in the engine.
Actually Bob is 100% right in every single one of the technical points that he makes.
The only point on which he is in error is attributing the rise in ag commodities prices to China. Actually, ag commodity prices are being driven by oil prices. This can be seen by noting that corn shot up to $7 per bushel in 2008, simultaneously with the run up of the price of oil to $140/bbl, it then crashed to $3 per bushel in 2009, when oil dropped to $40/bbl, and has since gone up again tracking the price of oil. Wheat and other grains have followed the same pattern. This despite the fact that neither Chinese grain consumption not ethanol production fell in 2009.
Anyone can check this. Just put grain prices, oil prices, ethanol production, and Chinese imports on the same graph covering the past 5 or ten years. You will see that grain prices track oil prices, but do not track ethanol production or Chinese imports.
Fish prices also track oil prices. It is left as an exercise to the student to figure out why. (Hint: Cod don’t eat corn.)
That said, its not merely the oil-driven price of food that’s hitting the world economy hardest, but the price of fuel itself, which factors into the cost of everything.
There may be famine in many places globally this year. But this is because of the massive regressive tax on the world economy imposed by high oil prices. At $100/bbl, the world will pay $3200 billion this year for its oil, $2400 billion more than it did in 2003. In contrast, the entire American corn crop (estimated 14 billion bushels)will only cost the world $100 billion at $7/bushel, or $50 billion more than it would if prices stayed at 2003 levels.
There’s plenty of food in the world. People starve when they don’t have the money to buy any. If your energy bill is increased $2400 and your food bill is increased $50, you may starve, but its not because your food bill went up $50. It’s because your energy bill bankrupted you.
If you want to feed the poor, the best thing you could do would be to break OPEC.
Did you by any chance read the article in the June 2009 National Geographic regarding world food production?
What is the matter with all my pals. Sure we could convert, especially trucks, to natural gas, sure we could drill in all the places we have recently found, absolutely we can bring almost all production to our own shores. Hate to break it to everybody, those plans are not stupid enough. If we spend a fortune converting corn we can drive UP fuel and food prices at the same time without the time lag, think of it as solar panels for the brain dead. Solar is nearly as good for stupid as wind, except solar might make sense in occasional rural applications, you people have to stop thinking and start feeling. The best parts about solar and wind is you can say they pay back in a dozen or so decades and the conservatives will never notice they only work for a year or two. The only worthwhile recycling is to convert liberals to /fertilizer/pond scum/pig feed???
Yep, let’s reward inefficiency, ineptness and incompetence! Let’s reward losers, second raters and marginal products!
Yep, that is the way to Socialism, Communism and Obamaism.
Yep, let’s reward stupidity!
Thank you for doing research on the ethanol relationship with availability of corn. The primary factor affecting agricultural production is “WATER.” Corn is a water-intensive crop, and the U.S. is running out of water. Water needs to be the government priority,not all of the other research and failed social programs. We are poised to be a nation of people who die of thirst and hunger because of our incorrect focus. Ethanol is not our problem; it is lack of water for producing the amount of corn and other food crops we require for survival. Underground water is running out all over our nation, and all anyone can talk about is correcting the problem by stopping subsidies for ethanol production. What will the public try to stop next – bathing? We need government funds diverted to massive water projects. Unlike other social projects, WATER affects everyone. We can ultimately penalize ourselves by stopping just about every use of water, but the answer is making more FRESH WATER available, not conservation efforts. We are rapidly going to out-distance all conservation efforts.
I think that very little corn is grown in the US on irrigated land. Rainfall waters our corn crop.
Certainly pumped water is used in processing but that’s only a drop in the bucket, pardon the metaphor.
Imagine what we could do if we could harness the methane produced by Congress? If lies, waste, fraud and abuse could be converted to energy! What a patent that would be!
Burning food in your fuel tanks when you have abundant sources of fuel is asinine! This idiotic mandate is causing food shortages around the world and leading to the destruction of more precious habitat as people try eiither to feed themselves and their families or cash in on the high prices. Add to that the environmental unfriendliness of ethanol, and you have a greater ecological disaster than what they are trying to mitigate! Positively moronic! I’m sorry farmers, this is insane and has to stop!
My car’s check engine light came on and stays on always. (It is a very old car) When I took it to a mechanic, I was told the reason the light stays on is the engine doesn’t run as well on the corn oil mix.
The Brazilians make ethanol WAY cheaper from sugar waste but we tax it’s import making it more expensive. Besides, it doesn’t support the unions employed in making ethanol here or Petrobras in Brazil where obama’s buuddy soros owns $900,000,000 of stock.
hey farmer bob this is farmer chuck i raise pigs and cattle and because 4 out of every 10 bushels of corn go for ethonal i will be broke soon. i am paying over 8 dollars a bushel now fo corn. ethonal recieves 1.38 dollars per gallon produced subsidy with a .10 cent tax credit and a .45 cent tariff on ethonal made from another source from another country such as sugar cane from brazil or switch grass from argentina.
The distilled grains cannot be used more than 15% in my feed rations because the pellet quality gets really bad. that part of your rebutal is balony. the facts are there is a significant new source called ethonal that is using our main source for food………corn. ethonal can be produced by many other things.
this farmer bob is creating a food shortage and is driving and will continue to drive food prices through the roof because there will be less and less people like me producing meat.
ethonal creates more of a carbon footprint, does not do well in marine applications because it acts like a magnet to moisture, causes our vehicles to get less miles per gallon, is a heavy pollutor of both greenhouse gases and toxins. epa had to give liberal and specially designed permits for the plants to even operate.
as these subsides continue you will see all meats breads and dairy products increase in price at the worse time in history for such a thing.
this insanity must stop. it may be to late for some of us to recover, but it is not to late for america to respond to this nonsense by making it clear to our congress that we cannot continue to allow this to go on.
thanks,
farmer chuck
livestock producer
north carolina
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