Do you still believe in the use of corn-based ethanol when you know it's taking food out of people's mouths?

Question

And the fact that so little is produced each year that it hardly makes a difference in the pollution levels? And I'm not arguing that more corn should be grown for use in our cars.

Answer 1

Speculators have driven the cost of corn up,as they are being paid by the oil companies.

Can't anyone see the truth.

Answer 2

The fact is, they don't use the sweet corn humans consume, but the yellow corn that is usually fed to livestock. They've taken a lot of sweet corn acreage out of production to grow the heavily subsidized yellow corn for ethanol so arguing it's not the kind we eat is misleading.

The amount of CO2 released in producing one gallon of ethanol from corn exceeds what a gallon of gasoline produces, it takes more ethanol to run your car than an equivalent amount of gasoline since it's energy density is less, and it has led to speculator's driving up the price since they're not sure how this will effect the market in the long-term.

The stupidest thing we can do is to continue making ethanol from corn when there are many far more efficient crops that we could use. Sugar cane (like Brazil uses), switchgrass or a new strain of algae produce far more ethanol per acre and in the case of switchgrass and algae, they don't tie up prime farmland that we can use to grow food. Algae can produce 6,000 gallons of ethanol per acre compared to 328 gallons for corn. Since it is incredibly stupid to use corn, I expect that's what we'll do until we kick out the current crop of idiots in Congress and put in fresh faces.

It may not be wise to use ethanol at all until we convert cars to run on a higher concentration since at low concentrations of 90/10 or 85/15 it creates a health hazard from ozone formation. It cuts down on particulate pollution and if we used a more efficient crop to produce it, overall it would be a good transitional fuel until we have electric cars widely available and new battery technology.

Answer 3

I think the corn is used for livestock. It's the livestock that contributes to the pollution.

Answer 4

I never did believe in using corn-based ethanol. Its a poor choice that won't help us get out of this energy crunch.

Answer 5

Absolutely not!! Ethanol is the result of people like Dingy Harry (S) Nev. and Pelosie (D) Ca. who have blocked every energy policy since they got in office. The environmental wackos like Al Gore have blocked every attempt to break our dependence on foreign oil.  New drilling? NO! Windmills (Ted Kennedy D MA) NO! Nuclear? NO! Not in my back yard! Solar, hey great. Should be ready by the time my kids have grandkids!

So the Democrats are basically against anything that can help our nations current energy needs, with one excuse or another. And Obama wants $12 a gallon gas so we will wean ourselves off of oil.  Wonderful.

So because of the wacos in congress we have a product (ethanol) that is poised to wreck the entire worlds economy. Anyone ready for congressional term limits yet?

Answer 6

I have always been against  corn-based ethanol. Corn is a food stock not a fuel stock. If one wanted to use a non-food stock like switch grass that can be grown in non-food farmland, I would be more apt to support it.

Bio-diesel produced from used cooking oil is a better alternative.

Answer 7

I've yet to hear of ANY food grade corn being used to produce ethanol. All reports I've read show that it's feed corn being used.

Answer 8

Not to mention that Corn based ethanol actually results in higher CO2 emissions than getting the oil out of the ground.

Corn based ethanol was always a bit shaky but with food problems and the fact that it doesn't help the environment it is unconscionable to continue to provide subsidies for growing it (it'd be cheaper to just give the farmers the money than paying them to grow it).

Answer 9

it ridiculous to subsidize farmers to grow corn, but americans have become too dependent on corn, corn syrup, candy corns, candy canes, sugar cane, sugar daddys, .... Less corn dependence is a good thing. Read The Omnivore's Dilemma if you want to think about it more

in the end, everyone will have to pay more in order to be more environmentally concious. maybe this is the way to do it.

Answer 10

i don't use it and probably never would. i wil be buying a car that is electric when i get the money.

Answer 11

The rationale here would be that any practise that takes food off the market should be stopped?

We know that livestock feeding removes a lot of food from the market, even as it does return some food to it. We know that land banking removes food from the market. And we know that low food prices tends to take food off the market even though very large crops that swamp the market also lower prices.

Any market strategy that diverts food to some other purpose and so keeps food prices higher than they would have been  tends to ensure there will be production of food.

But this only works well if the food diverted is really good food that can be diverted back to people as and when needed. Corn and sugar cane are not really great food for people. So we need an alternate diversion scheme.