Friday, April 25, 2008

Yea...this is ONE of the reasons why ethanol is NOT a viable solution!

Food Crisis Starts Eclipsing Climate Change Worries
Gore Ducks, as a Backlash Builds Against Biofuels
By JOSH GERSTEIN, Staff Reporter of the Sun April 25, 2008

The campaign against climate change could be set back by the global food crisis, as foreign populations turn against measures to use foodstuffs as substitutes for fossil fuels.

With prices for rice, wheat, and corn soaring, food-related unrest has broken out in places such as Haiti, Indonesia, and Afghanistan. Several countries have blocked the export of grain. There is even talk that governments could fall if they cannot bring food costs down.

One factor being blamed for the price hikes is the use of government subsidies to promote the use of corn for ethanol production. An estimated 30% of America’s corn crop now goes to fuel, not food.

“I don’t think anybody knows precisely how much ethanol contributes to the run-up in food prices, but the contribution is clearly substantial,” a professor of applied economics and law at the University of Minnesota, C. Ford Runge, said. A study by a Washington think tank, the International Food Policy Research Institute, indicated that between a quarter and a third of the recent hike in commodities prices is attributable to biofuels.

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I have been saying it for a few years now...there is currently no true viable alternative to oil. There are so many issues with ethanol its insane to even consider it an option!

  • First off, it takes more energy and water to convent the corn into ethanol than is actually produced in the final product
  • Then there is the problem of mass transportation of...it can't be transported in trucks or pipes, increasing shipping costs
  • Due to the complicated process of production, ethanol actually increases prices at the pump
  • You can't go as far on a tank of ethanol as you can a tank of gas
  • The cost of corn has increased...and we are seeing less and less of corn fed beef, corn tortillas, corn oil, etc, etc.
  • At the same time, because so much corn is now being harvested for ethanol...we have fewer and fewer acres of forest
  • And the biggest outrage is that billions of tax dollars are being spent on ethanol subsides!

Isn't it about time we actually put a stop to some of the maddness and actually start thinking practically about the best solution?? We should be demaning drilling offshore and in ANWR, the building of more refineries and the deregulation of EPA standards (at least let's make ONE Federal standard, instead of taxing the overworked refineries further by allowing each state to demand their "own" grade of gasoline!)

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