Posted on 10/07/2007 9:40:23 AM PDT by Graybeard58
We thought the day would never come when a Republican political leader and an animal-rights extremist would weigh in on the same subject, and we'd agree with the extremist. But that day arrived recently with comments by chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall and Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who hold contrasting positions on biofuels.
In a speech last week, Ms. Goodall complained the biofuels boom is destroying the world's rain forests. "We're cutting down forests now to grow sugar cane and palm oil for biofuels, and our forests are being hacked into by so many interests that it makes them more and more important to save now," she said during an environmental conference in New York on Sept. 27.
Ms. Goodall is correct. In Indonesia, Africa and South America, growers are leveling rain forests to produce palm oil, sugar cane and other crops that yield ethanol and biodiesel.
Substituting these fuels for petroleum products may have slight atmospheric benefits, but the influence of rain forests on climate is little understood, so destroying them at the rate of one New Jersey-sized area every year — as Brazil is doing — seems a good deal crazier than burning coal or oil in emissions-controlled power plants.
Gov. Rell, meanwhile, announced Tuesday a 10,000-gallon underground storage tank at the state-run Buckingham Street garage in Hartford will be converted from unleaded gasoline to E-85, a blend with 15 percent gasoline and 85 percent ethanol. "My energy vision for Connecticut includes making sure state government leads the way in reducing consumption and shifting to more efficient and less-polluting forms of energy," she said.
Maybe someone should tell her that if she wants efficiency, unleaded gasoline is the answer.
Consumer Reports magazine tested flex-fuel cars last year and found E-85 extracted a 27 percent fuel-economy penalty. The addition of ethanol at the Buckingham Street garage and, eventually, other state facilities, also will require additional delivery trucks, each belching diesel fumes.
Even if Gov. Rell isn't concerned about the effects of biofuels production on rain forests, there are deep and worsening problems with America's corn-based ethanol industry.
Experts are growing increasingly alarmed about food prices, pollution from pesticides and fertilizers used by corn growers, and the lowering of the water table in areas where farmers have to irrigate their crops.
Gov. Rell should listen to Ms. Goodall. Ethanol is the wrong way to go, from an environmental and fiscal point of view.
Hog wash. Unless he's a stupid farmer and doesn't grow his own feed. I've never seen a dairy farmer who doesn't however, and I'm surrounded by them.
In fact he's be making even more money if he had a lick of sense, because he'd be selling his excess at better prices, while his input costs remain the same as they were before the demand for corn increased. The only cost associated with his corn feed is the input costs associated with planting and growing it, and when growing feed crops, you aren't too concerned over getting the highest yields, and using a lot of incecticides. He's not buying human consumption grade corn at commodity prices, he's growing feed corn.
Plus corn isn't the only feed source. Many use barley instead, and mix it with chopped alphalfa to make their silage. Or other combinations.
That statement doesn't pass the sniff test for anyone who knows anything about farming.
Find a better economics teacher.
It only puts demand on that one commodity that's in demand. In the SHORT term, that drives the price up. since in the short term other crops are already seeded, there is no change in supply.
In the LONG term, it reduces the supply of other grains because more field is going into producing the expected money maker. At the same time, with more supply of the money maker, the price usually goes down. (which we can see that happening now)
A shorter supply of other grains is a good thing, because it brings the prices up when there isn't a glut of grain on the market, like there usually is. Farmers can actually make money, instead of living off high government subsidies, often paid NOT to grow anything.(this is idle land, which if put into production, doesn't take away from lands used for other grains)
Then there comes the problem of crop rotation, which HAS to happen. You just can't grow corn year after year because it depletes the soil of certain nutreints, increases infestations of insects, and increase a farmers costs of fertilizers.
At best you would see farmers adding corn INTO a rotation in fields where they never bothered to grow corn because the cost of growing it at low prices wasn't worth it, additional machinery purchases, fertilizer costs etc.
This keeps getting said, and it simply is NOT true. The ratio is 1.34MM BTU ethanol from corn for 1.0MM BTU of energy input. The ratio will be significantly higher if, as, and when the process to produce ethanol from switchgrass is perfected--on the order of 8MM BTU to 1 MM BTU.
The use of grain for ethanol production only makes sense if you include hops or age it in barrels for at least 12 yeards
>> Connecticut sips ethanol Kool-Aid <<
Spiked punch??? (ethanol = drinking alcohol)
But supporting ethanol makes enviromentalists feel so good about themselves. Hey, what does one want? Self-esteem or better gas mileage? Sounds like self-esteem is winning out.
Give me a break. If this is true, then Brazil should be a giant parking lot by 2020.
Well, I'm not sure how much of Brazil is rain forest, but the entire country has an area of 8.5 million km^2, and New Jersey only has 22K km^2, so you could fit over 380 New Jerseys into one Brazil.
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