So does most recycling, yet people look at me like I just ran over a unicorn with a SUV for throwing away a Coke bottle.

Ethanol is going to destroy the commodities markets for food. Hello, $40 Frosted Flakes!

Don't even start on freon

This month's blurb from NO SHIAT, SHERLOCK magazine.

Unlike Big Oil, ethanol lobbying and all its ancillary subsidized profits come from basically one corporation:

ADM

No international cabal here ~ just one oligopoly

Our food expenses are already about 10% higher than last year, and almost all of that is from the last 3-4 months.

Milk went from $3.29 to $3.99 almost overnight, and chicken and beef are getting pretty steep, too. It's going to trickle down to the rest of the economy and be a nasty wake-up call.

I wouldn't be so worried if it were biodiesel, LPG, or some other REASONABLE alternative fuel causing the increase. But it's just a waste-of-time pork project that most of America can't even access.

I haven't looked at an issue of Rolling Stone in about 17 years, but is this where kids go nowadays for their hard-hitting environmental and economic news?

Biodiesel ftw!

NewportBarGuy: Ethanol is going to destroy the commodities markets for food. Hello, $40 Frosted Flakes!

No. More like "Fark you, 3rd World Peasants"

Corn prices are already rising in Mexico. Staple foods are feeling the economic squeeze.

Like Stalin and Mao before them, the poor bear the brunt of the Progressive's legislation (but both US parties bear the blame for these shenanigans).

any one who wants to take a food crop and make engine fuel with it needs to be starved.

rocinante721: ADM

boy did you nail it or what.

Other than it being a renewable resource that we have plenty of land and labor to make....oh and it isn't oil so the money could stay here.


Other than that...

Other than it being a renewable resource that we have plenty of land and labor to make....oh and it isn't oil so the money could stay here.


It costs more energy to make it than it yields in reduced gasoline usage. This INCREASES the amount of oil we need.

It's a total marketing sham. But it makes people who aren't concentrating think we're 'protecting the american farmer' (not that he or she needs it given the communismsubsidies.

In addition it allows people who are terrified that we're going to be at war mutter about 'protecting the food supply'. Without realising that a) we're a net food importer, b) it reduces the available food.

snuffy: rocinante721: ADM
boy did you nail it or what.

ADM had a problem: with stockpiles of unsold, subsidized corn, corn products (read: ethanol) was a product without a market.

Cue: biofuel. "Huzzah!" sez ADM.

Two points to get across:

1) Biofuel is unsustainable: it takes a 1.2 barrel of ethanol to make 1 gallon of refined ethanol ~20% efficiency (comparison: It takes 1 barrel of petroleum to refine 9 barrels ~900% efficiency). This doesn't take into account the water & pollution created by biorefining (very nasty).

2) Soil strip-mining: massive corn production is achieved via petroleum-based fertilizers/herbicides/insecticides (which ethanol is supposed to replace??? Catch-22 anyone?). Such methods feed the plant but strip the soil of natural fauna (fungus, bacteria, worms, bugs, etc.) that maintain a healthy ecosystem, thus leaving the soil barren and dry ~ ripe for soil erosion, which is occurring at a faster rate than soil can be naturally replenished.

Hemp based ethanol would work better than corn.

jonasborg: Hemp Sugar-based ethanol would work better than corn ...

jonasborg: Hemp based ethanol would work better than corn.

Yep, there are plenty of other things we could be refining. But that would take all those great subsidies away from the corn farming folk and maybe force them to grow some other crop. Can`t have that now can we ?

i have long said that adm is evil incarnate.

crunch-o-matic: Other than it being a renewable resource that we have plenty of land and labor to make....oh and it isn't oil so the money could stay here.


Other than that...

We don't have plenty of land for this. Do you have any idea how many aches you need to produce just one gallon of ethanol? We could plow over all of Texas and we still would not even dent our need. Plow over Texas...... Second thought I like this ethanol business.

I convinced.
We should do absolutely nothing until the last drop of oil is used. THEN and only then should we start working on alternative sources of energy that may initially be inefficient.

BearToy: I convinced.
We should do absolutely nothing until the last drop of oil is used. THEN and only then should we start working on alternative sources of energy that may initially be inefficient.

We are working on it. But this is just the same old story of government interfering with the free market. Trust me, when gas hits 7 bucks a gallon we will see some action.

Still liking the plan of plowing over Texas. Just throwing that out there.

I convinced.
We should do absolutely nothing until the last drop of oil is used. THEN and only then should we start working on alternative sources of energy that may initially be inefficient.

It's not a case that this is the only alternative.

It's not the case that this is the best alternative. Sugar cane ethanol has a significantly more efficient yield for example.

This isn't an attempt to solve a problem, it's an attempt to make a quick buck through deception.

interesting..... try THIS (new window).

TFH: "Ethanol hurts the environment and is more expensive that gasoline"

True dat. But at least it's not coming from the most unstable region of the world.

corn is a shiatty source of ethanol. other plants (switchgrass, hemp) are far less agriculturally intensive and produce far more biofuel per acre.

Tabatha Static: TFH: "Ethanol hurts the environment and is more expensive that gasoline"

True dat. But at least it's not coming from the most unstable region of the world.

You've never seen those Iowa boys party!

Yeah. No offense, but I consider Rolling Stone about as reliable news source as I do Fox News.
That is, if they tell me the sky is blue, I go out and check for myself.

/RS doesn't have a conservative bias, they just have a stupid bias.

I just don't want to see the price of corn go up.

I've been saying this for years.

Ethanol is such a sham.

that?

Was the OBVIOUS tag filling up with 93 Octane?

Use of the word 'boondoggle' in the headline pretty much shows me there's nothing to see ....

netizencain: I haven't looked at an issue of Rolling Stone in about 17 years, but is this where kids go nowadays for their hard-hitting environmental and economic news?

Me neither (okay, more like seven years), but I think this article has gone a long way towards reaffirming my faith in Rolling Stone.

How about concentrating on making solar panels cheap?

While my idea to burn hobos and old people for energy keeps getting ignored. wtf?!

Mohammad on a f*cking moped, is EVERYTHING bad for the earth?

Corn ethanol is only beneficial in that it got the government to start the infrastructure necessary to make the switch to biohols.

As a biohol itself, corn ethanol is the suxorz. Algae based ethanol will be a triple threat- cpaable of producing oils to replace hydrocarbons in feritilizers, absorb CO2, and can farmed entirely within the US. I will try and get some links for this later.

I'm gona make a car that runs on cockroaches. Everyone would buy one

Didn't know there were so many ethanol's...

I get all my energy information from ROLLING STONE.

It's a REPLACEMENT fuel. Like using coal for jet fuel.

The latter is designed to give our military an edge down the line, having a fuel available since oil might be denied us in a conflict. It's not designed to be a "better" fuel.

Same for ethanol. No matter how they market it.

Blues_X: Biodiesel ftw!

Biodiesel is shiat also. we can't all power our cars on french fry grease. NO the only solution is to ban personnel automobiles and invest in the logical solution, Biotransporter!!

Over the weekend I watched "Who killed the Electric Car?" It was very enlightening..As was Condeliza Rice's trip to Saudi this weekend to sell them some of our weapons technology for OIL..

snuffy :
any one who wants to take a food crop and make engine fuel with it needs to be starved.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't Brazil want to have a word with you?

Also, does anyone have any good information on animal fats (chicken)for fuel? I started to read an article the other day on this subject, but then the wife wanted to use the bathroom, and I never finished it.

Would ya folks rather have it go back to MBTE, that shiat sucked. "Ethanol Scam: Ethanol Hurts the Environment" No I'd say MBTE is much worse.

Plenty of things can be used to make ethanol. switch to some of them

This thread has got it mostly on the head. I did research on the subject last year. ADM and Cargill (and their associated lobbying groups) have gotten both a subsidy and tariff on ethanol, driving up both the price and quantity produced of ethanol above where it would be if the market was left to figure it out. The price and demand for corn because of this was starting to rise so far that the US was becoming a net inporter of corn, thus triggering the Mexican Tortilla crisis of last year. Oh and BTW, Mexico's largest tortilla manufacturer is a subsidiary of ADM.

Using corn for ethanol is completely a politically-motivated idea. Its just a pity that those who do want energy independence are willing to stick to this terrible idea on the principle that "at least its not oil." It makes it too easy for any librul-hater to just denounce the whole movement as a bunch of 'tards who can't figure out that corn-based ethanol is a sham while their real purpose is to get away from oil but are not privy to the concept that ADM is hijacking their movement.

amazing_live_seamonkeys: So does most recycling, yet people look at me like I just ran over a unicorn with a SUV for throwing away a Coke bottle.

This is true. Especially in regards to paper and aluminum recycling.

/But the redemption value? Is kinda wrong to just throw out a nickel or a dime a piece, though.

uknowzit: Blues_X: Biodiesel ftw!

Biodiesel is shiat also. we can't all power our cars on french fry grease. NO the only solution is to ban personnel automobiles and invest in the logical solution, Biotransporter!!

I use a Biotransporter, but it runs off of a Gas/Coal engine...

Six of one, half-dozen of the other.

It looks to me like North Americans can't reduce their dependence on energy consumption, which is why I am going to hedge my bets on both oil and ethanol (or biodiesel).