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.

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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