Ethanol blends help stretch gasoline supply

[Fledermaus]

A Merrill Lynch study quoted in the WSJ estimates that U.S. gas prices would be 15% higher without the increasing effect of biofuels - or more than $3.70 per gallon instead of the recent average price of $3.25 a gallon.

http://wallacesfarmer.com/index.aspx?ascxid=fpStory&fpsid=33044&fpstid=2

[kestrel91316]

1. Yeah, that's great. But now we're paying 50% more for basic groceries......

[The2ndWheel]

2. And still using more oil

It's always something. It's like we're trapped in physical reality.

[liberal N proud]

3. All ethanol has done is push food cost higher

There isn't enough ethanol blended gas across the country to make a dent in the cost of fuel.

At one time I thought ethanol was the way to go, I thought, anything to get us off the addiction to foreign oil. What a scam.

[DU9598]

4. Disagree

The increase in corn costs is not responsible for an across the board increase in food costs. It is the oil needed to transport all commodities which is responsible for increasing food costs.

Ethanol = Higher Food Costs = Big Oil Myth

[sybylla]

5. Agreed. Plus...

corn is just the "gateway" source for ethanol. It's easy and relatively cheap at the moment. But the industry is working on other materials that will work as well if not better. I expect in ten years, corn will not be used for ethanol at all.

Besides, higher corn prices, besides allowing farmers to actually make money for a change, will hopefully mean less corn syrup used as sweetener in our foods. Corn syrup takes a lot of blame for our growing problem with obesity.

[cornermouse]

6. Some problems with your thesis

Farm land is finite and shrinking as cities grow. Growing other crops on land that used to grow corn is not going to allow us to have more corn to eat. Ethanol takes huge amounts of water to make and given the looming water shortage is still a foolish idea.

[GliderGuider]

7. Here's some interesting data

http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/agflation

Check out the USDA graphs of global corn production and use down the page a bit.

Ethanol is currently consuming 11.5% of the world corn production. Accorsing to these numbers between 1997 and 2007 there was a drop of 60 MMT in the amount of corn used for other purposes besides "Feed", ethanol and stocks. That accounts for 75% of the corn diverted to ethanol in 2007. they don't say what those other uses might have been, but it's obvious that some other sector is losing out.

2007: Production: 704 MMT, Feed Use: 472 MMT, Ethanol: 81 MMT, Stocks: 106 MMT, Other uses: 45 MMT
1997: Production: 591 MMT, Feed Use: 394 MMT, Ethanol, 00 MMT, Stocks: 92 MMT, Other Uses: 105 MMT

[hunter]

8. Yeah, that's just great....

Check out Northern Plains fertilizer prices:

http://www.neo.ne.gov/statshtml/181.htm

Diesel prices we already cringe at.

The cost of ethanol is much dependent on the cost of fertilizer and diesel fuel. Essentially you are producing it for the cost of fuel and fertilizer during the previous season, and in todays market of rising fuel and fertilizer prices you might just as well simply store the fuel or fertilizer to sell directly later, and not convert it to ethanol at all.

With ethanol we are chasing a rainbow in a process that is destructive to the environment and a great hardship to people living in poverty.

[kristopher]

9. Ethanol is bad policy

Excerpts from: BIOFUELS IN PERSPECTIVE

http://ips-dc.org/reports/070915_biofuels_report.pdf


Massive increases in ethanol production would be impossible without significant government subsidies. U.S. federal and state subsidies push the real price of ethanol beyond $7 for the ethanol equivalent of a gallon of gasoline. This is the actual cost to taxpayers, many of whom may never use ethanol or even drive a vehicle. Even in Brazil which relies on sugar cane based ethanol that has a much higher net energy return than the corn based ethanol popular in the U.S., the government subsidies equal 150 percent of the price to consumers. (p20)

<snip>

So who benefits from all these government subsidies? Many U.S. politicians mistakenly believe the U.S. farmer is the beneficiary. Many farmers have been losing money on corn and related crops for many years, and the opportunity for them now to have a crop that provides a decent income is very attractive. Unfortunately, the real beneficiaries are the large food corporations that dominate the global market; small farmers receive very little of these government funds. Billion dollar corporations, such as Archer Daniels Midland, U.S. BioEnergy Corp and VeraSun Energy, are the major recipients of these subsidies. From 1995 to 2003, the top 10 percent of corn subsidy recipients were paid 68 percent of all corn subsidies. The mean payments were $465,172 each for the top one percent, and $176,415 each for the top ten percent of recipients. The bottom 80 percent of farmers received mean payments of $4,763 each.99 (p21)

<snip>

...The important point is to acknowledge that a lower level of energy consumption is inevitable in any case over the next few decades.

Our current path of frantically seeking more oil and gas exploration, expansion of nuclear power, and subsidies to the wrong renewable sources of energy — precisely the path the G8 nations decided to take last year in St. Petersburg—will only make the situation worse. A sustainable and just energy future is not possible with such an approach. We desperately require a new framework in which to think about humanity’s energy future. This is not the place for the full development of a comprehensive global framework for choosing energy systems to deal with the global crises identified above; but we can identify three essential requirements for such a comprehensive framework: