The”Ethanol”policy is nothing more than BIG PAYBACK to BIG FARM(Cargill,Archer,Daniels,Midlands)!!!
This argument is a non-starter and borders on nonsensical.
If Americans would quit using ethanol for fuel, quit eating meat (food animals actually consume most of the corn crop), and if farmers were forced to grow corn without regard to profit, it would be almost free to everyone in the Third World.
That’s the intellectual level of this argument. It’s certainly unworthy of Shedlock.
“The US is poised to divert around 40 per cent of its corn into ethanol because of the Congress-enacted mandate”
Anyone know who this mandate applies to?
Can someone expose this BS please.
Gasoline now has a shelf life of about a month before it starts breaking down.
Ethanol.
It destroys rubber hose lines and seals
Ethanol
Boats get water in their fuel systems
Ethanol
Small engines run hotter and are destroyed sooner
Ethanol.
Less gas mileage
Ethanol
Forced to buy stabilisers such as Stay-bil and their help is only partial.
The U.S. ethanol industry was built out on the basis of higher yields driven by seed technology and precision farming. We have not shorted traditional markets for food, feed, and export; we have instead increased production to feedstock a new market. (In fact, internationally we have been losing market share to Argentina and Brazil, the other two major exporters, for whom the U.S. drought represents an opportunity.) Two months ago we were anticipating an all-time record crop, and about 40% of it was expected to go for ethanol. That 40% would not have been planted in the first place but for ethanol.
Then came the drought, and the cries go up for the ethanol industry to fall on its sword. How about calling on importing countries to remove tariff barriers and accept free trade in agricultural products? How about calling on the EU and others to adopt biotech and boost their own yields? Why should U.S. agriculture be run on a concessionary basis as an international utility expected to subsidize others’ inefficiencies and biases?
Americans currently spend less than six percent of disposable income on food to be eaten at home. That’s an all-time low. Including food eaten away from home, we spend less than ten percent, also an all-time low. The drought will cause a bump next year, but since the farmgate price of commodities is less than twenty percent of the retail price, the final impact will be far less than people assume.