No way will we run out of farmland, There is 30 million
acres in CRP crap and twice that much unused,
That adds up to as many acres as whole corn crop.
And we aren’t raising food to exclusively make fuel,
there are other products worth more than ethanol.
It is a kind of by-product, just like milk has
butterfat removed for other dairy items, and the
meat on cattle isn’t the only thing used.
Biodiesel developement will help.So when
system is built up so biodiesel takes over 2%
of energy needs, equivalent to fuel farms,then
farmers raise soybeans, processors take out the
biodiesel to raise all crops, that still leaves
soybean meal and products for food, as well as the
other crops all raised, including corn.Sounds great
and dummies hollering about using oil to raise crops
won’t have a holler. Now will the percentage of
energy, biodiesel and ethanol has replaced help
drop price. Not really it’s only moderated prices,
as it still goes back to the fact, that present high
prices are caused by speculating money.Ed
If so, why does the government need to encourage ethanol production? If it is so profitable, why doesn't the ethanol market work without all the tax incentives, the subsidies, and the mandate? Why does the government require that oil refineries use ethanol to produce gasoline? Answer: No one in their right mind would burn ethanol if it weren't required. One sure-fire way to stop this crazy ethanol binge would be to require that farmers and ethanol producers use biofuels exclusively to grow ethanol and biofuel crops.
If we were stupid enough to try to become "energy independent" of imported oil we would surely run out of farmland. Even if we tried to replace 10% of our gasoline consumption with ethanol it would require about 40% of our existing cropland. Not to mention water. It takes about 1700 gallons of water to make a gallon of ethanol. I wonder what it costs in gasoline or diesel to pump 1700 gallons of water out of the ground.