another idiotic move by an idiotic administration.

Cewley:another idiotic move by an idiotic administration.

Congress is just as much (if not more) to blame. As well as the media for hyping it up as some sort of replacement for oil.

Uses more energy to create the fuel than the fuel produces. This is a green fad only, and needs to die, regardless of any benefit to fuel prices.

Link
(Link to Cornell news)

Because all biomatter is edibile, tardmitter?

/Wonder what he'll do when he finds out what charcoal is

McStinky:Uses more energy to create the fuel than the fuel produces.

Wow, the dumb are out in full force today. Read this and then come back (new window)

deltabourne:McStinky:Uses more energy to create the fuel than the fuel produces.

Wow, the dumb are out in full force today. Read this and then come back (new window)

Perhaps he meant to say that it uses more fuel (ie, gasoline, oil, etc) to create ethanol than it replaces.

When people start talking about input/output ratios, always find out what their baseline for the calculation is. You can usually guess depending on their initial position.

deltabourne:McStinky:Uses more energy to create the fuel than the fuel produces.

Wow, the dumb are out in full force today. Read this and then come back (new window)

As I read the article, it wasn't referring to loss of energy of the engine itself burning the fuel, it was directed at the amount of 'energy' required to generate the fuel and the resulting energy gained.

I'm not a chemist and obviously not as smart as you, but I can read the article written by folks that seem to know what they are talking about.

So, you can direct your snarky comments at someone else.

Yes...and corn is the only commodity seeing massive price increases. All other commodities are incredibly cheap right now.

At least it benefits rural farmers, just like corn subsidies.

/Not

But we're willing to pay more for your food to burn as fuel than you are willing to pay to eat it! HA! HA!

helix400:Yes...and corn is the only commodity seeing massive price increases. All other commodities are incredibly cheap right now.

Um, the other commodities are all going up in price to keep pace with corn. If the others were dirt cheap and corn was sky high, everyone would abandon all the others in favor of growing the cash crop corn.

Subby:Burning food for fuel still 100% stupid

THIS!!

Desterion:everyone would abandon all the others in favor of growing the cash crop corn.

Which is EXACTLY what's happening. Read a farm report once in a while. Soy, barley and other key crops are being pushed out by the increased demand for Corn. The whole concept of agriculture-based fuel is asinine in the extreme.

Desterion:Um, the other commodities are all going up in price to keep pace with corn

So crude oil is trying to keep pace with corn? And gold? And copper? And barley, canola, oats, rough rice, soybeans, wheat, heating oil, natural gas, propane, cocoa, coffee, aluminum, platinum, silver, and copper? Those are all trading at bubble-like highs.

Are they all trying to keep pace with corn? Really?

deltabourne:McStinky:Uses more energy to create the fuel than the fuel produces.

Wow, the dumb are out in full force today. Read this and then come back (new window)

The 2nd law of thermodynamics doesn't apply here. YOU are the dumb one. We burn way more gasoline growing, processing, and transporting ethanol than the gasoline it replaces. Even after that, we only get about half as many miles per gallon on ethanol, than we do with gasoline.

For anybody blaming the Bush administration, keep in mind that Obama is pushing ethanol as well.

Guys, corn is delicious.

helix400:Desterion:Um, the other commodities are all going up in price to keep pace with corn

So crude oil is trying to keep pace with corn? And gold? And copper? And barley, canola, oats, rough rice, soybeans, wheat, heating oil, natural gas, propane, cocoa, coffee, aluminum, platinum, silver, and copper? Those are all trading at bubble-like highs.

Are they all trying to keep pace with corn? Really?

People buy the other crops as a substitute for corn when prices get to high. This increases their demand, pushing up the prices. Macroeconomics 101.

Calvin Coolidge:Congress is just as much (if not more) to blame. As well as the media for hyping it up as some sort of replacement for oil.

I also blame the fact that Iowa has a disproportionate influence on national politics due to their "privileged" caucus date.

Shvetz:People buy the other crops as a substitute for corn when prices get to high. This increases their demand, pushing up the prices. Macroeconomics 101.

So gold, copper, heating oil, natural gas, aluminum, platinum, silver, and copper are all crops?

I didn't know gold-farming was real...

deltabourne:McStinky:Uses more energy to create the fuel than the fuel produces.

Wow, the dumb are out in full force today. Read this and then come back (new window)

The irony of your post is delicious.

Even taken literally, McStinky would be correct regarding any energy to fuel conversion. Unless of course, you know of a 100% efficient process. If you do, then damn, I want a piece of that action.

ALSO the cost of producing one gallon of gas /w Ethanol is more then producing one gallon of gas.

So

Less energy efficent , less energy efficent to produce, AND it costs more to produce

yes please, lets do that

helix400:Shvetz:People buy the other crops as a substitute for corn when prices get to high. This increases their demand, pushing up the prices. Macroeconomics 101.

So gold, copper, heating oil, natural gas, aluminum, platinum, silver, and copper are all crops?

I didn't know gold-farming was real...

We get it, some person used the word commodity wrong. Considering the article is about ethenol pushing up the price of food maybe you can stick to being a definition nazi instead of trying to deny the fact that the price of corn going up raises the price of other types of foods. Farms have to choose a crop. If corn is selling higher they grow corn instead of other things, which are then rarer and the price goes up. There are plenty of reasons for commodities to be increasing in price right now, but CROPS are becoming more exspensive becuase of ethanol in addition to those factors.

everyone knows the World Bank is full of commie pinkos

You know what's REALLY stupid? Thinking that Ethanol has anything at all to do with world food prices. But hey, keep it up with the moronic Luddite headlines, Subby.

Yay Environmentalists! Once again, your knee-jerk reactions have made things worse!

/nuclear power is bad!

Bucky Katt:everyone knows the World Bank is full of commie pinkos

Corpus Delecti:You know what's REALLY stupid? Thinking that Ethanol has anything at all to do with world food prices. But hey, keep it up with the moronic Luddite headlines, Subby.

Nemo's Brother:Yay Environmentalists! Once again, your knee-jerk reactions have made things worse!

/nuclear power is bad!

Wow, 3 in a row. And don't you guys complain about how "left" Fark threads are?

Nemo's Brother:Yay Environmentalists! Once again, your knee-jerk reactions have made things worse!

Except that the ethanol thing had little or nothing to do with environmentalists.

Falcc:We get it, some person used the word commodity wrong.

No, you obviously don't get it.

I'm saying that corn these bubble-like highs of almost two dozen commodities are a product of market speculation. Corn is just one of them.

I find it unlikely that biofuels somehow is responsible for corn's high prices. Because it is just like so many other commodities peaking in similar fashion. And this stretches across food, fuels, metals, etc. The only similar commonality is that it is a commodity, nothing more.

Really, it seems rather strange to say "Sure, these two dozen or so commodities are trading at astronomically high prices. But even though corn's high price trend looks exactly like all those other commodities...corn is different. Promise. It's those eeeeeeevil biofuels."

My hunch is that these commodity bubbles will pop soon. For example, Orange Juice did it last year after an eerily similar hike. http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/OJ/M

Wow. Went back and read the whole thread. There's a LOT of incredibly stupid people here.

First off, Ethanol does not "use more energy to create than it provides". Only a complete moron (of which we appear to have many) would believe this. It's the kind of Tinfoil-Hat "vaccinations cause Polio" idiocy that's popular with White Trash dimwits. Ethanol provides about a 33% net energy gain. If it didn't, people wouldn't bother making it. Yet apparently you Grade A Super Geniuses believe that there's an Evil Organization out there that's actually willing to lose money making Ethanol, just so they can starve people in Third World nations. BTW, the type of corn typically used for Biofuel is NOT the kind that people eat. It's the kind cattle eat. Human food crops are virtually unaffected by Ethanol.

Second of all, this whole "the price of Corn is the HOLY GRAIL that drives ALL OTHER PRICES" nonsense is idiocy at it's finest. If the Capitalists of the world really thought that they could raise the prices on all other commodities simply by corning the corn market, they'd have done it long ago without using Ethanol as an excuse. The simple, obvious fact that anyone that doesn't have their head completely up their ass already knows is this: It's the increased cost of shipping thanks to rising gasoline costs that have raised food prices.

Corpus Delecti

Hi maybe your missing out on something here

Chemical process to make ethanol=Not what we are talking about

Fuel cost to grow corn, ship corn, and so on=What we are talking about

drink your STFU now

there are plenty of reasons a company sells and produces products at a loss.

Corpus Delecti

I mean cmon, what does anything have to do with anything, amirite?

Corpus Delecti

also Genius

the amount of farm land presently used is a fixed resource (it will of course very based on techniques for fertilizing and what not but relatively fixed)

Price of feed grade corn goes up due to that corn being purchased for ethanol. Major governments invest in biofuel in an attempt to reduce emissions. this leads to speculation in the corn market (in general) and leads to a higher profit for the farmers to sell the type of corn used to produce corn based ethanol (specifically)

as the early movers profit they re-invest and produce more corn for ethanol and other farmers follow suit

because the increase in the price of corn leads to that much of a higher profit

supply and demand...but remember how I said there is a relatively limited amount of productive farmland? well that means less farmland is used for soy, wheat, and what have you. this also leads to a price increase. then couple some of the other factors involved that leads to reduced production (and higher prices) those factors + the growth of ethanol leads to rapid speculation which pushes the prices up further

your assuming a market driven by rational actors. Try putting down the bong and realizing most actors aren't rational

Ethanol provides about a 33% net energy gain.

Yeah, but that's only because we process it using perpetual motion machines.

helix400:

Firstly I don't think anyone here is saying that biofuels are evil. Well.. nobody worth mentioning. There's a general consensus that biofuels based on a crop which is in nearly every processed food made in America is a stupid idea, but I haven't seen the word cellulosic anywhere in this thread. No one's saying hemp or algae or switchgrass, whatever you like, is somehow a bad thing. We're strictly trashing corn ethanol. At least I am, maybe I've misjudged the crowd.

Secondly, I will grant you that market speculation is over my head. That could well be the meat of the increase in price, but it doesn't invalidate other causes of contributing. Unless speculation means that the law of supply and demand no longer applies, however, ethanol is worrying at the wound.

Finally, I must apologize for being unable to remember whatever point I was trying to make. It's 2AM here and I'm starting to nod off. You may well be right about this, in which case I apologize for wasting your time. Can we at least agree that this particular biofuel is a crap idea, whether or not it's the main cause of the high food prices?

We burn way more gasoline growing, processing, and transporting ethanol than the gasoline it replaces. Even after that, we only get about half as many miles per gallon on ethanol, than we do with gasoline.-Shvetz

Complete and utter Bullshiat!

Ethanol consumes about .78-.82 units of energy, for every 1 unit of energy it produces. (Note: that is "units" of energy, thus the fact that ethanol contains less BTU's per gallon is already factored into the equation.) Even with corn (which is not the most desirable "bio" product to use to gain efficiencies) its still produces a net energy GAIN.

Gasoline on the other hand is a net energy loser, usually taking 1.2 - 1.3 units of energy to locate, drill, pump, refine, transport, etc for every 1 unit of energy in gasoline. This is fairly simple to understand once you realize that the sun provides a great deal of the energy in the ethanol process.

There has been basically one guy, from Duke University, who has consistently peddled the "ethanol takes more energy than you get from it" line and even he has had to admit recently that his research was woefully out of date. Nearly every study conducted on the topic has shown a net energy gain. As we move from corn to other feedstocks, efficiencies will likely increase. The entire industry is basically in its infancy and will only get better.

BTW, bio-diesel is even a much better alternative, with incredible efficiencies already common place. Bio-diesel, depending upon the feedstock, generally produces 3.2-3.7 units of energy for every 1 unit of energy consumed in its manufacture. Regular petroleum based diesel fuel is a net loser with only .83 units of energy produced for every one consumed.

Shvetz why don't you educate yourself on the topic before you continue to spread your disinformation?

lawboy87

However your ignoring a fact of chemistry

ethanol based gasoline releases energy less efficiently then normal gasoline because the kind of hydrocarbons plants have are lower in potential energy then the kind of hydrocarbons in oil. And none of the studies I've read the summaries of seem to factor in that more will be wasted when you burn ethanol gasoline then when you burn regular gasoline

Hell, I'll jump in...
Biofuels (including ethanol) can be a viable alternative to petroleum. Look at what Brazil is doing with sugarcane based ethanol, or read some papers about deriving bio-diesel from algae. The way we are doing it here (corn-based ethanol) is a sop to American agribusiness. Essentially corporate welfare for states that contain about 1/3 of the US population, but 2/3 of the senators and Iowa's privileged spot in primaries. Politicians are forced to play along.

/vic

bheilig:Guys, corn is delicious.

A thousand times this.

BTW,

The studies looking at efficiencies with ethanol already take into account the costs and energy consumption in growing the corn, transporting it to the ethanol plant (which are typically located in the middle of agricultural centers to reduce such costs), and shipping the final product to the mixing facility.

What I don't get is the idea that this is somehow such an unusual and energy consuming event. While at the same time it seems most ignore the fact that shipping oil halfway around the world and transporting it pre and post refinery is somehow all done without the consumption of energy? Do you think that gasoline and oil magically flies from the refinery to your regional mixing station and then to your local gas station? If not, why all the focus on the associated costs (in energy) for transporting ethanol, while ignoring the fact that the near identical (or much worse, if discussing imported oil) energy requirements for getting gasoline to your tank are in play?

One things for damned sure, it takes a heck of a lot less energy to move corn 20-40 miles to the local ethanol plant than it does to move oil thousands of miles from say Alaska or Canada to the US refineries.

Again, corn isn't the best crop for ethanol, but the vast majority of corn grown is "dent" corn which isn't suitable for human consumption in the first place. Even after processing it for the ethanol (fermentation) the "distiller's grains" still remain and are turned into animal feed. Ethanol production typically adds a product in the chain from a single crop, thus adding to its efficiencies. Taking that dent corn and turning it into animal feed still requires energy, so why not get two "products" out of a single crop along the way?

bugman26

You know what brazil is also doing? Drilling for lots and lots and lots of oil. The vast majority of new oil exploration, and new production is coming out of brazil

Sugar ethanol in brazil isn't as big as the media sells it

karasoth:lawboy87

The two scientists calculated all the fuel inputs for ethanol production-from the diesel fuel for the tractor planting the corn, to the fertilizer put in the field, to the energy needed at the processing plant-and found that ethanol is a net energy-loser. According to their calculations, ethanol contains about 76,000 BTUs per gallon, but producing that ethanol from corn takes about 98,000 BTUs. For comparison, a gallon of gasoline contains about 116,000 BTUs per gallon. But making that gallon of gas-from drilling the well, to transportation, through refining-requires around 22,000 BTUs.

76 - 98 = -22
116 - 22 = 94

K.I.S.S., right?

Wow, lotsa people sucking Big Oil's cock in this thread, with a lot of nonsense words escaping from their mouths between hearty gulps.

CaptainFatass

Mhmm really. big oil tends to sell the oil to refining companies that get the shaft. So big oil could care less about corn based ethanol. It costs refining companies money, but its very marketable (with a bunch of envirodeuchebags out there) so they do it. Its also required by law. the oil companies get special government incentives, and of course ethanol costs them more to make and more to ship and they just pass that cost on to the consumers

So big oil has no problem selling you ethanol. it would take ludicrous amounts of corn to reduce the amount of oil sold. It would take only slightly less ludicrous amounts of corn to minimize the impact of increased oil production

Karasoth -

Well, this month they announced that ethanol will provide something like 30% of their automotive fuel (can't find the article for you). It's a producer for them, and allows them to sell their petroleum to those of us that are still stuck with it. Kinda like Australia developing wind and solar, so they can burn less coal at home, and sell it to China instead.

Here's a good article in the Economist on Brazilian ethanol
Link (new window)

/vic

karasoth,

Depending upon the engine design, you can get the same mpg out of an engine burning E85 as you get with gasoline. This is because an engine can be engineered to take advantage of the much higher octane ratings of ethanol, which can translate to higher compression engines. Saab is already producing and selling a well engineered vehicle, which gets better mpg when running E85 than standard gasoline, in Europe. In addition, if you care to get on Google, you will find that there is a lot of recent research (within the last month) which shows that most engines in production today actually get an "optimal" amount of mpg when running somewhere between 10-20% ethanol/80-90% gasoline blend.


You are also forgetting one important fact: a lot of the "energy" produced in an internal combustion engine is completely "wasted" and results in nothing but the production of heat. Thus, the fact that gasoline contains more BTU's, than ethanol doesn't necessarily produce a linear equation when it comes to fuel efficiency.

If ethanol just doesn't have the kind of power that gasoline has, I wonder why Indy race cars use it as their fuel?

I'm just glad that the scientific debate on the feasibility of ethanol vs. oil isn't clouded by political and economic interests.

I remember doing an analysis of biofuels for an ethics class.

Conclusion: Highly unethical, for the exact reasons the World Bank points out.

Has anyone looked at the price of cheese lately? It's about doubled in the last five years, and it wasn't really all that cheap to start with. That, among lots of other things, is all tied to corn. How the hell can we grow delicious cheese-covered pizzas if the cheese is too expensive to farm with the pizza because of the corn scarcity?

Corpus Delecti:BTW, the type of corn typically used for Biofuel is NOT the kind that people eat. It's the kind cattle eat.

It's this kind of "just don't get it" argument that has allwed the Ehanol pipe dream to come this far.

It's not about taking corn away from the food chain, it's about TAKING ACRES AWAY FROM OTHER FOOD PRODUCTION and using them for fuel production! It's a stunningly ridiculous concept in a world with a finite food supply and a growing population.

As for your other "point", YES it ABSOLUTELY requires more energy to produce than it saves. By the time you run the tractors, power the farms, plant, irrigate, spray, harvest, process, ship and refine the stuff, it's absolutely a losing proposition.