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Originally Posted by Allch Chcar
A partial increase of Oil is larger than a doubling of Corn prices. Oil prices > Corn Prices for food.
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I appreciate that you include some figures, but they are not an apples/apples comparison. Subsidies aside, I understand that petroleum derived fuel is cheaper than ethanol derived fuel on a BTU to BTU basis.
Since we are talking about energy sources to propel vehicles, it only makes sense to talk in terms of actual cost to produce x amount of energy. From what I've read, it takes a lot of petroleum energy to produce the biofuel. In fact, I have heard that we expend many times more energy (in the form of petroleum) on growing crops than we receive back from the crops themselves.
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Corn Ethanol has been proven to reduce Carbon emissions by 20%, source DOE. It also reduce Petrol imports by 2/3 DOE. That is imports not Petrol consumption.
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Meaning we import 1/3 of oil required to produce the ethanol?
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I spent quite a bit of time looking for the actual US subsidy figures but eventually ended up on AlJazeara  before I gave up...
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We need transparency in our government. Subsidy information should be readily available online by the public, along with all the other gov't expenditures. It's our money, why can't we have oversight on how it's spent? Wasn't Obama supposed to deliver this?
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I don't know if the industry has matured enough to be profitable in our current market, I'm not an insider, but they're still in business and the bulk of the current industry is post 2001.
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Ethanol as a fuel source should not have to be subsidized, mandated, and propagandized to make it in the market. If ethanol is truly cheaper per BTU than other fuel sources, then you won't be able to stop consumers from demanding it.
I don't believe ethanol will ever displace a large percentage of petroleum. My money is on batteries and rising fuel prices.