Does it really make sense to throw our energy problems into our food?

[jsamuel]

I don't understand people who think Ethanol is the next gas. There is only so much land and only so much corn.

This link says we will use all corn by 2008
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1904948&mesg_id=1904948

Seems to me (since full electric has been shown to work) that an electric vehicle with combined hybrid solar power (and other types) would be much better in emissions, efficiency, and cost. All that without putting all our eggs in one basket.

[Hugin]

1. I don't think there should be another 'silver bullet' solution.

Energy Alternatives should be plural.

(It would also reduce the cartels and monopolistic behavior which plague the
industry now.)

[leveymg]

2. K&R. Exactly! The result will be the linkage of grain costs to fuel

Ethanol is primarily being pushed by ADM and the other big agribusiness corporations.

At the same point that it costs too much to drive, it'll also become too expensive to eat.

[bulletsandspikes]

3. It's about time.

Finally someone who agrees with me. Trying to grow enough corn to do this could cause damage to the already fragile plains.

[newyawker99]

4. Hi bulletsandspikes!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[bulletsandspikes]

5. Thanks!

I've lurked for awhile.

[Greyhound]

6. Hemp makes more sense than corn, though it can't be allowed

because, God forbid, ADM wouldn't get to steal billions from it. True it isn't a fix, but it would be a step in the right direction.

[jsamuel]

7. well, would it be a step in the right direction? If another direction is

better and we step towards Ethanol, isn't that a step in the wrong direction?

[Greyhound]

8. Not sure what you're saying. Ethanol is bad, Hemp is bad?

Diluting gasoline is bad? :shrug:

[jsamuel]

9. no, I am saying that there are much better alternatives already available

why spend all out money moving over to ethanol when we could use that money to move straight to electric? Take the hypotenuse of the triangle. Shortest distance between two points is a straight line... and all that junk.

[Greyhound]

10. Gotcha! Now we just need a super-majority in the legislature to force

the auto industry to do the right thing. That is the only method that works for these shit-heels, they have never made one single improvement in the entire history of the industry without being forced to, and always with all of the accompanying threats of "dire consequences" and exploding prices, blah, blah, blah.

Remember that Preston Tucker made his car in 1948, and was crushed by the crooked politiwhores owned by the auto industry, just as they crushed public transportation. They successfully fought off making better cars for over 30 years before congress forced them to begin to improve their inefficient death traps.

[SmokingJacket]

11. Better to burn it than to eat it.

Corn syrup is in everything these days...

[WhiteTara]

14. and corn strips the earth of nutrients

and require large quantities of chemicals to pump the soil up. My grandmother told me about the dust bowl. The wind would blow like crazy in the spring across the plain and the stupid farmers with their new tractors plowed up acre after acre of dry earth and watched it blow away. That is what they are doing with their big combines (which of course use huge amounts of fuel) and chemical fertilizers to middle american farms and to the valley on the west coast.

I am sure that the true costs of producing the fuel is higher than the fuel is worth. I hope someone out there is breeding mules, we are going to need them.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. We grow a lot more corn then we can eat.

And we can grow plenty more than we are now.

[WhiteTara]

13. I agree. We don't need the next gas but the next

evolution of technology to sustain us. Soon the question will be, do you want to drive or do you want to eat?

Myopic fools. The resurgence of Mr. Magoo. Updated for a new generation of fools.

[Pathwalker]

15. Corn is an ANNUAL - how do you run out of corn?

And, why not use soy plants, left over after soybean production?

[jsamuel]

20. why use any of that stuff when electric vehicles are already here

and could be mass produced given the same money being pumped into oil/hydrogen/ethanol/...

[shadowknows69]

16. It still burns oils to make ethanol

probably more than we'd be saving if you count all the gas used to till and grow the corn fields.

[Sinti]

18. Not if you use 100 percent bio-diesel :) n/t

[Sinti]

17. Corn, per se, is far from the most efficient plant for making fuel

They also strip the land of nutrients, and so on. I've always wondered why this obsession with corn. That said, biofuels, IMO, should be one prong for an alternative energy program. Neither sun alone, nor wind alone, nor geothermal, nor (insert favorite energy alternative here), are really an answer.

Cars (Ford's at least) were originally designed to run on booze. Alcohol can be made of any number of plant materials, but alcohol alone will certainly not solve our need for energy. Petrol-based farming needs to go the way of the dinosaurs, IMO. There are equally productive alternatives out there for agriculture. Megacorp's hold on agribusiness is going to kill us in the long run.

[ItNerd4life]

19. The corn is not food, it's feed corn.

The corn they use to make ethanol isn't corn that people eat. It's feed corn that is used to make grain and other products.

I don't think ethanol is the entire solution to replacing oil, but it may buy us some time until new energies are developed and can be produced efficiently.

[shadowknows69]

21. I suggest we turn every golf course in the country

into feedcorn fields then. Bulldoze the NASCAR tracks too and fire up the crops.