Its why food prices are jetting up... this sucks.. id rather have cheap food than gas.. and what happens if corps fail a year? go back to oil? wtF? yeah
Depends on the source of the bio fuel. Biodeisel grown from algae would be fine since the algae is not a food source. http://gas2.org/2008/03/29/first-algae-biodiesel-plant-goes-online-april-1-2008/ Ethanol from corn is just stupid.
I call BS!! Ethanol corn is very different from food corn. They are not competing except maybe for farmland. But that doesn't matter, BECAUSE OUR GOVT STILL PAYS FARMERS NOT TO GROW CROPS! The govt has protected farmers for many years by subsidizing the industry (billions $$$ a year) This is done to prevent overproduction and resultant too low prices putting farmers out of business.
yes, they are competing for farmland which is the problem, not semantics over types of corn. and the fact that our gov't DOES subsidize it is the problem.
Furthermore, the people that have come up with alt fuel sources get brought out or just plain shut down and put on a shelf and we have 78% of land we CAN drill on since like the 80's but prez and haliburton are sittin on and hardly no refineries to make use of if we did +we have 700million barrels of oil off shore some where. the USA Can be dependent upon the US without others but $$$ and speculators are drivin things waaay out of wack. the corn used for fuel is NOT the corn we eat. Farmers still have to plow fertlize and all that stuff and the tractors use DIESEL fuel! thats why the food is going up. corn crops are doin fine believe me I pass enough of em to know there is no shortage of corn
Brian and knhtrdr have it exactly right. The corn used for E85 is not food grade, it is feed grade corn. Not only that but it is used AFTER it has been distilled as feed still!! So not only does it produce E85, but it is then used again as feed (it's original destination) for farm animals. Besides that when wheat is used, it is also not food grade wheat, and after IT is used it becomes brewers wheat and can then be used for food by bakeries. This is just communist rhetoric to try to make sure the US is never independent of foreign oil...cause once we manage that, our economy will do MUCH better from bringing all that money sent over seas back into the United States.
http://www.nist.gov/oiaa/KarlSimon.pdf Again, the EPA study showing that it is cleaner and a better product over all. I read the silly BBC article, now read this one, seriously. And lets be honest, rising price of food is because of the rising cost of diesel fuel....everything in this country gets transported with diesel fuel...so what happens when diesel fuel goes from $2.29 a gallon to $4.89 a gallon...yeah food costs go up!! It's all just basic economics. Even the beer I sell and deliver is mostly delivered using diesel...and guess what, cost of diesel goes up, so does the beer. And that is just on a local level.
Moved per request. Its as good discussion, but not a technical discussion of Subaru engines or performance...
It was NOT about shortage of CORN, not talking about America. its bout long term sustainability and price. Fuel > food. Which would you grow? Thats what a lot of poor countries are doing instead of feeding the people. FTL.
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/04/21/biofuel-food-hunger.html http://alshaw.blogspot.com/2008/02/biofuels-bad-news-from-indonesia.html http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GlobalWarming/story?id=4257226&page=1 http://www.gii-exchange.org/blog/2007/07/biofuels_bad_news.html
That is a big assumption that they will grow on land intended for corn. The big thing is, a lot of these companies are buying new land and making new places to grow their fuel. This does nothing but help. What about the use of waste products from potato food manufacturing plants, what about using food bi-products from other industries? What about the use of algae in large algae growth plants that are developed solely for bio-fuels? I think you are ignoring a lot of questions and focusing solely on the corn. I agree with you in that corn is not the way to go in the future. There are many other better sources for ethanol than corn that are more cost effective and that do not compete with the food market. Not all land is suitable for growing corn!
The problem with that is farmers only have an x amount of land if i were them id use it for fuel instead of food. . ie more money. Its not about using ANY land. No one is talking about the U.S we have plenty of corn. Places like Latin America who already have problems with food... will now have more.. more forests burned for thsi stuff... more people going hungry because their making fuel out of farm land tht could be used to help raise food. .
The good part is that a lot of the new technologies for bio-fuels utilize the bi-products of farming waste...for instance the stalks from the grain that is never used. Farmers harvest the grain then the stalks are not used. Weeds that grow in land that is left fallow, waste from potato food processing plants, etc. Please do some reading. Sure there are some places that are utilizing corn that could be food, but the new technology makes the use of waste into fuel. I do not disagree with your basic concerns, but the good part is that there are new ways of doing things. This is about being more efficient with what we use. Not about taking farm land away to make fuel. There is more to it than that these days.