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Corn Shortage Hampers US Ethanol Production

Posted by timothy on from the but-think-of-the-poor-candlemakers dept.

drdread66 writes "A nationwide corn shortage brought on by last year's drought has started to curtail ethanol production. While this shouldn't be surprising to anyone, it raises public policy issues regarding ethanol usage requirements in motor fuel. Given that the energy efficiency of ethanol fuel is questionable at best, is it time to lift the mandate for ethanol in our gasoline?"

8 of 419 comments (clear)

  1. Yes. by Richy_T · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Short answer: Yes.

    Long answer: No, it is, in fact, way past time.

    Next question?

  2. Ethanol from corn is height of stupidity by ickleberry · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Least efficient way of making the stuff. The tractors burn more diesel harvesting the stuff than the energy it will produce. Greenwashing at its finest. There are better ways of producing ethanol like from legitimate byproducts with the help of industrial waste heat but that's not what they're doing in the USA. Far too many people on the ethanol subsidy gravy train over there.

  3. Kill Corn Subsidies! by Bananatree3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Kill the corn subsidies, period. They prop up the house of cards that hold the corth ethanol and HFCS industries that would otherwise not exist because they can't survive in a real capital market.

    The sooner these tax-payer-subsidized industries get the rug pulled from under them, the sooner things like cellulosic ethanol and other *real* technological innovations can come to fruition.

    1. Re:Kill Corn Subsidies! by Bananatree3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      reduced to using real sugar

      My point exactly. Make the industry stand on its own two legs goddammit. The US Government has enough money leaks already. Sure HFCS prices will rise without subsidies, but that's capitalism for you. Once industries are faced with the *real* price of corn, sugar and ethanol alternatives will be sought out and maximized. A cheap or cheaper alternative will be found, that's innovation.

      Corn subsidies breed stagnation, not innovation.

    2. Re:Kill Corn Subsidies! by Bananatree3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Corn subsidies don't promote really food security, they prop up a food additive industry, fuel industry and the ranching industry. If subsidies were targeted at *only* corn that was meant for direct human consumption (not animal feed, HFCS, etc)....then maybe it might be possible to label it as a "food security" program. But when the majority of corn acreage is dedicated for animal feed or HFCS, or ethanol production, its much more than just a simple "food security" program...

  4. Not if you want to win votes in the farming states by Xenkar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Corn ethanol is and probably always will be a handout to the farming states. It takes more oil to grow the corn for ethanol than we save from blending ethanol into our engines.

    The rest of us are screwed over by this. It would be better for the economy and the environment to just calculate out how much profit the farmers are getting and just hand out yearly checks for that amount. But that would be socialism and we can't have any of that.

  5. Re:Who cares if we are hungry... by newcastlejon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Burning most fuels will produce water, even lowly methane. I suspect the parent was referring to the lower energy density of ethanol; it's about two thirds that of petrol.

    --
    If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
  6. Re:Who cares if we are hungry... by dbIII · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So do you really think it's a case of people freezing their arses off in Antarctica fudging numbers when they could be doing it at home where it's warm? You are obviously not that stupid, it's clear that you've been conned into not thinking about it deeply at all and like many others have just been distracted by the denier PR roadshow.