When will it be ALL GONE?

[Allch Chcar]

Originally Posted by suspectnumber961

So big ag profits from ethanol which reduces mpg and drives up food costs worldwide causing political unstability...uses more energy than needed in producing food....poisons us unnecessarily with GMOs and pesticides? What's not to like?

Way to sensationalize half truths(the price of Petrol increased dramatically before food prices did) and minutia(less MPG is due to less BTU per gallon). I make a point about the cost of raw commodities in food prices vs energy costs and you go on to talk about farming practices while repeating overused buzzwords and shock comments...

[NeilBlanchard]

Corn ethanol probably takes more energy to make than it produces. That's why it is a lousy thing to do. GMO's are just a way for Monsanto et al to reap profits.

[Allch Chcar]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Corn ethanol probably takes more energy to make than it produces. That's why it is a lousy thing to do. GMO's are just a way for Monsanto et al to reap profits.

Everything takes more energy to make than it produces, Neil. It's called efficiency, and it's an unfortunate fact of life. What is important to us is how much fossil energy it takes or simply how expensive it is to produce. Right now Corn Ethanol produces 2.5 BTUs for every 1 BTU of fossil energy, based on a survey by the USDA. Plenty of room for improvement or we could start using a more efficient feedstock. Right now supply is low from the drought but demand was maxed out before the drought and we were exporting Ethanol in huge quantities, over 1 billion gallons.

Some resources: Note that Corn Ethanol actually takes more total energy to produce but far less of it is Fossil based compared to Gasoline with very little being Petroleum based(mostly diesel I would hazard to guess).

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehicles...hure_color.pdf

Argonne GREET Sample Results

[niky]

Originally Posted by Allch Chcar

Way to sensationalize half truths(the price of Petrol increased dramatically before food prices did) and minutia(less MPG is due to less BTU per gallon). I make a point about the cost of raw commodities in food prices vs energy costs and you go on to talk about farming practices while repeating overused buzzwords and shock comments...

You're talking to a brick wall. He doesn't respond to any refutations of the alarmist, half-baked half-truths he reposts.

And sugarcane for the win. At 5:1, which, though not great, is loads better than corn.

[Allch Chcar]

Originally Posted by niky

You're talking to a brick wall. He doesn't respond to any refutations of the alarmist, half-baked half-truths he reposts.

And sugarcane for the win. At 5:1, which, though not great, is loads better than corn.

I know, I know.

Also, yes about sugarcane using even less Fossil fuel. I find it ironic that high sugar prices and bad weather meant that Brazil was importing large amounts of US Ethanol recently.

[suspectnumber961]

And what was increasing as food and oil prices went up? Human population and that populations demand for both....

Many complex interactions....also complex causative factors?

Since humans use fuels and foods....and want to use MORE per capita....they are the DRIVER?

We have Milton Friedman to blame for our woes...him and the Pope?

Originally Posted by niky

You're talking to a brick wall. He doesn't respond to any refutations of the alarmist, half-baked half-truths he reposts.

And sugarcane for the win. At 5:1, which, though not great, is loads better than corn.

[niky]

The Pope, most certainly, does his best to convince the world that condoms are the root of all evil, and that the admonition to "go forth and multiply" was meant in an exponential fashion.

Food and oil prices rise for the same reason anything does. Speculation. Wild speculation. Western economics has exposed bankers the world over to the joys of financial speculation. That oil hit $40 during the crash of 08 didn't mean oil suddenly became 60% cheaper to make. Just that gambling in oil futures had taken a nosedive. Let's not forget. Those same idiots who gambled on real estate and oil also did the same with food futures.

Of course, biofuel has an effect on prices, but not as big as the absurd demand for beef from a rapidly expanding middle class, shortfalls in production due to fickle weather and the trillions of former oil dollars circulating like swarms of starving seagulls, looking for a safe haven from inflation.

And still... it'd be interesting reading as to how GMOs tie in to any of this. (bearing in mind that we've been genetically modifying wheat, grain and other crops for millenia... just in a more indirect manner... I don't think bananas will ever be the same.)

[suspectnumber961]

Originally Posted by niky

And still... it'd be interesting reading as to how GMOs tie in to any of this. (bearing in mind that we've been genetically modifying wheat, grain and other crops for millenia... just in a more indirect manner... I don't think bananas will ever be the same.)

GMOs probably tie in with the "no till" method of farming (to reduce diesel use?) and the use of herbicide resistant crops...or crops with built-in pesticides? Reduces fuel use....but can also be done with regular hybrid seeds.

While ethanol keeps some $ circulating in the US economy instead of sending them directly overseas?

The difference with GMOs and the older hybrids is that some seeds could be saved and replanted next year...while with GMOs Monsanto and others have patented the seeds and some are designed to be sterile...will not grow...can't be saved. In India this has driven many farmers to suicide as they go into debt.

Try GMOs...you'll like them? You'd better....they are very hard to avoid.

See the pics...and remember a mouse lives maybe 2 yrs...you might have lived maybe to 78 or so before GMOs? GMOs have been in use for around 10 yrs? So maybe after you've eaten GMOs up to age 10 or so (90 day equivalent?) you might start to see some lumps?

Shock findings in new GMO study: Rats fed lifetime of GM corn grow horrifying tumors, 70% of females die early

What does this have to do with energy use? GMOs reduce the population?

[niky]

So a study finds out that rats exposed to fertilizers suffered tumors, and rats fed exclusively on corn LACED WITH THE SAME fertilizers suffered tumors, but not as much as rats who drank the fertilizer straight? And that rats who drank no fertilizer and ate no GMO corn suffered a premature death rate of around 20-30%?

Am I missing something here? Color me stupid, but I thought that study controls were supposed to isolate all elements being studied thoroughly?

All I see is a study proving that RoundUp fertilizer is carcinogenic. Shocking, yes. But it tells me nothing about GMOs, nothing about what particular genes were modified, what effects the modification had on the modified organisms and what inherent qualities or chemicals the modified organisms possessed that would cause cancer.

Aside from the fertilizer, of course.

That's the problem with reading something with the idea of proving a case, you miss the bigger picture. Thankfully, more sober news agencies are calling it as it is... RoundUp is possibly carcinogenic. Not the plants.

And after all that, we will have to examine what it is in non-GMO corn that causes a 20-30% premature mortality rate in rats.

---

This is not to say that Monsato isn't an abusive, bloodsucking corporate agricultural monopolist with no conscience... But the study strikes me as almost as flawed as a recent one that pointed out diet softdrinks are linked to higher incidences of heart problems versus fruit juice. Only admitting, in the fine print, that most of the fruit juice respondents were vegetarians, while most of the softdrink drinkers ate lots and lots of red meat. Whoops.

[NeilBlanchard]

Switchgrass ethanol or sugarcane ethanol take less energy than they produce. Oil and natural gas take less energy to get than they produce. All renewable energy sources take less energy than they produce.

Corn ethanol is a net energy loss, so why are we using it? And the *real* costs of oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear power are far higher than what we "pay" for them with money.

On the agricultural issue -- which will we run out of first: water, soil, phosphorus, or natural gas? When will we fish all the edible species into oblivion? When will the ocean become so acidic that plankton and shellfish can't form their shells? When will the Greenland ice sheet melt enough to raise the ocean level another 2 feet? When will it be 20 feet higher?