Corn prices threaten ethanol

Have the enthusiasts for bio-fuels (based on corn, soy beans, sugar cne,etc.) considered what these crops do to the soil ? It takes God and nature 1,000 yrs. to make an inch of top soil. If land is depleted by the growing of these crops, what will we do for food ? Hydroponics ? Drought, water shortage. Soylent Green ? (gag) The amt. of base product that it takes to produce a gal. of fuel is counter-productive. Does crossing the Beltline make everybody stupid ?

This is what consensus science buys you. President Bush may have signed the biofuels bill for energy independence but it was founded in global warming intitiatives. Global warming predictions are based on consensus science, a non linear hot spot and hockey stick build your facts to support your objective analysis. Both the President and the Congress are responsible for not asking the right scientific and economic questions with regard to the impact of this legislation before signing it. It is just one more band aid piece of legislation to get through the election year. Bush accepted consensus science in place of real science in his decision. He should have been aware of Al Gore's term "unequivocal". It is a logical consensus term of conviction and not scientific proof. With consensus comes convenience and that is probably what drove the decision. Now we have to deal with it on global basis. Hopefully the next President and Congress will read up on complexity to learn how to ask the right questions with regard to how to deal with it and have some idea of the impact.

What most people (like TeacherIndep) seem to fail to realize is that using a crop to make biofuel does not preclude its use in other things. When we crush a load of soybeans and extract the oil for fuel, we still use the meal (protein) for food, animal feed, etc. You can trust the american farmer understands the economics of the situation a lot better than congress does. You can also expect that they know how to rotate crops and take care of their fields too.

In Mexico tortilla prices have sky rocketed. Because it is made from cornmeal. Which requires more Mexican's to come to the United States.

Why the hell are they using corn for ethanol? It has one of the lowest yield in producing the fuel. They should do what Brazil is doing which is using sugar cane to produce ethanol which has 4 times the yield. Only in the US where this type of stupidity prevails.

tomc100 - Not much of the US is conducive to growing cane. There is just not enough La. and East Texas soil for growing cane to make a difference. The real question is why do ethanol at all. It has a lower btu than gasoline so we get less mpg with it. And no, Congress cannot pass a law mandating that the btu content of ethanol be raised to match that of gasoline - no matter what some members may think. Oil is still the economic king when it comes to energy. There is nothing cheaper per btu that can be produced.

RDH- Didn't know that. I thought sugar cane was pretty easy to grow like bamboo. But anyways, the US needs to start building hundreds of nuclear power plants all along the Nevada desert and other places that environmentalist wouldn't object to which would not only produce electricity but also hydrogen. We need to start drilling for oil all along the coastline and Alaska as well, and explore wind, solar, and ocean currents, etc as alternative fuels. In essence, we have to do it ALL NOW. And we CAN do it ALL NOW. We can not depend on one source as our main energy source, especially oil. This isn't just about lower gas prices. This is a major national security issue. Imagine what will happen when Israel attacks Iran and they block the shipment of oil. The US economy will completely collapse. You think it's bad now you haven't seen nothing yet if and WHEN that happens. Also, in order to lower gas prices, there has to be competition within the marketplace such as cars running off of hydrogen, biodiesel, ethanol, E85, flex fuel cars, methane, etc. Only then will oil and gas prices drop to rock bottom prices.

Anthony Jaffee writes: "Both the Brazilian and U.S. ethanol industries are heavily subsidized by their governments ... ." He is only half right. The U.S. federal and state governments provide enormous subsidies to ethanol, totalling (once all the federal and state programs are counted) around $1.00 per gallon. For more information, see the study by the Global Subsidies Initiative, "Biofuels - At What Cost? Government Support for Ethanol and Biodiesel in the United States - 2007 Update" http://www.globalsubsidies.org/en/research/biofuel-subsidies-united-states-2007-update Brazil did once heavily subsidize its ethanol industry, but those subsidies were phased out in the 1990s. Now the main government measure (besides the blending mandates) is an exemption from some of the state taxes normally charged on transport fuels. Since Brazil's ethanol production costs are considerably below the price of oil in any case, those excise-tax reductions and exemptions act more as a consumer than a producer subsidy, and do not subsidize exports.

Biofuels are not the solution. You can't use food to generate energy. Eventually the yield and population will reach a inflection point where you make decision on the price of starvation or the economy. We need to find an energy source that can sustain the current demands and still has the same potential energy and utility of carbon fuels.

Why is it so difficult for our government to resign to the fact that we need to DRILL for real energy. RDH has it right about the energy levels in ethanol, it lowers fuel economy. Our leaders have no backbone and are just a bunch of politically correct, please everyone, WHIMPS!

Add in everyone involved in any type of energy production being some of the most greedy individuals in history and you got yourself a fine explanation.