Re: The scam of corn ethonal
1- Rising food prices. Don't care what the pundits say, its very real. Anyone who has done the research into Ethanol production would know that it actually COSTS more to make on a per energy basis. Congrats America, you are paying at least 7 billion dollars per year for this! Green energy idiots would prefer to look at the end product, whereas any astute observer would look at the
cost on a lifecycle basis. Corn ethanol fails, massively, here.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...s-ebb-heightening-food-inflation-concern.html
We have seen a 5% jump in food prices this year, at least. We produce at best 3% of the energy's oil needs ( thanks E10), but take up at least 1/3d of the crops which could go to food. Not sure thats a good tradeoff.
2- Pundits will state that ethanol production will reduce the demand for regular petroleum. Fact is, this isn't true. Period. Actually it makes sense that the E15 mandate would be a strong issue, because a FALLING demand for petrol actually hurts the Corn ethanol industry.
I am stating up front, I'm not a fan of subsidized ethanol. I'd prefer it be stopped.
That said, and I'm not playing devil's advocate here as much as railing against incoherent babble, but this is about the most rambling, incoherent use of statistics to rail against ethanol that I've seen. You're throwing numbers out there and not just comparing apples to oranges, but comparing apples to exotic widgets from Galaxy 572Xy of the alternate universe with evil goatees.
Food prices are up 5%.
We produce 3% of the world's energy (without E10 we'd produce more? less? or are you saying ethanol = 3% of petrol needs? seriously, what the fark are you talking about here).
A 1/3rd of our crops are going to...ethanol production? What crops? Corn? Just the grains? All crops?
What's the size of the world's energy market? What's the size of the world's food market? Is 3% of the world's energy market worth more than a 5% increase in food prices? How much of the increase in food prices is due to one-off events (bad wheat harvests in Russia/China, floods in Japan, etc.) versus ongoing ethanol policy? How much is due to a recovering eceonomy and the resulting increase in all energy costs?
3- The energy (BTU/gal) is 2/3 that of petrol. What does it mean in laymen speak? This means that you will get less energy per unit volume when utilized. This means if you wanted to displace 1 barrel of oil say, than you would need to actually use 1.5 barrels of Corn ethonal.
Which, again, is neither here nor there if the goal is reduce dependence on foreign oil and/or reduce the use of fossil fuels. You have an efficiency argument, but not one that goes against the need to find viable alternatives to oil within the next 50-100 years and get the infrastructure up and running to support it.
4- The subsidies ethanol receive on a per energy basis are much higher than that of natural gas or oil. Yet the later produce much more energy and don't infringe on land space, or food prices. I don't have this number handy but if anyone really cares I can dig it up later.
Those are policy arguments with more efficiency ones thrown in. So...great, I guess?
5- Corn ethanol’s makeup is such that when introduced to an older mechanical system, it will actually corrode the components. If E15 passes, prepare to have to replace your lawn mowers, boats etc sooner than before.
Because there clearly won't be a phase in period, and people have never had to change older equipment for newer ones in the past thanks to government regulations (I'm thinking specifically of the transition from analog to digital TV's, for instance).
The problem here is just how out of tune our acting congressmen/ people of power are.
Maybe they'd listen more if you could throw together a structured, coherent position rather than a rambling wreck of a rant.
