AutoblogGreen

1. I guess it's time for checking others sources of ethanol like sugar beets, swichgrass (or swich grass? I'm not sure of the spelling -_-;),etc.... to produce cellulostic ethanol as I mentionned at http://www.autobloggreen.com/2006/04/30/ethanol-more-polution-and-lower-gas-mileage/#comments come to think of it, no one did an article about Iogen ;-)

Posted at 10:11AM on May 29th 2006 by Stephane Dumas

2. It may sound harsh, but the reality of the situation is that we in the United States, via our elected officials, have collectively decided to feed our fuel tanks instead of selling food (or giving it away) to people all over the world.

Look for food prices worldwide to gradually go up.

The may be a bright side to this. The other nations in the world could (and should) stop blowing each other and others up with suicide bombs (Islam, world-wide...), stop growing opium to sell instead of foodstock (Afghanistan...), stop growing other drugs instead of food stocks (South & Central America...), stop stealing farms from white people and killing the farmers who actually know how to grow food (Africa...) and so forth. These countries need to get a clue NOW.

Otherwise, we'll be seeing "headline news" in 5 years about how we greedy evil Americans who actually believe in the free market, chose to grow crops for ethanol instead of importing quite as much oil from those- who- would- blow- us- all- up.

So, you see, no matter WHAT we Americans do, we'll be seen as wrong by the rest of the world because of one simple reason. They're envious that they don't have the freedom, the opportunity and the getup and go that Americans have shown. They can't stand it, and so are hateful because they haven't got it.

It would be much more productive for these people to actually get off their pitty-pots and get on with growing their own food, eliminating corruption in their own dang governments, and learning how to improve themselves. But of course, it is much easier to whine and point fingers.

People of the world who continually point fingers at America should remember - you point one finger at us, you're pointing THREE back at yourself.

Perhaps the otherwise nearly useless largely anti-American United Nations could make use of themselves and teach people in these nations to actually grow their own food instead of relying upon free gifts from America and other wealthy nations which continually send them food due to hunger crisis after crisis. But I doubt it. Isn't that a pity? I think so.

Posted at 1:20PM on May 29th 2006 by Glenn A.

3. I don't understand why corn is used in the first place. It takes so much room to grow and yields much little starch per volume and uses more resources to grow compared to say, potatoes.

Posted at 3:38PM on May 29th 2006 by Bigel

4. Corn is generally NOT used to feed people, especially the grade of corn that is exported from the US. It is used to feed animals.

Posted at 5:41PM on May 29th 2006 by tbyryon

5. Hooray!

Why is this bad?

Posted at 12:18PM on May 30th 2006 by Matt

6. OK, tbyryon, that may well be so. But then, without US corn, what are these animals (which become food for humans) going to eat?

My statements stand.

Posted at 12:33PM on May 30th 2006 by Glenn A.

7. #3. Corn is used because it is heavily subsidized by the government.

#5. Ethanol is a dead end, literally and figuratively.

#2. You have to look at it on a smaller scale. To the individual farmer in Colombia/Afghanistan/etc, it is far more worthwhile economically to grow drugs than food crops. As long as that is true, it will continue.

Anyway, this reminds me of an article that George Monbiot wrote.

Posted at 1:06PM on May 30th 2006 by cmonkey

8. They are pushing Ethanol over VegOil or Bio-diesel because we can easily make VegOil or Bio-diesel locally in producer's coops from a multiple of plant sources. Ethanol takes large regional processing plants and can't easily be made from fibrous plant material. They don't like distributed local energy production that they can't easily control. Who are "they?" That’s easy... Follow the money!!! Who has the most to gain from large, centralized power and monopoly control? Choose one: Big Oil, Big Gov't, Big Auto. Bingo! You win the prize.

Posted at 8:13PM on Nov 30th 2006 by Tim

9. This is a very serious issue, especially for me and my family. We grow the chickens that many people in the world eat. If there is no corn, there will be no food for the chickens, cows, etc. to eat. This applies to the US and other countries that food is exported to. We are now preparing for a cut back, so this means to many farmers who produce the food that you eat, how will we survive financially? We take a huge financial risk when we start such a business. We never imagined that the corn that is used to make food for animals would ever be taken away to make ethanol fuel. I'm all for a healthy enviroment, but if you are starving to death who cares about clean air--you won't need it for very long!!

Posted at 12:57PM on Dec 2nd 2006 by Angie

10. The reason this is bad, is because in order to meet the government demands of ethanol, the government is giving large subsidies to the farmers to grow yellow corn for ethanol production. Therefore, it becomes more lucrative for a farmer to grow ethanol corn rather than human consumption corn. As a manufacturer of corn tortillas, I now have to offer much larger premiums to the farmers to grow white corn for tortilla production. This drastically increases my costs and is past along to the consumer. The end result is higher prices on your restaurant dinner plate or at the grocery store. This is the same for corn/tortilla chips, soda (sweetened with corn syrup), cereal, eggs, meat etc, etc, etc. In the end, we will never be able to generate enough ethanol to really make a difference, and we should focus our efforts on other technologies such as hydrogen.

Posted at 2:47AM on Jun 8th 2007 by PManly

11. If there is a corn shortage, why do we pay farmers NOT to grow corn? Kinda silly isn't it?
over the past 8 years the us has paid farmers over 500,000,000 Not to grow corn.

Posted at 3:16PM on May 2nd 2008 by molee