The Ethanol conspiracy

Ethanol is driving up food cost creating food shortages
Ethanol is mostly derived from corn, the same corn that goes into animal feed. This is driving up the cost of livestock and retail prices of meat, poultry and dairy products. It is estimated that over half of the 2008 crop will go to ethanol plants. The price of one bushel of corn is $5.56 as of today compared to only just over $1 not to many years ago.

Ethanol and water shortages and water pollution
It is hard to say exactly how much water it takes to make 1 gallon of ethanol but I have read reports of it ranging from just 3 gallons to 15. My guess is that it is somewhere in the middle. With all of the water shortages around the country this is way to much water to be wasting. The growing demand for ethanol is also creating water pollution because of the heavy doses of nitrogen fertilizer used by farmers that can be washed away into lakes, rivers and underground aquifers.

Ethanol is creating more air pollution
Ethanol also release more greenhouse gases than they save because nitrogen fertilizer produces nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide as an atmospheric insulator. Some studies also estimates that corn ethanol produces between .9 and 1.5 times the global warming effect of conventional gasoline. With ethanol you get less MPGs than with gasoline meaning you have to use more to get the same result.



I am not a fan of ethanol. It is a temporary sollution to nothing. There is no way that ethanol could ever replace gasoline so I believe it is pointless other than driving up the cost of food, creating water shortages, polluting the air, and making some people rich. President Bush has been a long time advocate of this and I believe it is just another one of his ways to screw up America and make it harder for everyday americans to live.

I have often wondered why we continue to use gasoline engines when diesel engines would be far better. Many seed oils can be used unrefined, just strained and filtered after pressing. A barrel of crude oil would produce more diesel per barrel at a lower cost of refining than gasoline.

Jatropha and Hemp being the plants with the highest concentration of oil per seed grow virtually anywhere in the world and would allow for every country to primary produce for their own needs with less industrial nations able to export surplus for needed resources such as food and manufactured goods that can not be produced locally. And the best part is the crushed seeds can be burnt in place of coal to power steam turbine electric plants with a less harmful smoke. This would not only benefit industrial nations but bring affordable electricity to less developed countries.

Much of the old money in the world came from tea, coffee, sugar, tobacco, spices and silk and the commerce of import/export and transportation of such commodities. Is it so bad of an idea to return to such a mutually benefical system provided exploitation is kept in check unlike in the past?

Ethanol is made from corn and other sugar produce. It takes petroleum products,from the fuel to run the tractors, trucks and combines to the herbicides used on the corn, to make it. Corn and other produce prices have continued to skyrocket, causing more farmers to put more acreage into corn production to get a slice of the pie. There's less acreage used for editable crops. Food crops still have a demand that exceeds the supply, driving those prices up.
It is about time farmers got real money for their crops, but prices will continue to go up across the board for everything we buy in the grocery store. In the long run our food bill goes up 15% or more but we'll be able to pay a dime a gallon less at the pump for a product that gives us 20% worse fuel economy, and cost 110% of what it's worth in energy input vs. output. We keep digging the hole we're in and continue to drive ourselves downward.
No pipelines have been built to carry ethanol so it must be shipped by rail or truck from Midwest refineries to population centers along the coasts, this defeats the low cost myth.

No cost saving here:
3.34 for ethanol fuel
3.49 premium
3.79 for diesel
3.20 for E-85


[edit on 3-3-2008 by starskipper]

Well I think both of you have got some good points about this crappy ethanol. I wonder when people will wake up and realize it is going to get us now where except for higher food prices among other things.