The ethanol conspiracy

[RedIbis]

Actually down Here I have plenty of oil, hope the price rises, although I am working on a bio fuel, using waste to grow earth worms and turning them into bio gas and bio diesel.
I am thinking about Huff and Puffing my oil soon, so that it will produce a good source of income, tons of Oil leases in Kentucky with 70 percent of he oil still in the ground.

Only 30 percent of an oil resource can be produced at the present time, Huff and Puff raises that to 60 percent total production, still leaving 40% that is unreachable.

Corn will never work sorghum cane is however a very efficient fuel, high sugar content.

PS. the reason I am experimenting with earth worms is they eat waste, do not need sunlight of fertilizers, and the resulting castings make good fertilizers. It is a win win situation.

Have you looked into algae? The yields as I understand it go like this:

soy 40 gallons of oil/acre
canola 140/acre
algae 10,000/acre

I am also making biodiesel, the old fashioned way, transesterification, courtesy of some of the better restaurants in town.

 

[bonkey]

At the risk of getting slapped silly here....

If there was a better fuel, we would use it. Please name a better fuel than gasoline, besides chocolate chip cookies, that you can market now?

Diesel.

Name a fuel denser in energy than gasoline.

Diesel.

Name a system for transportation better than gasoline.

I can't, but diesel is, to the best of my knowledge, equally good.

And when it comes to so-called renewable energies, I'd put my backing behind bio-diesel long before I'd back bio-ethanol.

How exactly does one enforce world-wide population control?

I'm sure this will rub someone up the wrong way...

Poverty and starvation.

 

[BenBurch]

...
I'm sure this will rub someone up the wrong way...

Poverty and starvation.

That's the *automatic* method. No way to stop that unless you find a more humane method and implement it FIRST.

 

[Alferd_Packer]

We here in America are trying to become energy independent by any means possible.

Energy independence is a Chimera. a false concept.

Energy markets are global.

 

[BenBurch]

Corn is at all-time highs today, BTW.

As are Soybeans.

 

[soylent]

Corn is at all-time highs today, BTW.

As are Soybeans.

Reckon it's time to stop feeding a large fraction of that corn and soy to cattle and start feeding it to people yet?

 

[defaultdotxbe]

Reckon it's time to stop feeding a large fraction of that corn and soy to cattle and start feeding it to people yet?

i think thats BB's point

personally i like steak with my corn

 

[BenBurch]

i think thats BB's point

personally i like steak with my corn

You're putting words in my mouth again.

Don't do that.

Meat is fine.

Its putting food into gas tanks I am objecting to.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Reckon it's time to stop feeding a large fraction of that corn and soy to cattle and start feeding it to people yet?

well, growing up in a country and feeds its sheep and cattle exclusively on grass (or grass products such as Hay) I'd say it's well past time.

 

[bonkey]

Meat is fine.

Its putting food into gas tanks I am objecting to.

I'm curious as to how you make that distinction, as its an issue that I've been mulling over recently.

Take an area of arable land. Grow some non-edible crop on it which can be turned into bio-fuel. Arguably, you're not putting food into gas tanks, so that should be fine.

Replace the non-edible crop with an edible crop, and its not fine? Why? You're using the land to the same effect, so surely the base objection is that against arable land-usage which is not going towards feeding people.

Taking that reasoning a bit further...lets say I use my arable land to grow grain, which I then feed to my cattle. You say this is fine. But, I could stop feeding cattle, and use the same amount of land to grow enough grain to feed the same mouths as the cattle, and use the rest for bio-fuels. Now, although I'm feeding the same number of mouths, things are apparently not fine any more, because I'm using arable land for a purpose other than feeding people.

Strange, eh?

It would seem that inefficient usage of arable land to produce calories is fine, but efficient use is only acceptable as long as we don't convert from inefficient-to-efficient and put the reaminder to an alternate use!

Of course, someone will take this reasoning to its conclusion, and determine that I would appear to be suggesting that the only acceptable use of land is the most efficient production of food possible. Of course, I don't accept that for a second. Sure, it would allow today's population to be fed, which in turn would allow it to grow, until we reach the point where the population hits a ceiling in terms of the numbers we can feed...at which point it will grow some more and attrition will come back into play. With a greater base population, the numbers affected by attrition will be larger.

By such a line of reasoning, it would seem that the whole "arable land for efficient food production" is only leading us to a situation where more people will ultimately suffer.

I would suggest that rather than arguing against the use of land for this purpose or that purpose, because it doesn't stave off the inevitable for a short period of time, we argue against the conditions that lead to the inevitable regardless of how the land is being used.

 

[BenBurch]

Because, ultimately, meat is self-limiting. It will become SO expensive that it just stops being a major sink of grain OR arable land. And do not forget that most range land is just not arable.

 

[bonkey]

Because, ultimately, meat is self-limiting.

Ultimately food is self-limiting, as indeed are bio-fuels.

And do not forget that most range land is just not arable.

You commented that corn and soybeans were at an all time high.
Soylent commented that this means its time to stop putting a large proportion of that corn and soy into meat production.
defaultdotxbe suggested that this was your point - and you disagreed, saying that meat is fine.

Lets be clear - you objected to someone suggesting that you are against corn and soy being used to feed animals. Turning the argument now to range-fed meat is disingenuous.

From your objection to "words being put in your mouth" and your rejoinder that "meat is fine", the only logical conclusions are that you either didn't understand that when they were talking about the use of corn and grain they were talking about the use of corn and grain or you have no issue with that use.

I find the former option hard to credit, but I'm open to correction on that. Assuming, for now, that you meant your defence of meat in relation to the point it was posted in response to...then my argument still holds.

If you have no issue with this use of corn and grain, then you have no issue with land being used for purposes other than feeding as many people as possible. No matter how spin it, you are justifying the use of land to supply luxuries to those who can afford it, rather than food to those who need it. At the same time, you object to that luxury being bio-fuel, apparently because its supplying luxuries to those who can afford it, rather than food to those who need it.

Thats hardly a balanced view. It would suggest that you have a seperate reason for disliking bio-fuel, and/or a seperate reason for liking the use of corn and soy as animal-feed.

 

[WildCat]

Thats hardly a balanced view. It would suggest that you have a seperate reason for disliking bio-fuel, and/or a seperate reason for liking the use of corn and soy as animal-feed.

Not to put words in Ben's mouth, but for me it's the fact that I like meat and ethanol from corn hasn't been proven to be worthwhile from an energy in-energy out analysis. So no, I have no intention of giving up meat solely so farmers can rake in more agricultural pork subsidies in the guise of energy policy.

 

[defaultdotxbe]

Not to put words in Ben's mouth, but for me it's the fact that I like meat and ethanol from corn hasn't been proven to be worthwhile from an energy in-energy out analysis. So no, I have no intention of giving up meat solely so farmers can rake in more agricultural pork subsidies in the guise of energy policy.

so as not to put words in bens mouth im going to quote him directly

Possibly, except for the objection that human food from arable land is being diverted to fuel. We are on the verge of a world-wide food shortage owing to the complete lack of political will to enforce population control.

(bolding mine)

Nope.

We are very near the carrying capacity of the planet.

<snip>

if this is the case i dont see how he can support feeding animals with food that can be given to people (of course referring to the corn and soy fed livestock soylent brought up, not the range fed animals ben chose to mention)

 

[Panhead56]

Ethanol from sugar cane is a very viable and live concept in some parts in the world. At present approximate 40% of fuel for light vehicles in Brazil (20% for the transport sector as whole) is made from homegrown sugarcane. Sugarcane beeing way more efficient as source for ethanol as the none usable parts of the plant are used as fuel supplying heat for the production process. I couldn't find the percentage of arrable land used, but I believe it is a minor part compared to whats left for food production.
Here were I live, in Norway, there is a move to use "waste" from the forrest industry for ethanol production. Meaning twigs and cut-of that at present is left rotting in the forrest.
So there exsists several methods for making ethanol that does not threathen food-production.

 

[WildCat]

Ethanol from sugar cane is a very viable and live concept in some parts in the world. At present approximate 40% of fuel for light vehicles in Brazil (20% for the transport sector as whole) is made from homegrown sugarcane.

How long can Brazil sustain their sugarcane production? The soil in Brazil is generally poor, and lasts only a few years before either large amounts of fertilizers are necessary or more rain forest has to be burned away to make more farmland.

And the number of automobiles in Brazil, both in raw numbers and per capita, is miniscule compared to the US.

 

[BenBurch]

... if this is the case i dont see how he can support feeding animals with food that can be given to people (of course referring to the corn and soy fed livestock soylent brought up, not the range fed animals ben chose to mention)

Because I think the cost will push all meat production to range land very soon, with corn being fed only on the trip to the slaughterhouse.

 

[notheist]

I am amazed no one mentions the "N" word.

Electric cars plugged in the grid powered by modern nuclear power. This country has been paying for a pop culture "No Nukes" fad of the late 70s.

 

[WildCat]

I am amazed no one mentions the "N" word.

Electric cars plugged in the grid powered by modern nuclear power. This country has been paying for a pop culture "No Nukes" fad of the late 70s.

I'm for nukes from sea to shining sea.

 

[bonkey]

Not to put words in Ben's mouth, but for me it's the fact that I like meat and ethanol from corn hasn't been proven to be worthwhile from an energy in-energy out analysis. So no, I have no intention of giving up meat solely so farmers can rake in more agricultural pork subsidies in the guise of energy policy.

I agree that ethanol from corn isn't particularly worthwhile, which is why I've tried to refer to the usage of arable land to produce bio-fuel, rather than specifically the use of corn to produce bio-ethanol.

That aside, I would point out that farmers are businessmen. If someone is willing to pay them more hard, cold cash to turn their corn into ethanol then to turn it into beef...then they would - quite frankly - be stupid to turn that down.

Its not a case that you or I should give up beef so that they can produce ethanol. Its a case that you and I should realise that neither of these options are the "optimal" use of land from a humanitarian point of view, and have to decide which we're williing to pay for.

Where I live (Switzerland), beef is horrific in price in comparison to (say) the US. If everyone were paying what I pay for beef, I can pretty-much assure you that no sane farmer anywhere would even think about producing ethanol from corn.

I'm the first to agree that the government should be subsidising the use of arable of land to produce bio-fuels, but equally, I don't believe they shoudl be subsidising the feeding of livestock.

If you're willing to pay enough for your beef to make it more worthwhiloe for enough farmers to continue to use their land to provide foodstuff for beef (or chicken, or whatever), then you shouldn't have to give up anything.

The point I was - and am - making is that I believe it is hypocritical to argue that land is better used to provide the privileged with one luxury over another based on an argument about the needs of the less privileged, which is effectively what Ben was arguing....that we shouldn't grow biofuel because of the starving millions, but corn-for-beef-for-the-wealthy was ok.