Quit making Ethanol out of Corn... Idiots

[broken_legs]

More Production, Not Ethanol, To Resolve U.S. Energy Issue
National Center For Policy Analysis Tuesday, April 08, 2008


U.S. policy makers should make oil production a priority, according to a brief analysis released April 8 by the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). Advocates of Brazil's energy policies often cite Brazil's increased ethanol use as a reason for its recent independence from foreign energy. With average retail gasoline prices nearing the all-time inflation-adjusted high of $3.40 per gallon, analysts have been touting Brazil as an example the U.S. should follow on the road to energy independence.


"The facts about Brazil's energy policy are often misrepresented," said NCPA Graduate Student Fellow D. Sean Shurtleff, the paper's author. Although Brazil is nearing energy independence today after having imported more than 80 percent of its oil in the 1970s, advocates of Brazil's policies wrongly assume America's ethanol industry can displace the same percentage of oil as Brazil's. For example:

-- While Brazil consumes 20 billion gallons of fuel a year (ethanol, gasoline and diesel), of which 4 billion is ethanol, the United States uses 182 billion gallons a year -- more than 9 times as much.

-- Brazil has a major comparative advantage over the U.S. in producing ethanol from sugarcane which produces 8 times the energy of the fossil fuel used to produce it, while America's corn-derived ethanol provides only 1.3 times as much energy.

The Brazilian-U.S. comparison also ignores the most significant reason for Brazil's energy independence: after the 1980's ethanol shortages, Brazil began to recognize that ethanol production alone would not lead to energy independence and started promoting policies to boost domestic oil production.

-- Increased production and new oil discoveries played the most productive role in liberating Brazil from dependence on foreign energy sources.

-- In 2007, Brazil announced a huge oil discovery off its coast that could increase its 14.4 billion barrels of oil reserves by 5 billion to 8 billion barrels, a production increase of nearly 40 percent.

"There is one lesson that U.S. policymakers should learn from Brazil's path to energy independence -- make oil production a priority," Shurtleff added.

[asuth077]

There is also this: http://www.nationalpost.com/most_pop...html?id=439710

"The UN's Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food recently labeled biofuels a "crime against humanity," for burning crops that could be used to fight hunger, as fuel. "The farms have been put to biofuel production creating a shortage of food and therefore creating a problem of high prices," said Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, president of the African Union this week. As he spoke, violent demonstrations over rising food costs in Haiti had killed five people and wounded 40 more, mirroring similar riots in Mexico, Egypt and Cameroon. Other countries are banning grain exports to ration scarce supplies.

It hasn't helped that green groups now say the promise of lower carbon emissions has not materialized -- or at least the reductions (corn-based ethanol is said to produce between zero and 30% less CO2 than good old fashioned fossil fuels) don't justify the devastating ripple effects -- while the powerful push for more plant energy has led to a rapid rise in environmentally-stressful fertilizer usage, and worldwide deforestation."

[Eleanor]

No shit eh?

Are you telling me that's it's better to eat food then to burn it?

[Supa Dexta]

I don't buy it. I've read up on Brazil's ethanol system, and although it hurt a lot at first, it's going very well now. BUT this whole ethanol thing in the states is just another scam on the American people and their pockets. It's funding mega farm corporations (buddy's of the law makers) and they aren't allowing sugar ethanol to cut in on the corn producers, it's stacked against any chance ethanol may have. It could be done much more efficiently and successfully, but thats not the US' goals.

Switch grass, cane and rapeseed would be a better option, but now it's corn only.. hrmmm

Big Corn and Ethanol Hoax
By Walter E. Williams
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
One of the many mandates of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 calls for oil companies to increase the amount of ethanol mixed with gasoline. President Bush said, during his 2006 State of the Union address, "America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world." Let's look at some of the "wonders" of ethanol as a replacement for gasoline.
Ethanol contains water that distillation cannot remove. As such, it can cause major damage to automobile engines not specifically designed to burn ethanol. The water content of ethanol also risks pipeline corrosion and thus must be shipped by truck, rail car or barge. These shipping methods are far more expensive than pipelines.
Ethanol is 20 to 30 percent less efficient than gasoline, making it more expensive per highway mile. It takes 450 pounds of corn to produce the ethanol to fill one SUV tank. That's enough corn to feed one person for a year. Plus, it takes more than one gallon of fossil fuel -- oil and natural gas -- to produce one gallon of ethanol. After all, corn must be grown, fertilized, harvested and trucked to ethanol producers -- all of which are fuel-using activities. And, it takes 1,700 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol. On top of all this, if our total annual corn output were put to ethanol production, it would reduce gasoline consumption by 10 or 12 percent.
Ethanol is so costly that it wouldn't make it in a free market. That's why Congress has enacted major ethanol subsidies, about $1.05 to $1.38 a gallon, which is no less than a tax on consumers. In fact, there's a double tax -- one in the form of ethanol subsidies and another in the form of handouts to corn farmers to the tune of $9.5 billion in 2005 alone.
There's something else wrong with this picture. If Congress and President Bush say we need less reliance on oil and greater use of renewable fuels, then why would Congress impose a stiff tariff, 54 cents a gallon, on ethanol from Brazil? Brazilian ethanol, by the way, is produced from sugar cane and is far more energy efficient, cleaner and cheaper to produce.
Ethanol production has driven up the prices of corn-fed livestock, such as beef, chicken and dairy products, and products made from corn, such as cereals. As a result of higher demand for corn, other grain prices, such as soybean and wheat, have risen dramatically. The fact that the U.S. is the world's largest grain producer and exporter means that the ethanol-induced higher grain prices will have a worldwide impact on food prices.
It's easy to understand how the public, looking for cheaper gasoline, can be taken in by the call for increased ethanol usage. But politicians, corn farmers and ethanol producers know they are running a cruel hoax on the American consumer. They are in it for the money. The top leader in the ethanol hoax is Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), the country's largest producer of ethanol. Ethanol producers and the farm lobby have pressured farm state congressmen into believing that it would be political suicide if they didn't support subsidized ethanol production. That's the stick. Campaign contributions play the role of the carrot.
The ethanol hoax is a good example of a problem economists refer to as narrow, well-defined benefits versus widely dispersed costs. It pays the ethanol lobby to organize and collect money to grease the palms of politicians willing to do their bidding because there's a large benefit for them -- higher wages and profits. The millions of gasoline consumers, who fund the benefits through higher fuel and food prices, as well as taxes, are relatively uninformed and have little clout. After all, who do you think a politician will invite into his congressional or White House office to have a heart-to-heart -- you or an Archer Daniels Midlands executive?

[rc2002]

The EU (even Ontario) has imposed a mandatory percentage of fuel is going to be ethanol. This isn't going to hurt our pocketbooks that much in Canada, but the developing nations are riotting because of food shortages already.

Starting next week, Britain will require gasoline and diesel sold at the pumps be mixed with 2.5-per-cent biofuel, rising to 5.75 per cent by 2010 and 10 per cent by 2020, in line with European Union directives. Ontario's ethanol-content mandate is 5 per cent. As the content requirements rise, more and more land is devoted to growing crops for fuel, such as corn-based ethanol. In the EU alone, 15 per cent of the arable land is expected to be devoured by biofuel production by 2020.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...Story/robNews/

[Paulk_04]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americ...sis/index.html

Jacques-Édouard Alexis is ousted as Prime Minister of Haiti following riots over the price of food.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques...9douard_Alexis

Food Please.

Most of the USA's policies make me do this

[suen17]

to the OP's article.

Rather than use up cultivable land to make fuel, it should be reserved to feed the world rather than be used for fuel. With the current world population and its continual increase, we have more people to feed. Couple that with climate trends *ahem "Global warming" bullshit* and increasing desert areas and thus less arable land. It'll just make it worse if more and more of that only cultivable land remaining is being used for producing corn, etc. for ethanol. As if we're going to start planting crops in Greenland... Hmmmm.