This is what happens when lobbyists drive policy.

The media has been painting this as "nobody could have known....", but I remember reading reports years ago stating that biofuels take more energy to create then they yield.

Biofuels were pushed by the farming lobby as the solution to our energy problems, not the environmentalists.

Biofuels based on foodstuffs were a bad idea. However, there are plenty of other sources for biofuels that won't adversely affect the food supply or soil quality*.

*: This is assuming the people who decide to pick up on them aren't idiots who just jump on the bandwagon for access to easy subsidy cash like the corn ethanol asshats did

Seabon: The media has been painting this as "nobody could have known....", but I remember reading reports years ago stating that biofuels take more energy to create then they yield.

Biofuels were pushed by the farming lobby as the solution to our energy problems, not the environmentalists.

Hell, a year ago Castro was saying this was a farking dumb idea to take food and turn it into fuel because of exactly what is happening now.

Seabon: Biofuels were pushed by the farming lobby as the solution to our energy problems, not the environmentalists.

Yes and no. Biofuels as a general idea were pushed by environmentalists, corn ethanol was pushed by the farming lobby.

Seabon: The media has been painting this as "nobody could have known....", but I remember reading reports years ago stating that biofuels take more energy to create then they yield.

Biofuels were pushed by the farming lobby as the solution to our energy problems, not the environmentalists.

Reports like this show up in the form of a full page editorial in one of the big three automagazines (Motor Trend, Car & Driver, Road & Track) like every other month. A couple times a year they usually give it the full blown 8-page article treatment for good measure.

Some biofuels could be good. For example, celulous (sp?) ethanol or algae or ethanol.

Or capturing the gas from our turds and using that as fuel. I keep bringing this up on numerous websites, including FARK, but no one seems to take it seriously. It would be so awesome to fuel your car or grid with poop! The ultimate renewable energy source.

/ attempt to hijack this into a poop thread

MBA Whore: / attempt to hijack this into a poop thread

That doesn't work nearly as well as cute kittens our hot chicks.

Like this!

May I suggest hemp ethanol.

Biofuel is good, but not on a large scale. Using used food grease to create biodiesel is good. Getting fuel out of glass tubes filled with algae is good. Planting crops for the express purpose of turning into fuel is not good.

MBA Whore: Some biofuels could be good. For example, celulous (sp?) ethanol or algae or ethanol.

Or capturing the gas from our turds and using that as fuel. I keep bringing this up on numerous websites, including FARK, but no one seems to take it seriously. It would be so awesome to fuel your car or grid with poop! The ultimate renewable energy source.

/ attempt to hijack this into a poop thread

That's very noble of you to try to elevate the discussion back to a poop joke, really. Dirty Jobs had an episode with a cow farmer who took all the tons of shiat produced on his farm every day, seperated into dry and liquid parts, and used it to make stuff. He sold the liquid as fertalizer, the solid was composted and made into biodegradable flower pots to boost growth in plants, and the entire operation was powered by the methane gas produced during proccessing, as was his whole house.

There's almost endless amounts of energy being wasted all the time that could be reused, but here we're finally starting to move off of oil and how do we do it? We waste a ton more oil and also drive up food prices. It's not that the government can't manage anything, it's that the governments we HAVE are owned by money, instead of their citizens. I hope their corpses are used to power my car someday.

Since you bring up hemp ...

Not grown in the US. Major carbon cost to import.

This needs to be seen more than once. Thanks Driving Without Pants for the image.

It is about time some one gets a damn brain and thinks about how they will change how people live with their small thoughts about how to improve things. We are wasting food that can be used in many places to fuel our cars.. Who the hell thought that was a good idea? I for one find it disgusting as all hell to think that someone thought this was a good idea.

There needs to be a break from fantasy to some simply bloody good god damn sense and some realistic thoughts put into how we as a people want to live and survive. Feeding people and striving for a better solution to fuel issue should not combat each other. Would you like it if your family went hungry to allow some 4 MPG machine drive down the road? I know I wouldn't, I am sure you would not as well. Get rid of Biofuel and lets find some real working solutions to our energy issues that does not mean killing millions for us to be able to drive.

Lando Lincoln:

Planting crops for the express purpose of turning into fuel is not good.

Depends on the crops. Switchgrass, hemp, and similar plants (one begins with M, but I can never remember how to spell it) don't need high quality soils to grow, so won't displace food crops.

Well one thing about corn ethanol - it opened the door (well that and $4/gal gas - yes EU farkers I know you pay double that)

Anyway with the door open if someone can come along ad say "Hey I can make that stuff - and I dont need acres of corn to do it - heres some algae or bacteria or cellulostic ethanol" well then it WILL have changed the world.

what's more important?
eating or driving?

jesus farking christ


nevermind that one of these days corn is gonna get hit
like the irish potato famine

and the present state of affairs will be beyond fuhked up.

I've heard the argument that even though corn ethanol is a poor solution, it at least puts the infrastructure in place for when cellulosic ethanol production becomes cheap enough. Although since one of the big drawbacks in ethanol is that it can't be carried by pipeline, I'm not sure what infrastructure that would be.

Anybody know if Iogen has gotten their enzymatic process cheap enough yet?

For reporting on biofuels you'll never see in the US, you have to go to the CBC:





/pic links and pops
//pic doesn't bust a move

Driving Without Pants

balin007

NO. You people are what is wrong with this entire farking debate. You instantly see ethanol and think "Goddamn corn subsidies making thos e farmers rich. Every ear of corn we turn to ethanol is one more starving kid we could feed."

Well guess what. Our food aid efforts are what starve these kids in the first place. Cheap grains from the first world easily drive away local competition, and with no reason to even bother planting you get ever larger numbers of people living off our handouts. If someone was building an ethanol plant in Africa as an economic boost plan, then yes, they should be drug into the road and shot (although it might be enough of a local stimulus to get African farmers back into the fields).

The only reason we ever started giving food aid to the rest of the world was the great recovery effort after WWII. It was never intended to be permanent, just a stopgap for European farmers to get the artillery craters filled in in their fields and new crops in. Enterprising businessmen and feelgood politicians just never let the program lapse when it's usefulness was at an end.

Corn is hardly ideal as a biofuel, true. There are many other crops that could be used, switchgrass for example. But this is no reason to demonize biofuels altogether. It doesn't matter if it takes more energy to create ethanol than it produces because it is still sustainable. The startup energy could come from solar, wind, nuclear, anything. The only purpose of ethanol is transportation. It is an oil substitute without the finite limitation of oil supplies.

So lets not engage any false dichotomy here. Every ear of corn isn't into the mouths of starving Africans or into the gas tank. Let the technology grow and more sustainable options will economically edge out the early trailblazers (Ugh Libertarian). Do you really think that the petrochemical companies, as they exist now, sprang fully formed from the minds of industrialists? No, there was a long period of refinement.

So just let sustainable and green technology have it's industrial revolution and check back in 5-10 years when more minds have run through the options, 'kay?

/Iowan
//ethanol sucks
///rant over

swarmspawn: NO. You people are what is wrong with this entire farking debate. You instantly see ethanol and think "Goddamn corn subsidies making thos e farmers rich. Every ear of corn we turn to ethanol is one more starving kid we could feed."

You must be a farmer who thinks it is nice to line your pants with money, or so it appears to me. Until we can feed everyone, we should not be using up food to fuel cars. End of debate period. I prefer to think that mankind can help each other, versus taking a profit, and apparently thinking of different reasons for why we should be doing it.

Unlike Hitler and the people who think killing people for their own ideals is a good idea, I think helping mankind feed itself is a much better option.

Wasn't there an article a while back about someone making a fuel from something else other than corn, and furthermore, did that same article not say it was more effective in terms of production?

/just making sure not making things up

swarmspawn: Driving Without Pants

balin007

NO. You people are what is wrong with this entire farking debate. You instantly see ethanol and think "Goddamn corn subsidies making thos e farmers rich. Every ear of corn we turn to ethanol is one more starving kid we could feed."

Well guess what. Our food aid efforts are what starve these kids in the first place. Cheap grains from the first world easily drive away local competition, and with no reason to even bother planting you get ever larger numbers of people living off our handouts. If someone was building an ethanol plant in Africa as an economic boost plan, then yes, they should be drug into the road and shot (although it might be enough of a local stimulus to get African farmers back into the fields).

The only reason we ever started giving food aid to the rest of the world was the great recovery effort after WWII. It was never intended to be permanent, just a stopgap for European farmers to get the artillery craters filled in in their fields and new crops in. Enterprising businessmen and feelgood politicians just never let the program lapse when it's usefulness was at an end.

Corn is hardly ideal as a biofuel, true. There are many other crops that could be used, switchgrass for example. But this is no reason to demonize biofuels altogether. It doesn't matter if it takes more energy to create ethanol than it produces because it is still sustainable. The startup energy could come from solar, wind, nuclear, anything. The only purpose of ethanol is transportation. It is an oil substitute without the finite limitation of oil supplies.

So lets not engage any false dichotomy here. Every ear of corn isn't into the mouths of starving Africans or into the gas tank. Let the technology grow and more sustainable options will economically edge out the early trailblazers (Ugh Libertarian). Do you really think that the petrochemical companies, as they exist now, sprang fully formed from the minds of industrialists? No, there was a long period of refinement.

So just let sustainable and green technology have it's industrial revolution and check back in 5-10 years when more minds have run through the options, 'kay?

/Iowan
//ethanol sucks
///rant over

The point you miss is that corn-based ethonal is driving the price of food around the entire world UP, to the point where many poor countries simply can't even afford it.

swarmspawn: So just let sustainable and green technology have it's industrial revolution and check back in 5-10 years when more minds have run through the options, 'kay?

You don't have to fight for an industrial revolution. If the technology is sufficient, and the market wants it, it will happen.

We didn't start the original industrial revolution by taxing and punishing use of horses. We didn't start the computer revolution by taxing and punishing typewriter use. You won't start a green fuel revolution by taxing and punishing oil use.

balin007: This needs to be seen more than once. Thanks Driving Without Pants for the image.

Why? So more ignorant feel-good nitwits will think that growing some more corn or wheat is going to save starving people across the world?

Even the "starving" countries in the world almost always have a surplus of grains. Ethiopia... Sudan... the places constantly photographed and televised as nations where the only food is dirt and sticks have metric tons of grain wasted yearly. Either because the farmers refuse to give it away (it would destroy the market value) or, and most importantly, they do not have the storage and transportation to get it where it needs to go.

One damned highway and a truck would do more to feed a starving village than all the damned corn grown in Iowa.

Well it sounded like a good idea at the time.

Do not let this discourage you from all biofuels people. With investment in research we can develop the next generation of biofuels - cellulosic ethanol. It is possible to make the same product from corn husks and switchgrass.

Lamune_Baba: One damned highway and a truck would do more to feed a starving village than all the damned corn grown in Iowa.

Then lets build the road instead of wasting food. You made my point with that statement right there.

Murkanen: Biofuels based on foodstuffs were a bad idea. However, there are plenty of other sources for biofuels that won't adversely affect the food supply or soil quality*.

*: This is assuming the people who decide to pick up on them aren't idiots who just jump on the bandwagon for access to easy subsidy cash like the corn ethanol asshats did

If it's subsidized, that is exactly what will happen. Don't subsidize anything and let the market sort it out. The most efficient solution will also be the most profitable, so it will be chosen.

Well I have a few minutes (more than a few really) I will explain what should be painfully clear:

#1. Biofuels come in a lot more forms than corn, the only reason we FOCUS on it is because of the corn lobby. Corn is the big mover and shaker of American agriculture.

#2. "Biofuels take more energy than they create" is partly crap. Corn is inefficient and the quickest way to ferment it into alcohol requires energy, but a more efficient biofuel or a nuke plant to power the fermentation vats (or better yet, BOTH) would step over those problems neatly.

#3. The only reason food prices are rising is because despite having a now-huge market for grown crops we are still paying morans not to grow it (there's other forms of subsidy but we should keep the discussion simplistic). If you cranked ethanol (of all types) into high gear and yanked the brick of "government farm subsidies" out from under it we might just have a balanced "engine" of the food industry.

One of the "fatherly wisdom" musings my Dad imparted to me some years ago when biofuels were being theorized was that once upon a time a great deal of arable land was used to feed the beasts of burden that drove quite a bit of human economic activity. He further postulated that returning to this in the form of feeding our cars with all this usable but fallow land would be both a good idea and an example of history following cycles.

I am #1. on Iowa's Most Wanted list. I am TheBigJerk. I AM BETTER THAN YOU.

Rovian: Do not let this discourage you from all biofuels people.

As poor of a choice corn was as a base... with all the other alternatives available... and with all the research telling us this for a decade, we still manage to fark it up. I have to wonder if it wasn't planned from the start?

Ruin biofuel's image with one glorious failure, and buy yourself another decade of unquestioned reliance on petroleum as the funding dries up and researchers are driven back underground before their next "great idea..." manages to fark things up.

Any crop based ethanol has some risk.

IF a farmer can make more money growing switchgrass than corn he will grow switchgrass on his prime cropland.

IF any crop that can be made into fuel can bring a farmer a bigger profit that crop will replace food crops.

IF those fuel crops start replacing food crops we will have the same problem that we are facing now with corn.

Anagrammer: 66 cent increase over the first 6 years? 11 cent per year increase.

$1.46 increase over 1.33 years? $1.10 per year increase.

Oh please, did you not notice the gas prices dropped almost a farkin dollar before the '06 election. The oil companies were lowering their price purposely to help Republicans, it didn't work, but your chart there doesn't take that into account what-so-ever.

it can't last forever

no matter what we use
we're raping the planet and it's just a matter of time
until we kill the host

the human experiment is running on a great big battery
and we decided not to buy rechargables

Here's the actual [non-simplified] chart, see the last big dip before it shoots up? That's where the oil companies were attempting to mess with the election.

I don't know why fark threw it out before, again: Here's the real [non-simplified] price chart. See that last big dip? That's where the oil companies were attempting to mess with the 2006 mid-terms. The bottom of that dip is where YOUR chart starts in blue.

ScubaDude1960:

If it's subsidized, that is exactly what will happen.

Only if the subsidies are done in a manner that permits that sort of abuse. I realize this is something that those who think the Free Market is infallible can't comprehend, but subsidies can and do work if implemented in a manner that prevents abuse.

balin007: Then lets build the road instead of wasting food. You made my point with that statement right there.

Exactly. The poor countries just need to build roads with their tons of wasted grain. Then the little bony children can eat the road.

epyonyx: Wasn't there an article a while back about someone making a fuel from something else other than corn, and furthermore, did that same article not say it was more effective in terms of production?

Take some time and read through this (new window)

/algae seems to be the best if they can get the kinks worked out.

Lamune_Baba: balin007: Then lets build the road instead of wasting food. You made my point with that statement right there.

Exactly. The poor countries just need to build roads with their tons of wasted grain. Then the little bony children can eat the road.

No no no, you're missing the point. Once they have roads and cars we can sell them fuel. Then we'll give them hummers (not that kind) and they'll be just like Americans and get fat and happy.

Anagrammer:

...Please tell me you're joking with that.

balin007: Unlike Hitler

Did you seriously unironically Godwin me? Wow. I didn't think that actually happened.

I'm not a farmer, I'm an engineer. I agree that the main goal should be to make sure that the world has food. I just think that growing it here and then shipping it to other places in the world is stupid and ruinous to local economies. We should put something like a graduated withdrawal of food aid to needy countries. Eliminate corn subsidies here and shift them into grants for farmers in the developing world and you will have rebuilt these nations agricultural bases within a decade, rendering our aid unnecessary. Unless you'd rather we kept the third world weak and helpless so that they have no choice but to rely on us for their very ability to stay alive?

Seabon: The point you miss

What ethanol production does to world food markets is bad, but as I said I'm against ethanol, or any food to fuel program in the long run. It just isn't as efficient. We have the capacity to grow so much more food than we currently do however. Government subsidies paid out to farmers specifically to not grow food should be lifted, and the resulting funds reallocated to developing nations grants and loans, or renewable energy research initiatives.

Anagrammer: You don't have to fight for an industrial revolution

I never suggested we fight for the green revolution. What I suggested is that we allow the ethanol industry to evolve into a more generic biofuels industry, using more varied crops until a clear winner emerges through efficiency and lower pricing. The first step is legislation however. Not to punish oil use, but to remove the substantial influence that the oil companies and current petrofuel lobby wields throughout all levels of the government.

TheBigJerk

Sorry if you feel like we're out to get you. There's at least one Iowan right here who agrees that subsidies suck ass. And many more if the fact that Iowa is the number one producer of wind energy equipment and high on the list of wind energy production has anything to say about it.


Iowa
We already grow your food
shiat we might as well provide the power while we're out
Need anything else?

Murkanen: but subsidies can and do work if implemented in a manner that prevents abuse.

In the base sense, subsidies are used to artificially create a market where one does not exist in the free market. In this case, the farmers are simply responding to the (artificial) market. The government (and lobbing groups) are the ones that should be responsible for the fallout as a result of these misguided policies.

If they want to spend the money wisely, award R&D grants to the multitude of small energy companies that are trying to progress some of these new technologies to ecnomically compete with oil. It is stupid to belive that you can simply mandate and subsidize ourselves out of our dependancy on forign oil.

Seabon: I remember reading reports years ago stating that biofuels take more energy to create then they yield.

So do fossil fuels.

Anyone who thinks that all biofuels are nonviable is doing it wrong.


Murkanen: Biofuels based on foodstuffs were a bad idea. However, there are plenty of other sources for biofuels that won't adversely affect the food supply or soil quality*.

*: This is assuming the people who decide to pick up on them aren't idiots who just jump on the bandwagon for access to easy subsidy cash like the corn ethanol asshats did

This

Downgraded from "good idea" to "crime against humanity," biofuels rebound all the way to "something no one should invest in."

SUBBY fails Business 101. "Crime against humanity" is less severe than the "something no on should invest in", as long as the margins are right.

A 50 cent a gallon government subsidy makes for fat margins, skinny Africans.

balin007: <b>swarmspawn:</b> <i>NO. You people are what is wrong with this entire farking debate. You instantly see ethanol and think "Goddamn corn subsidies making thos e farmers rich. Every ear of corn we turn to ethanol is one more starving kid we could feed."</i>

You must be a farmer who thinks it is nice to line your pants with money, or so it appears to me. Until we can feed everyone, we should not be using up food to fuel cars. End of debate period. I prefer to think that mankind can help each other, versus taking a profit, and apparently thinking of different reasons for why we should be doing it.

Unlike Hitler and the people who think killing people for their own ideals is a good idea, I think helping mankind feed itself is a much better option.

Hitler is dead. Relax.

Also, yeah corn ethanol seems like a pretty braindead idea. But that doesn't mean that if we stop it, somehow the corn we were using for corn ethanol is going to feed staving babies magically.

The only possible way it could help is by reducing corn prices (er...stopping price increase), but it's not obvious to me that corn for fuel is having much of an effect on price yet (all food prices appear to be going up, not just corn).

swarmspawn: Cheap grains from the first world easily drive away local competition,

Ummm given these people lack the means with which to even sustain themselves with farming? Not even the issue. They need their irrigation fixed up, in some cases totally rebuilt, some need better seed stock, some need other things done. But when people who farm for centuries end up starving? Competition isn't the thing to worry about. Nevermind their abject poverty even when they do manage to grow enough to survive is a major issue that needs to be dealt with.

epyonyx: Wasn't there an article a while back about someone making a fuel from something else other than corn, and furthermore, did that same article not say it was more effective in terms of production?

/just making sure not making things up

I think the leading contender is biodiesel from pond scum. "...he can produce about 100,000 gallons of algae oil a year per acre, compared to about 30 gallons per acre from corn; 50 gallons from soybeans." It's a pretty good article. The guy has developed a way to grow pond scum verticaly to get beyond the pond surface area limitation.

Link (new window)

yea for libtards and their global warming nonsense leading to
nvesting in 'alternative fuel sources' causing a food crisis -
way to rob peter to pay paul there, libtards - doin' what you do best!