Ethanol Is Not A Alternative to Cheap-Oil

[Nbadan]

Higher food prices is no-way to combat oil dependency....

From The Times July 16, 2007
Ice-cream makers frozen out as corn price rises
Suzy Jagger and Carl Mortished

What’s the connection between ethanol, the biofuel produced from corn, and a cherry vanilla ice-cream? Answer: the first is responsible for pushing up the price of the other.

This month, the price of milk in the United States surged to a near-record in part because of the increasing costs of feeding a dairy herd. The corn feed used to feed cattle has almost doubled in price in a year as demand has grown for the grain to produce ethanol.

Christina Seid, whose family have been making ice-cream at the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory for 28 years, said yesterday that she expected to have to raise her prices, along with all compe ors in the short term. “We are holding out as long as we can, but prices will rise,” Ms Seid said.

<snip>

The squeeze on ice-cream makers, chocolate manufacturers and pizza companies – all of whom use dairy produce as a raw material – is set to tighten as the price of a gallon of milk in the US – up 55 per cent in the past 12 months in some American states – is now the same as a gallon of petrol, with dairy prices accelerating faster than the cost of fuel.

timesonline

Ethanol is a total scam, we simply cannot grow enough corn to produce enough ethanol to make a dent our continued growing demand for oil, but the politicians have to make it look like they are doing something....buying shale oil from canada would be cheaper...just don't buy oil from that dictator Chavez!

[boutons_]

dubya's 10s of $Bs in subsidies and tax breaks to the ethanol industry is supposed to be one of his fantastic accomplishments. dubya's defenders are looking sillier everyday when dubya's support of dead-end ethanol is an accomplishment.

Remember the article I posted where the oilco's said they weren't investing in gasoline refineries if ethanol was going to reduce gasoline demand. This keeps the supply of gasoline restricted (aka as keeping the price up) so that when ethananol is seen to be a bust, the gasoline refiners wil reap yet another windfall from high gasoline prices due to restricted refinining capacity coupled with high oil prices.

As ethanol boondoggle pushes up the price of corn and the 1000s of products dependent on corn, Americans will pay 100 of $Bs more, but don't anybody ever talk about taxing gasoline to discourage consumption.

Americans are stupid, dumbed-down suckers, just the way the Repugs and corps want them to be.

[xrayzebra]

^^^What! two of the biggest supporters of "alternate" fuels is
ing about ethanol. Guess you all want to go back to the
hay burners of yesteryear and methanol.

[sickdsm]

Higher food prices is no-way to combat oil dependency....

From The Times July 16, 2007
Ice-cream makers frozen out as corn price rises
Suzy Jagger and Carl Mortished



timesonline

Ethanol is a total scam, we simply cannot grow enough corn to produce enough ethanol to make a dent our continued growing demand for oil, but the politicians have to make it look like they are doing something....buying shale oil from canada would be cheaper...just don't buy oil from that dictator Chavez!

Estimated 93 million acres of corn was far beyond the most optimistic figures. That number is only going to rise.

150 BPA yeild looks like thats going to be shattered too.

Corns now only at $2.86 Where is all this expensive corn at? I'd like to sell some more.


Pick up a ing newsweek instead of highlights and you wouldn't be 6 months over due on current events.

[Wild Cobra]

buying shale oil from canada would be cheaper...just don't buy oil from that dictator Chavez!

I wonder what would happen if people started protesting Citgo stations?

Another thing. Now that fuel prices are so high, the $0.51 per gallon ethonal subsidy needs to be removed. This was placed some years back to keep ethonal blended gas competative. Not needed now that fuel prices have more than doubled since.

[Wild Cobra]

Pick up a ing newsweek instead of highlights and you wouldn't be 6 months over due on current events.

I haven't read a newsweek in years, but I recall a study finding it as a neutral paper rather than a left or right leaning paper.

[PixelPusher]

I wonder what would happen if people started protesting Citgo stations?

I'd say boycott Citgo gas, but then it's not as if there are better options out there, like the repressive regimes in Saudi Arabia and Iran...Vladimir Putin is a piece of work too.

It's best all around to simply consume less oil, period.

[Wild Cobra]

I'd say boycott Citgo gas, but then it's not as if there are better options out there, like the repressive regimes in Saudi Arabia and Iran...Vladimir Putin is a piece of work too.

It's best all around to simply consume less oil, period.

The thing is, we don't have Iranian or other mid-east gas stations here in the states. Citgo however, is in essense, owed by Chavez.

Oil on the market doesn't really matter that much. Buy for a source, boycott another, it's a world wide commodity. The only actual thing we can do with them is physical blocades so they cannot ship their oil.

[boutons_]

"buying shale oil from canada would be cheaper"

BS. US shale oil and Canadin oil sands are extremely difficult and expensive to extract and refine. In 2020, at very best, estimates are maybe 4M barrels/day from Canadian oil sands, when US demand will be at 83 M barrels/day.

[Nbadan]

Shale oil will never cost less than a barrel of sweet-crude to pump out of the ground and clean, or even Venezuela and Mexico's dirty crude for that matter, but there is enough shale-oil to last for centuries still in the ground. Besides subsidies to ethanol growers are costing taxpayers $30 for every $1 in ADM subsidy..

(1995) Cato org says$1 of ADM ethanol profit costs taxpayers $30
A Case Study In Corporate Welfare
September 26, 1995
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-241.html

Executive Summary

The Archer Daniels Midland Corporation (ADM) has been the most prominent recipient of corporate welfare in recent U.S. history. ADM and its chairman Dwayne Andreas have lavishly fertilized both political parties with millions of dollars in handouts and in return have reaped billion-dollar windfalls from taxpayers and consumers. Thanks to federal protection of the domestic sugar industry, ethanol subsidies, subsidized grain exports, and various other programs, ADM has cost the American economy billions of dollars since 1980 and has indirectly cost Americans tens of billions of dollars in higher prices and higher taxes over that same period. At least 43 percent of ADM's annual profits are from products heavily subsidized or protected by the American government. Moreover, every $1 of profits earned by ADM's corn sweetener operation costs consumers $10, and every $1 of profits earned by its ethanol operation costs taxpayers $30.

[sabar]

Of course ethanol is pointless. Corn takes 30% more fossil fuel energy to produce the ethanol than the actual energy that ethanol would create. All you would do is cause a food shortage and use even more fossil fuels. Not to mention that the U.S. doesn't even have enough farmland to produce enough energy to run off itself.

Ethanol is a bandwagon, a false band-aid fix to the oil problem.

We need to get over Chernobyl and make some nuke plants, plus get more research into converting oil shales and tars.

[Wild Cobra]

Of course ethanol is pointless. Corn takes 30% more fossil fuel energy to produce the ethanol than the actual energy that ethanol would create. All you would do is cause a food shortage and use even more fossil fuels. Not to mention that the U.S. doesn't even have enough farmland to produce enough energy to run off itself.

Ethanol is a bandwagon, a false band-aid fix to the oil problem.

We need to get over Chernobyl and make some nuke plants, plus get more research into converting oil shales and tars.

I think technology has taken the ethanol issue to better than 30%, but the energy equation and carbon footprint is pointless to anyone who is educated on the subject.

At least it's politically correct!

Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. Too bad that human error was the cause for Three Mile Island, and technology now makes that impossible without someone actively seeking to do it.

I agree. Nuclear is the way to go.

We should still use wind, solar, and geothermal. I say build nuclear, disassemble the dams. We still need dams for flood control, but make them fish friendly.

[xrayzebra]

Whatever happen to thermal energy. I remember years ago
some articles on the hot spots off the coast of Texas where
is was feasible to drill into these hot sports and produce
electricity. I know that they do use thermal energy in some
place here in the U.S. and of course Iceland uses lots of it.

[Wild Cobra]

Whatever happen to thermal energy.

That's a good question. We have 'hot spot' here in the Pacific Northwest also.

How about a biased guess...

It isn't something that stands out and makes a statement like wind power? Little PC propagandna value because the sites go pretty much unnoticed maybe?

[sickdsm]

Why does everyone seem to downplay ethanol bc it isn't a cure all? We don't have enough of ANY (save for coal maybe) energy source to power the us.


Anyone that still uses the negative energy debate is still in a 1980's frame of mind. I've seen those numbers breakdowns and us farmers pass them around laughing at what they say it costs us to combine/plant/raise corn so I can tell you for a fact that the growing process numbers are horribly wrong.


Plus they never go as in depth as to what it costs for gas.

[sickdsm]

I haven't read a newsweek in years, but I recall a study finding it as a neutral paper rather than a left or right leaning paper.

Your point being?

[Wild Cobra]

Your point being?

That Newsweek is a paper I would trust over most others for accurate news. At least as long as they haven't changed the way they cover stories.

[Wild Cobra]

Why does everyone seem to downplay ethanol bc it isn't a cure all? We don't have enough of ANY (save for coal maybe) energy source to power the us.


Anyone that still uses the negative energy debate is still in a 1980's frame of mind. I've seen those numbers breakdowns and us farmers pass them around laughing at what they say it costs us to combine/plant/raise corn so I can tell you for a fact that the growing process numbers are horribly wrong.


Plus they never go as in depth as to what it costs for gas.

I don't recall the newer numbers with more efficient processes, and yes, it is much better than old repeated numbers. It still takes a ridiculous amount of energy put into the process compared to what you get out. When you consider the energy put in for fertilizers, running the farm equipment, running the still, water recovery, etc. it makes more greenhouse gasses than fossil fuels, and uses a great deal of water.

Now that corn has an increased demand and oil process have increased, the subsidies at farm levels and the $0.51 per gallon ethanol subsidies need to be removed. It is still cheaper than gasoline, right?

[sickdsm]

I don't recall the newer numbers with more efficient processes, and yes, it is much better than old repeated numbers. It still takes a ridiculous amount of energy put into the process compared to what you get out. When you consider the energy put in for fertilizers, running the farm equipment, running the still, water recovery, etc. it makes more greenhouse gasses than fossil fuels, and uses a great deal of water.

Now that corn has an increased demand and oil process have increased, the subsidies at farm levels and the $0.51 per gallon ethanol subsidies need to be removed. It is still cheaper than gasoline, right?

Telll me about those subsidies at the farm level. Because for corn your going to have VERY little this year or any at higher prices. $10 an acre or so is nice but in now way needed. Factor all the FSA offices downsizing needed into the fossil fuel debate, because its not under the figures you or I have seen. See, I can explain alot more forgotten factors than a guy crunching numbers can. Rural towns are picking up jobs and people with the ethanol plant. Do you know how much money is spent on saving dieing towns? The fuel that business's and individuals use to get needed supplies and parts from larger communities? A few years ago the LDP payments for corn was about 50 cents. That's a lot of money. You won't have any of that with 2 dollar or above corn.

[boutons_]

"It still takes a ridiculous amount of energy put into the process compared to what you get out."

and it will never amt to a couple % of total US gasoline needs even if all arable land was planted with corn, making no effective dent in dependence on foreign oil.

ethanol from corn is total bull .

[sickdsm]

That Newsweek is a paper I would trust over most others for accurate news. At least as long as they haven't changed the way they cover stories.

Which is why i told him to read it once in a while instead of Highlights for children.



Fact is everyone said we couldn't produce enough corn to make a dent and thats why it ed to $4. When those pundits were proved wrong on the acres planted, that's why it dropped to a today's price of $2.63.


His info is so out of date its not even funny.


The re s making a point about the increase in food products need to take a look at where $2.63 fits historically.


Most normal years i'd START selling some about $2.10.

I said START.

[sickdsm]

"It still takes a ridiculous amount of energy put into the process compared to what you get out."

and it will never amt to a couple % of total US gasoline needs even if all arable land was planted with corn, making not effective dent in dependence on foreign oil.

ethanol from corn is total bull .

BS numbers.



1985 thinking.


First self contained ethanol/feedlot is under production now.

[Nbadan]

Boutons is right, the amount of ethanol we produce is minuscule compared to the amount of oil we use every year...the best way to use fuel more efficiently is to cut back on current energy use...annually, we use almost as much oil as the rest of the world combined...building toll roads and new super-highways is 1970's thinking....

[gtownspur]

Boutons is right, the amount of ethanol we produce is minuscule compared to the amount of oil we use every year...the best way to use fuel more efficiently is to cut back on current energy use...annually, we use almost as much oil as the rest of the world combined...building toll roads and new super-highways is 1970's thinking....

IF we were to cut on energy consumption, would you take a vow of dignity and not about the stock market declining because of the new energy policy? Or is that asking too much from an assclown?

[Wild Cobra]

So sickdsm, how many gallons per acre of ethanol do we get annually from corn? To replace gasoline with ethanol, it would take 5,443,750 square miles devoted to corn, assuming 50 gallons of fuel grade ethanol per acre. Simple math will give us different results with different yields per acre. Does this statement sound true:

We currently burn 134 billion gallons of gasoline per year, and corn ethanol will net us – net, net – 50 gallons worth of gasoline per acre per year. How many million acres of forest are we willing to sacrifice to get small amounts of another low-grade auto fuel, when Canada has more oil than Saudi Arabia in the Athabasca tar sands, that are now being produced by steam injection at less than $20 a barrel?

Source:

BOOK DISCUSSION ON “UNSTOPPABLE GLOBAL WARMING: EVERY 1500 YEARS,” BY S. FRED SINGER AND DENNIS T. AVERY page 20.

My earlier calculation in a thread led "How many acres for ethanol?":

Consider now the implications. Some legislators want to mandate a 10% ethanol or higher mix in fuels. That would require 418,750 square miles of farmland devoted to ethanol, and how much water to irrigate it? If this was one square piece of land, the sides of the square would be 647 miles long!

Now this 50 gallons net per acre sounds reasonable for me. I'm sure more can be produces, but that is if you use traditional energy sources for the distillation process. To use ethanol and burn it to heat the distillation process, the 50 gallons is reasonable. If you really look at the energy required to make ethanol, consider the CO2 impact, then the CO2 when ethanol is burned, it is a greater impact of CO2 emissions than gasoline!

Now correct me if I'm wrong. The 10% number is 418,750 square miles. To replace gasoline, it would take 4,187,500 square miles devoted to corn. That's a pretty big plot of land, a square with sides of 2,056 miles! Can we grow that much?

Can we irrigate that much? who has water rights priorities?