SeniorJunior

Food and Fuel Should Not be in Competition OK, you know where I stand. Corn is not a very good feedstock for making ethanol. There is still a net negative energy exchange in manufacturing ethanol from Corn. Sugar cane and sugar beets are a lot better and they have a net positive energy balance. Look it up . And, weirdly, the whole grow-convert-use corn ethanol cycle is as bad for the environment as gasoline use. But the worst thing in the corn/ethanol equation is that corn is an important food . It's in hundreds of things we eat. Whole food chains are dependent on corn. The meat industry, including chickens, requires a lot of corn. Not only beef cattle, but dairy cows need corn. Corn being diverted to our new passion for ethanol (said passion involving a federal subsidy) is already raising food costs all over. Check out this rant . And it's worse than just higher prices in our supermarkets. It will likely mean starvation for those on the low end of the money pole. By our corn-c...

Here’s another of my fav issues, the stupidity of the ethanol craze. This from the Christian Science Monitor , one of my favorite newspapers. ATLANTA and BOSTON - A gallon of milk in Birmingham, Ala., is expected to cost $4.50 this summer, perhaps more. At Wetzel's Market in Glen Rock, Pa., the New York strip steaks that were on sale for $4.99 a pound last Fourth of July will be $6.99 this year. In Boston, some shoppers report checkout prices on certain items that are 30 percent higher now than last summer. "Prices are incredible," says Suzanna Wyman, shopping Monday at Shaw's Supermarket in Boston's Back Bay. "Milk, I heard, is going up even more.... I love fresh peppers and vegetables, but they're too much. Cereal is very expensive compared to what you used to be able to get it for." The reason people are smarting: Inflation in grocery aisles is up by more in the first six months of 2007 than in all of 2006. That means food co...

Not the NYTimes or the LATimes, THE times... The whole world is upset about the rising cost of food. And part of the problem is definitely diverting some food into fuel. As in ethanol. Brazilians turn sugar cane into ethanol. Americans turn corn into it. [Ok, it's sort of self serving, but...] This blogster has been grumping about this nonsense for nearly two years. So why didn't Congress, the Department of Agriculture and Keith Olberman jump right on this when they had the chance... TWO YEARS AGO? I try, I try... Lord knows I try. For your reminiscing pleasure: " Ethanol, Schmethanol " June '06 " Starvation " April '07 " Food Prices Rocket " June '07 " Another Shot at Ethanol " July '07 " Deadly Brew " January '08 "Will starve for Ethanol" January '08 When the tortillas went out of reach for Mexicans, we should have known that corn ethanol was a really stupid idea. This stuff is to EAT!

Fool Me Once….. [Excerpts from a NYTimes.com article , interspersed with mild mannered commentary .] Agriculture Secretary Edward T. Schafer is preparing to walk into a buzz saw of criticism over American biofuels policy when he meets with world leaders to discuss the global food crisis next week. He’s carrying the Big Bush Talking Point, “Golly, ethanol from corn is only making a tiny difference in the price of food around the world.” See, the ethanol mandates and subsidies are just terrific for BS (Bush Supporters) in Big Ag, like Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Tyson and lots of millionaire big farmers. So the Bushies are going to fight hard against this new awareness that corn is a really bad feedstock for ethanol in terms of cost, climate benefits and unintended consequences. So… Mr. Schafer took the offensive at a press conference on Thursday that discussed the food summit, planned for Rome. He said an analysis by the Agriculture Department had dete...

Starvation by Biofuels Ah, the absolute certainty of the Law of Unintended Consequences. In a nutshell: Food prices are rising because – surprise! – the demand for corn, soy and sugarcane/beets to make ethanol and biodiesel is driving up the cost of these basic food commodities. Quoting from The Wall Street Journal (my favorite newspaper): http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117608539258763747.html?mod=world_news_whats_news Soaring prices for farm goods, driven in part by demand for crop-based fuels, are pushing up the price of food world-wide and unleashing a new source of inflationary pressure. The rise in food prices is already causing distress among consumers in some parts of the world -- especially relatively poor nations like India and China. If the trend gathers momentum, it could contribute to slower global growth by forcing consumers to spend less on other items or spurring central banks to fight inflation by raising interest rates. …And, on the more human side:...

More " Ethanol, Schmethanol " Video fans... Here's a powerful little documentary on the human price of ethanol. Look down the list of vids on this site and prepare to have your soul rocked. I don't like the idea of Bloomberg running for prez as an Indy... But I like his website and his news channel. Both are straight-ahead, no hype and competent.

Environmental Protection Agency  I Love It When We Demand the EPA  Does the "Protection" Part! 40% of ALL CORN grown in the USA is for ethanol!! And since this corn "is not food," MUCH more pesticide and herbicide is allowed, which of course washes off into creeks, rivers and on into the Gulf of Mexico PUMPING UP THE DEAD ZONE. Oxygen starvation is really tough to take,  even if you are not already endangered. [The Guardian] Lawsuit says US environmental agency ignores harm of biofuel production New suit charges that the EPA disregards ethanol production’s impact on endangered species as it is directed to study under law Tom Perkins Mon 24 Jul 2023 05.30 EDT The US biofuel program is probably killing endangered species and harming the environment in a way that negates its benefits, but the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is largely ignoring those problems, a new federal  lawsuit  charges. The suit alleges the EPA failed to consider impacts on endangere...

Darn it! Ethanol, whether from corn, switchgrass or sugar beets/cane, really isn’t the magic bullet that will slay the dragon of our petroleum addiction. Neither is biomass fuel the magic wand that will poof! away our dependence on fossil and atomic fuels electrical generation. (Check out the wonderful dialogue of the learned in the “Letters” section of the 23 June ’06 Science Magazine. www.sciencemag.org [subscription’]) Of course there are no magic bullets/wands lying around these days anyway, except among Harry Potter and his ilk. The thing is, we shouldn’t get discouraged when our latest magic gets debunked. Ethanol, biomass, wind power, photovoltaics, geothermal, wave power, etc. have all had their moments in the “magic” circle. The genuine wizards recognize that the potent magic will come from the agglomerated minor miracles of the various “alternative” energy techniques. We (my learned wife and I) are on the verge of trying one of these minor alter...

We Are Smarter Than That! A friend sent me a fascinating PowerPoint presentation on how gas will probably hit $11 a gallon before too long. (It's from Mathew Simmons' Energy Investment Bank. ) I like it! Plus I'm dreadfully afraid it's true. So then after gasoline hits $11/gallon and natural gas $25 per MMBTU, water will go up, food following in lockstep. Minimum basic food will be entirely too expensive for a billion people to buy. So they will starve. Seriously, starve to death. Billion; that's a thousand millions. Puts earthquakes and Cyclones to shame. I liked the PowerPoint presentation, and I think that Simmons Energy is right. They point out that this is not all bad. The good side effect is declining hydrocarbon use - good for the climate. Still it's a painful way to get there. Well designed, fairly enforced government incentive programs for lower energy use might do the same thing without driving so many individuals and companies to ruin - ...

... Or "Who's more important, corn farmers or the rest of us?" Now that it is perfectly clear that using food (corn in our case) to make fuel doesn't do anything good it was supposed to do, you would think Congress would hustle to undo the damage it is doing. Do you suppose? It's not helping the environment, it is hurting it. It's not freeing us from our dependence on foreign oil. It is contributing to the scarcity of and the rising prices for food. It is making big, rich agribiz companies even richer and making small farmers even poorer . It's forcing people with reservations about genetically modified food to throw in the towel because of desperate hunger . It is eating up tax dollars that could be doing a lot more good elsewhere. Well, Congress (no use even talking to the Bushies ), there you have it. Time to undo the damage done by wrong assumptions and too-quick response to lobbyists, no? Kill those ethano...

An article in yesterday's (6.25.07) Wall Street Journal (my favorite newspaper) suddenly jelled with several other things I have read in the last few days. The Headline: French Firm Vaults Ahead In Civilian Rocket Market . There was a launch last month of Arianspace's Arian 5 from France's spaceport in French Guiana. The Administrator of NASA - our guy Michael Griffin - was there and is quoted as saying the huge (20 stories tall) Ariane 5 is "probably the best in the world, very smooth and very impressive." ArianeSpace has "powered past" Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Tellingly, our guys "scoffed" at some of ArianeSpace's technology until they saw it work. That's one. That clicked with another story out today (6.26.07) about China taking a big step toward finishing the "longest sea bridge in the world." It's over 22 miles long and also has " the longest cable-stayed structure of its kind" as the center piece. T...

A touch of Latin American Socialism… kinda like Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, if you will, is looking good these days. Brazil has been on a tear to stamp out hunger. The Christian Science Monitor has a progress report in yesterday’s online edition. I like Brazil for several reasons, so much so that I even invest a bit in them as a promising “emerging market.” I like the fact that they have done a lot to utilize ethanol without the kind of huge subsidies we give here in the U.S. I like their growth rate and sensible (for Latin America) business policies. Of course, there’s a lot not to like, but hey… One of the things I don’t like is their poverty level. So here’s the good news (excerpted from the CSM). Brazil is the world's fourth-largest food exporter, but more than 40 million Brazilians - a quarter of the population - lived below the poverty line, prompting President Lula da Silva to vow (in 2003) to stamp out hunger by December 2006. This June, the g...