Posted on 06/27/2007 10:30:01 AM PDT by Sleeping Freeper
But the price fluctuations have been fairly consistent from year to year.
Something that I've been wondering about...
FACT (supposedly)
1) Global Warming is caused by burning hydrocarbons, leading to increased "greenhouse gasses" like carbon dioxide.
2) Moving to ethanol as a fuel is better for the environment.
How do these square? The reason I ask is that ethanol or e85 have less energy than gasoline, meaning that greater volumes of the fuel needs to be used for the same amount of travel. Greater volume of fuel burned means greater volume of resultant gasses, which of course, are those evil "greenhouse gasses."
Mark
“This is, by the way, exactly how farmers are paid for their corn.”
Except in the case of ethanol, they have a captive audience.
Beats sending out money to Akmed. we need to drill, grow and invent our way to energy indepenence.
It's happening, with the resultant LESS acreage planted in less profitable crops, like wheat and soybeans... Once there are fewer acres of those crops harvested, there will be shortages, and guess what? Prices for those ctops will begin to rise as well! Yippie! Everybody wins!
Mark
Really? Who do you think forces me to buy corn from the local grain elevator?
to “your” item.
As for “ad hominmem”, try talking to the guy acting like I’m a rube because I had the audacity to post a story from a news report done by one of the most respected journalists on this or any other conservative forum.
“Really? Who do you think forces me to buy corn from the local grain elevator?”
Huh?
I’m talking about ethanol mandates. Not sure what you’re talking about.
It was.
If it wasn’t, refute it.
You haven’t.
In fact, I haven’t seen you do anything except claim superiority of knowledge and action without providing proof of either.
Golly, we were talking about farmers having a captive market. Follow through on your thoughts.
CORN SUBSIDIES
‘’Corn Subsidies in United States totaled $51.3 billion from 1995-2005’’ (latest figures I can find)
From:
http://farm.ewg.org/farm/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=corn
In 1995 corn subsides were $2.7 billion but jumped to
$9.5 billion in 2005.
One company alone, Production Flexibility, received $16,292,976,346 for the 10 year period.
So $51.3 billion was extorted from taxpayers to give to corporate corn farmers.
Its time to end all agricultural subsidies and let the market set the prices.
Here’s one from the american spectator. Posted here. Rush refers to the website often. That “legitimate” enough for you?
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=11581
Feel like you’re getting squeezed by prices at the gas pump? Get ready to experience that same feeling at the grocery store. As ABC News reported recently, average food retail prices of across the United States have risen by 4 percent during the past year alone. Beleaguered American consumers must now pay record gas prices to get to the grocery store, where they again meet sticker shock. And who is to blame? Not grocery stores or food producers, but Congress.
Food prices today are rising steeply because Congress decided to link the price of food with the price of oil. As a result, now whenever the price of oil increases, food prices follow. Worse still, Congress is currently contemplating further tightening this link. Let us explain.
This mess started in 2005, when Congress passed that year’s Energy Policy Act, which mandated the incorporation of 7 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol into the American fuel supply in an effort to reduce gasoline consumption. Ethanol production, suddenly buttressed by a federally guaranteed demand for its product, overnight became an extraordinarily profitable venture.
Invariably, a market disruption of this magnitude is at once unpredictable and consequential. Congress likely did not then foresee that the artificial demand for ethanol created by this mandate would cause a sharp increase in the price of groceries. Such, however, is the nature of meddling in the market.
Before the 2005 Act, the American farmer sold corn that was for the most part eaten, either by people here and abroad or by livestock. But the new ethanol mandate suddenly gave American corn growers a vast new customer base — everyone who owns a car. Of course, a precipitous increase in demand will have an effect on price; accordingly, a bushel of corn that cost $2.00 two years ago, costs close to $4.00 today.
The effects of this price increase have been profound. As it turns out, corn is integral to a huge array of groceries. Corn syrup is widely used as a sweetener, because sugar is too expensive and there are health fears about artificial substitutes. And, of course, corn goes into lots of baked goods. Of particular significance, corn is the primary feed for livestock; there are no substitutes with a comparable nutritional value. Consequently, as the price of corn increases, it costs more to feed cows, pigs and chickens. These costs are then passed along to the consumer, who pays more for dairy, meat, eggs, and all the derivatives thereof.
Unfortunately, the collateral damage wrought by ethanol mandates does not end there. With corn hovering at record prices, farmers have found it more profitable to grow corn, thus leaving less land available for the production of other grains, reducing their supply. The prices of grains and grain byproducts, like bread or pasta, increase accordingly.
The upward trend in grocery prices is unlikely to end. With the Chinese and Indian economies growing, demand for crude oil remains robust. American refinery capacity is strained. Supplies, moreover, are always subject to disruptions due to turmoil in political hotspots like the Middle East, Venezuela, and Nigeria. Indeed, we are already gearing to pay $4.00 a gallon.
High gas prices set in motion a process that ultimately results in increased grocery bills. Because Congress decided that the price of ethanol should be pegged to the price of gasoline, the more expensive gasoline becomes, the more profitable ethanol production becomes. In turn, the more profitable ethanol production becomes, the more ethanol producers are willing to pay for a bushel of corn. And the more they are willing to pay for a bushel of corn, the more the American consumer pays for groceries.
So what does Congress plan to do? Not help consumers. Disconcertingly, Congress is now mulling an enormous expansion of the ethanol mandate, potentially to 35 billion gallons — a five-fold increase of the current mandate. This situation may be about to get worse.
Ethanol mandates were a miserable, poorly thought out exercise in 2005, and they remain so today. They hold the American consumer’s grocery budget hostage to the Byzantine and murderous politics of the Middle East. Far from promoting energy independence, Congress has put the House of Saud in control of your grocery bill.
“Golly, we were talking about farmers having a captive market. Follow through on your thoughts.”
Ethanol is mandated for use by the government.
Ethanol is made from corn.
Corn is grown by farmers.
A product farmers make is mandated for use by the government.
Captive market. Why do you think farmers lobby for ethanol mandates?
Here’s more - get refutin’!
http://www.free-eco.org/articleDisplay.php?id=21
The Ethanol Boondoggle
by Pete Geddes
The Ethanol Producers and Consumers met this week in Whitefish. If you had
attended you would have seen the political equivalent to the law of gravity at work. Here it is: Well-off, well-organized groups use government to transfer
wealth and opportunities from the poorly organized and less well off to
themselves.
Both Republicans and Democrats use government as an engine of plunder to
reward constituents and perpetuate incumbency. Indeed, UCLA economist Walter Williams considers most federal government activities legalized theft.
If you think this is too harsh consider this test, proposed by French
economist Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850). In his book The Law, Bastiat wrote:
“See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it
to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.”
The ethanol lobby perfectly illustrates Bastiat’s principle. The Senate recently passed an energy bill that mandates nationwide ethanol use as an “oxygenated” fuel additive. The Clean Air Act requires additives to gasoline to reduce air pollution problems. MTBE, the current additive, is being phased out because it pollutes drinking water.
Ethanol is the only legal alternative. The ethanol lobby manipulated the political process to their favor. The result will hurt the environment and American taxpayers. Here’s how:
Most ethanol is made from Midwest corn. Hence, it’s not surprising the region’s congressmen and their agribusiness constituents support this mandate. Ethanol producers, led by Archer Daniels Midland, would have us believe ethanol will increase U.S. energy independence, clean up the environment, and provide new markets for farmers. These are lies.
Both the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Academy of Sciences reported that adding ethanol to gasoline at best will have no effect on air quality and could even make it worse.
Pollutants in automobile emissions have been dropping for decades and are
now only 5 percent of their 1960s levels. Most of the improvement is due to
technological innovations, i.e., better emissions equipment and cleaner-burning engines. Further, fuel-injection systems (standard equipment since the early 1980s) eliminate the need for oxygenated fuels.
Adding oxygenators to gas to reduce carbon monoxide made sense 30 years ago.
However, for cars built since 1983, oxygenated fuels are obsolete and pointless.
A study last year by Cornell University scientist David Pimentel highlighted
another problem. Most replacements for gas—including ethanol—have to be
manufactured. It turns out this process is both energy-intensive and expensive. Pimentel’s analysis showed that it takes about 70 percent more energy to produce ethanol than the resultant ethanol yields. The additional energy comes from, you guessed it, fossil fuels.
Pimentel found it costs $1.74 to produce a gallon of ethanol, twice that for
gasoline. He notes that’s why “fossil fuels—not ethanol—are used to produce ethanol.... Growers and processors can’t afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol.”
Unfortunately, taxpayers will make up the difference in the form of subsidies and higher fuel prices of 4 to 10 cents per gallon. Further, since ethanol can’t be sent through pipelines, transportation costs will make it even costlier on the East and West coasts.
There are huge payoffs for finding the “miracle fuel” (i.e., one that is both clean and cheap). As yet, no one, nowhere has found it. We should be highly skeptical of the ability of government-funded research to pick winners in the quest for cleaner energy.
Indeed, the track record of federal R&D spending is so bad that the liberal
Brookings Institution published a study titled “The Technology Pork Barrel.”
Federal “investments” in synthetically produced petroleum, nuclear power, and alternative fuels all suffer from the same pathologies.
A former President of MSU had a red and white bumper sticker prominently
displayed on the wall behind his desk. Its message was simple—”Help Montana
Agriculture: Eat an Economist.”
This is because 30 years ago an MSU economist demonstrated it would take
well over $1.00 in subsidies to increase the price of a bushel of Montana wheat by less than a dime. The Ethanol Producers and Consumers of course, have not invited a competent, independent economist to their program.
is Executive Vice President of FREE.
But do they produce corn that is turned into ethanol?
I’ve got more. Too bad for you I don’t just “watch tv”. I research issues and I keep track of the info. Come on, mr expert, prove it all wrong.
http://www.energybulletin.net/5062.html
Study: Ethanol Production Consumes Six Units Of Energy To Produce Just One
By SD staffer
In 2004, approximately 3.57 billion gallons of ethanol were used as a gas additive in the United States, according to the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA). During the February State of the Union address, President George Bush urged Congress to pass an energy bill that would pump up the amount to 5 billion gallons by 2012. UC Berkeley geoengineering professor Tad W. Patzek thinks that’s a very bad idea.
For two years, Patzek has analyzed the environmental ramifications of ethanol, a renewable fuel that many believe could significantly reduce our dependence on petroleum-based fossil fuels. According to Patzek though, ethanol may do more harm than good.
“In terms of renewable fuels, ethanol is the worst solution,” Patzek says. “It has the highest energy cost with the least benefit.”
Ethanol is produced by fermenting renewable crops like corn or sugarcane. It may sound green, Patzek says, but that’s because many scientists are not looking at the whole picture. According to his research, more fossil energy is used to produce ethanol than the energy contained within it.
Patzek’s ethanol critique began during a freshman seminar he taught in which he and his students calculated the energy balance of the biofuel. Taking into account the energy required to grow the corn and convert it into ethanol, they determined that burning the biofuel as a gasoline additive actually results in a net energy loss of 65 percent. Later, Patzek says he realized the loss is much more than that even.
“Limiting yourself to the energy balance, and within that balance, just the fossil fuel used, is just scraping the surface of the problem,” he says. “Corn is not ‘free energy.’”
Recently, Patzek published a fifty-page study on the subject in the journal Critical Reviews in Plant Science. This time, he factored in the myriad energy inputs required by industrial agriculture, from the amount of fuel used to produce fertilizers and corn seeds to the transportation and wastewater disposal costs. All told, he believes that the cumulative energy consumed in corn farming and ethanol production is six times greater than what the end product provides your car engine in terms of power.
Patzek is also concerned about the sustainability of industrial farming in developing nations where surgarcane and trees are grown as feedstock for ethanol and other biofuels. Using United Nations data, he examined the production cycles of plantations hundreds of billions of tons of raw material.
“One farm for the local village probably makes sense,” he says. “But if you have a 100,000 acre plantation exporting biomass on contract to Europe , that’s a completely different story. From one square meter of land, you can get roughly one watt of energy. The price you pay is that in Brazil alone you annually damage a jungle the size of Greece .”
If ethanol is as much of an environmental Trojan horse as Patzek’s data suggests, what is the solution? The researcher sees several possibilities, all of which can be explored in tandem. First, he says, is to divert funds earmarked for ethanol to improve the efficiency of fuel cells and hybrid electric cars.
“Can engineers double the mileage of these cars?” he asks. “If so, we can cut down the petroleum consumption in the US by one-third.”
For generating electricity on the grid, Patzek’s “favorite renewable energy” to replace coal is solar. Unfortunately, he says that solar cell technology is still too immature for use in large power stations. Until it’s ready for prime time, he has a suggestion that could raise even more controversy than his criticisms of ethanol additives.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that if we’re smart about it, nuclear power plants may be the lesser of the evils when we compare them with coal-fired plants and their impact on global warming,” he says. “We’re going to pay now or later. The question is what’s the smallest price we’ll have to pay?”
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