Ethanol: Iowa Corn Food or Fuel

my2 bits.

I know that it is not politically correct in Iowa to question the "correctness", "logic", etc. of the Ethanol Bio-Diesel, Switchgrass Plans, but, when we are all done and have installed the plants and have diverted the grain product to the "higher priced" commodity -- isn't the only one benefiting the super-organized, infinitely small, farm groups? What about the higher prices and possible scarcity of food products caused by this switch? Is unintended consequences a term anyone understands? Ethanol and Bio-Diesel plants looks like a bad short term investment strategy to me and devastation for long term: Caveat Emptor! -- but who asked for my opinion anyway!

From my personal contacts with farmers back in Kansas, as well as in my area of Iowa, I know that the prices are sagging below the costs (inflation - purchase price reduction as well as the higher costs in fuel). After all, that is the territory which comes with farming. Iowa farmers appear desperate to suck us (taxpayers) into continuous subsidies -- then they turn around and gripe that they can't do what they want to do -- yea sure. When you play economic footsie with the government you always loose. Remember the 80's, 70's, 60s?

Use our coal resources. With all the coal in Iowa, where are all the new electrical plants? With all the coal in Iowa where are all the gasification plants - liquid petroleum plants? We in Iowa have lots of alternatives if we can get beyond the mind set that requires political subsidies -- and it is environmentally clean too.

The problem is that we don't have "Cheap, low cost" fuel any more. Let me repeat that as most people do not seem to "get it". Cheap fuel is gone forever. Adjust your budget and lives NOW!

That fact is true and will not change in our life time. All energy costs will be higher, higher and very much higher, and at the same time, the world's supplies of oil are diminishing.

Get used to it.

Drink less pop. Walk to the store. Get your kid a bike -- forget the car. Live within your means and quit paying interest on debt. Well, at least quit drinking so much pop. I know that most of you will not take action until the CRISIS hits you in the head.

Sustainable answers are available. The answers can start by considering Iowa's coal resources. We have fuel resources (in Iowa alone) that will last all of the US well into the 2500s if we could open our eyes and look. Utilizing these resources would lift Iowa economics above anything we have seen -- and will last for at least 400 years.

We do not have to be beholden to the Middle East or anyone else for that matter (consider the growth of China and India for instance). Within a few years (how does 300 months grab you?) the Middle East oil resources will be gone or just not available to the US. All they will have left is sand and US paper dollars ha ha ha ha ha ha -- that'll teach them. China is sucking up the liquid as fast as the US and will soon surpass our thirst -- now there is a potential export market for our excess fuel.

We have to look the problem square in the eye and build a national fuel, electrical -- transportation system that the world has never seen ---NOW --. New, efficient, productive -- as the basis -- the foundation of our economy. As long as we have to beg the world for their fossil fuels we will be having all kinds of very, very expensive noxious problems that we do not want. Does Iran come to mind?

This is not a physical problem -- it is a vision problem. We can do it.
Ain't America wonderful!!!!


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article for your information:

Ethanol could leave the world hungry

One tankful of the latest craze in alternative energy could feed one person for a year, Lester Brown tells Fortune.

By Lester Brown

August 16 2006: 5:39 AM EDT

(Fortune Magazine) -- The growing myth that corn is a cure-all for our energy woes is leading us toward a potentially dangerous global fight for food. While crop-based ethanol -the latest craze in alternative energy - promises a guilt-free way to keep our gas tanks full, the reality is that overuse of our agricultural resources could have consequences even more drastic than, say, being deprived of our SUVs. It could leave much of the world hungry.

We are facing an epic competition between the 800 million motorists who want to protect their mobility and the two billion poorest people in the world who simply want to survive. In effect, supermarkets and service stations are now competing for the same resources.

More from FORTUNE What Animal Planet and 'American Idol' have in common. Boomers vs. Xers: The war at work How Big Oil is drowning Louisiana FORTUNE 500 Current Issue Subscribe to Fortune

More about bio-fuels Why Wal-Mart wants to sell ethanol E85 is available at only a tiny fraction of gas stations. But the giant retailer is poised to change that. (more) Manure mountains to fuel ethanol plant One company's drive to locate domestic sources of energy is taking a turn into the barnyard. (more) Soybeans that give you gas Argentina is a prime market for making and selling renewable biodiesel fuel thanks to cheap land and labor, as well as bumper crops of soybeans. (more)

This year cars, not people, will claim most of the increase in world grain consumption. The problem is simple: It takes a whole lot of agricultural produce to create a modest amount of automotive fuel.

The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol, for instance, could feed one person for a year. If today's entire U.S. grain harvest were converted into fuel for cars, it would still satisfy less than one-sixth of U.S. demand.

Worldwide increase in grain consumption

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that world grain consumption will increase by 20 million tons this year, roughly 1%. Of that, 14 million tons will be used to fuel cars in the U.S., leaving only six million tons to cover the world's growing food needs.

Already commodity prices are rising. Sugar prices have doubled over the past 18 months (driven in part by Brazil's use of sugar cane for fuel), and world corn and wheat prices are up one-fourth so far this year.

For the world's poorest people, many of whom spend half or more of their income on food, rising grain prices can quickly become life threatening.

Once stimulated solely by government subsidies, biofuel production is now being driven largely by the runaway price of oil. Many food commodities, including corn, wheat, rice, soybeans, and sugar cane, can be converted into fuel; thus the food and energy economies are beginning to merge.

The market is setting the price for farm commodities at their oil-equivalent value. As the price of oil climbs, so will the price of food.

In some U.S. Cornbelt states, ethanol distilleries are taking over the corn supply. In Iowa, 25 ethanol plants are operating, four are under construction, and another 26 are planned.

Iowa State University economist Bob Wisner observes that if all those plants are built, distilleries would use the entire Iowa corn harvest. In South Dakota, ethanol distilleries are already claiming over half that state's crop.

The key to lessening demand for grain is to commercialize ethanol production from cellulosic materials such as switchgrass or poplar trees, a prospect that is at least five years away.

Malaysia, the leading exporter of palm oil, is emerging as the biofuel leader in Asia. But after approving 32 biodiesel refineries within the past 15 months, it recently suspended further licensing while it assesses the adequacy of its palm oil supplies. Fast-rising global demand for palm oil for both food and biodiesel purposes, coupled with rising domestic needs, has the government concerned that there will not be enough to go around.

Less costly alternatives

There are truly guilt-free alternatives to using food-based fuels. The equivalent of the 3% of U.S. automotive fuel supplies coming from ethanol could be achieved several times over - and at a fraction of the cost - by raising auto fuel-efficiency standards by 20%. (Unfortunately Detroit has resisted this, preferring to produce flex-fuel vehicles that will burn either gasoline or ethanol.)

Or what if we shifted to gas-electric hybrid plug-in cars over the next decade, powering short-distance driving, such as the daily commute or grocery shopping, with electricity?

By investing not in hundreds of wind farms, as we now are, but rather in thousands of them to feed cheap electricity into the grid, the U.S. could have cars running primarily on wind energy, and at the gasoline equivalent of less than $1 a gallon.

Clearly, solutions exist. The world desperately needs a strategy to deal with the emerging food-fuel battle. As the world's leading grain producer and exporter, as well as its largest producer of ethanol, the U.S. is in the driver's seat.

Lester R. Brown is president of the Earth Policy Institute and author of "Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble."

From the August 21, 2006 issue

The big Dig

Well,as i was saying, there is a lot going on this week in our town -- though we dont think of our town as a town, its really a village, we have a gas&Grill, a barber shop two churches though not many go to church, a propane gas vendor and a lumber yard -- no school, if you got kids in school they are all bussed into town 8 miles away -- we do have a park and baseball diamond with lights for playing ball at night which we do use a lot during the the late summer when the slow pitch tournament is on and the kids get out there on their own during the summer and we have a big get-together in the late fall -- its like a community reunion which is fun to see how everybody but me is getting fat and old. But all this belies what happened this week: the DOT decided to tear up the main intersection in town -- its main cause its the only one and because its the state highway too. so as the DOT heavy equipment proceeds to pound the concrete intersection to smitherines with this contraption that raises a huge metal block that must have weighed tons then let it drop PLOP right on the concrete and everything around jumps up now keep in mind that the big grain trucks are backing up cause this is the highway they use to get to the river to ship the grain out and besides that there are a few other trucks that are sneeking across the state to avoid whatever truckers avoid on the main highways and pretty soon the trucks are tired of waiting and bored as they allow only one truck at a time around the BANG bangin so they toot and toot in boredom but that dont fase ol Ed, whose in charge cause he's mostly deaf since the fuel tank explosion back in 00 and he got about 3 months off and came back to work cause he knew all the computer passwords and was in charge of security and wouldnt tell anybody unless they kept him on which he got in writing cause he aint as dumb as he looks well I was right there when it happens: water starts to oooooze out from under the crumblling concrete and when the big hammer comes down everything jumps but also starts to get sprayed and two more whacks of that big ol hammer and the hammer dissapears below the street and the whole machine tips over throwing the operator out about 20 foot away right in front of a truck trying to get through the intersection and the trucker hits his breaks an swerves right into a all cracked up spot and tips over spilling grain everywhere and thats when the gussher starts, first about a foot high then it gains steem going higher and higher until its over the electric lines and transformer which begins to sputter pop and spark and smoke and thats when everybody clears out -- horns still tootin and everybody running in every-which way and waving their hands ---- except for ol Ed who is calmly lighting a cigarteet cause he wasn't paying much attention. Frosty grabbed ol Ed and kinda talked and led him over to the side just as the electric pole snapped and the wires came down on the grain truck and then there were lots of fireworks. Ed saw that and took of fastern any one had seen him go in years.

Well after the electricity was turned off and the water main from the rural water was turned off the DOT personnel left us scratchin our heads and wonderin what to do next. Someone called the state patrol on one of those new fangled portable tellies which fit in your pocket and then a helocopter came flying over then the electic company people showed up. Sure nugh we got a problem here i heard one say.

Next day every able bodied man who wanted to work had a job of some kind some even got paid for it. The mess is cleaned up. we got a new main interwection. ther's a new electric pole close to where the old one was and the water main was fixied and water turned back on. This re-tellin has bout wore me out so i best take a rest now. donmt forget to write. grampajim

Off to war

So, you're on your way to the army. Big decision....more fun than school and working a part-time job. You'll be shooting guns and blowing things up. It'll be exciting for sure. How long did you say you've signed up for?-- Four years.. Let's see, thats 48 months-not too long for an 18 year old to get his bearings in life. And they are gonna give you a pot full of money when you get out too huh, well you will deserve that pot and a whole lot more. If its anything like I remember, it will be gone in no time: easy come easy go the old timers said and I rekon its still true.

Young-uns today don't seem to have a feel for things of value. Young-uns never did as far as I can see. Take Epherim, over yonder on the next block. Lives in the green shanty next to where the old black-smith shop used be. He came out of the Army, lived with this gal, broke up, started up with this other gal who had two kids -- married her then first gal had a his kid. Then then left the second gal. All that in 18 months. Now he's in a world of hurt. He's mad, broke, working at a factory for $9 bucks an hour, drivin a junk car and he won't pay child support for 3 kids that he says aint his. Probably heading for a long stay in jail. That's gonna hurt even more. He says "it ain't right" and its not but if he had his values set down to start with he wouldn't be in this fix.

It's going to take a long time to get out of this one. "How can I fix it" he asked me. I think he was asking how he could get out of paying for the child support. I don't know the answer to that question. Maybe you folks reading this have some ideas. However, it seems to me that if he doesn't get his feet under him and start thinking with a little bit of horse-sence, if and when he does get out of this one he will be getting into another fix just as bad or worse.

Values is a tough thing to get your arms around. Some thinks its just plain personal discipline but I think there's more to it than that. Its there, we all know it when we see it in a person but we dont want to do what it takes to get it: that is, until we need it real bad. Then, when we get kinda used to the next bad situation, we forget all about making some fundamental changes and just go with the flow. Been there....too many times myself.

Anyway, I've digressed, the Army will give you a clear chance to learn dicipline maybe even build character. It may not be fun either but it will be right in front of your nose every day for a while, specially in boot-camp. And, believe me when I say you'll need personal dicipline like you've never known if you get into a shoot-out overseas someplace.

I wish you the best -- even God Bless if you'll let me.

Where do these values come from? How do the youn-uns get them? Seems like there getting a lot of hard knocks nowadays.

Think about it.