write your congress-critter - increased ethanol in gasoline

dsi1 > wrote in
:


>
> We use a 10% or so mix in our gas. The dumb thing is that we have to
> ship the stuff here to Hawaii to do it. It's nutty but somebody must
> be getting some dough for this crazy caper.



And you get just one guess as to which "somebody" is /supplying/ the
"dough". Bonus points for guessing who that "somebody" got their "dough"
from.



--
Tegger

On 06/25/2010 10:38 AM, C. E. White wrote:
> "jim > wrote in message
> ...
>> On 06/21/2010 12:53 PM, C. E. White wrote:
>>> A few counterpoints:
>>>
>>> 1)Ethanol has value as an oxygenate that helps lower HC emmisions. I'd
>>> rather they use ethanol for this purpose instead of MBTE.
>>
>> it increases the "oxygen content" of exhaust, simply because there is
>> oxygen in an ethanol molecule. but that oxygen doesn't help combustion
>> because it's already chemically combined.
>
> OK. I buy that, but if the choice is MBTE or ethanol, I'd rather have
> ethanol. If the choice also includes neither, I am for that.

as consumers, our best option is neither. with modern catalyzed
refineries, there is no need to use additives like this to make the fuel
usable and burn cleanly. but production would favor those with more
modern plant, and those who have bothered with investing in their
infrastructure. and of course, those who haven't just pick up the phone
and complaint to "their" representatives.

but it's a perverse equation. our local pbs station had an article
about mtbe additives and how our then governor was the first to mandate
its use in california gasoline. the gist of it was that one of the
oilcos had a refinery process that produced a lot more mtbe than they
were using, and rather than just flash it off as was their previous
practice, they persuaded wilson that it was an "oxygenate" and thus the
mandate was born that would use their otherwise waste product. and all
the other refiners had suddenly to come to this oilco and pay extortion
prices for their newly mandated mtbe supplies until they had their own
production figured out. oh, and this governor's wife just heppened to
be on the board of this oilco at the time. strange coincidence.

now, having discovered the sales benefits of using what the oil industry
itself has referred to as "volumizers" like mtbe and ethanol, they're
all over it. especially if they can get the taxpayer to cough up to pay
for them to use it!!! so ethanol it is. and they'll say whatever
bull**** they need to say to keep selling it to the ignorati, which
includes most politicians, about "clean burning" and "oxygenation".

it's a total scam.


>
>>> 2) While the sort of corn used to make ethanol is food, it is mostly food
>>> for livestock. And after you use it to make ethanol, the stuff left over
>>> is
>>> actually still usable as high protein animal feed, so the loss to the
>>> food
>>> chain is much much less than the anti-ethanol people claim.
>>
>> isn't livestock classified as "food"? feeding corn to cattle makes a
>> damned sight more sense than burning it. especially when that corn
>> consumes more energy during cultivation and processing than it yields in
>> energy output.
>
> See references further below regarding the "energy balance." And of course
> there is a whole different discussion rearding the use of corn to feed
> animals, instead of using corn (or other crop grown instead of corn) to feed
> people directly. I raise around 50 head of cattle. I don't feed them any
> corn at all. They eat grass, with limited quantities of oats and stored hay
> as a winter supplement. But most Americans prefer beef with high fat contnet
> and that means "grain fed" beef. Think how many Mexicans we could feed if we
> stopped diverting all that corn to cattle, hogs, and chickens. BTW, chicken
> crap makes an excellent high ntrogen fertilizer, you just have to worry
> about heavy metal contamination....
>
>>> 3) Even the most pessimistic energy balances show a net positive energy
>>> gain
>>> from using corn based ethanol
>>
>> only if you ignore the input energy of the herbicides, pesticides,
>> fertilizers, processing and distribution...
>>
>>
>>> and they ignore the feed value of the left
>>> over mash.
>>
>> so feed it /all/ to cattle and get more food! duh.
>>
>>
>>> The energy balance is actually much better than the anti-ethanol
>>> crowd claims.
>>
>> show your numbers ed.
>
> http://www.carbohydrateeconomy.org/l...Gallon_.htm l
> http://journeytoforever.org/ethanol_energy.html
>
> I can't speak for all the experts out there. But for me.....I raise about
> 120 acres of corn per year. Each acre requires about 0.6 hours of "tractor
> time" (tilling / planting). This burns about 4 gallons of diesel fuel. I use
> around 120 lbs of nitrogen fertilizer which is primarily made from natural
> gas (for sake of arguement, say this is equivalent to another 12 gallons of
> diesel fuel). Throw in another gallon for harvesting, another for
> transporting the corn, and another for the pesticides, and say I am using 18
> to 20 gallons of diesel fuel to make 150 bushels of corn (9,000 lbs). This
> corn can make around 300 to 400 gallons of ethanol plus around 3,000 lbs of
> high protein animal feed. I have no idea how much energy is used to distill
> the ethanol, but I cannot imagine it is equivalent to the energy content to
> the 300+ gallons of ethanol produced.

http://www.c4aqe.org/Economics_of_Et...hanol.2005.pdf

typically, "positive" energy balance numbers, seem to selectively omit
elements of the energy equation. and are published by vested interests.
these two factors are not unrelated!


>
>>> 4) The price for number 2 yellow corn (the corn used to make ethanol) is
>>> at
>>> a historically low level. So clearly the use of corn for ethanol is not
>>> effecting food prices.
>>
>> er, actually ed, while they're not at their 2008 craziness levels, corn
>> prices are still well above historic trends.
>
> Not if you adjust for inflation. In fact my Father was getting about the
> same per bushel in the 70's as I was getting for the last few years if you
> ignore the "crazy" prices in 2008. I contend that the only thing crazy about
> current corn prices is how low they are when adjusted for inflation.
> Historically high prices would have been in 1918, 1947, 1951, 1974, and
> maybe 1980 and 1995. Average prices in 2008 ($4.06 in 2008 dollars) were
> actually low when adjusted for inflation.
>
>> http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/CN/M
>
> You need to look at a chart of actual averge prices paid, not peak
> speculator prices. Not many farmer got that $6.25 peak shown. Let me ask you
> this...would you rather have $3.80 per bushel in 1973 dollars (
> http://futures.tradingcharts.com/his...inewchart.html ) or
> $6.25 in 2008 dollars? According to the government, $6.25 in 2008 would be
> equivalent to $1.29 in 1973. My Father was getting over $3 for corn in 1973.
> And actual average corn prices in 2008 were only a little over $4 ($0.82 in
> 1973 dollars).
>
> Todays price for September corn is $3.53....given the drough and this
> historically low price, I am going to lose big time on corn this year.
> Fortunately I cut back on corn acerage.
>
> Farmer are not making much money on corn in much of the US. There are two
> current subsidies being paid, the so called "Direct" payments and the
> "Countercyclical" payments. They are not tied to future production, so they
> don't directly encourage (or discourage) production, they just keep marginal
> farmers in buisness which tends to keep the prices low. Payments based on
> historic corn acerge are relatively tiny compared to payments for cotton or
> peanuts (on a per acre basis). Soybean subsidies are even smaller (on a per
> acre basis). The LDP payments in theory could be very high, but because the
> target prices are set so low, they are in effect non-existent. There are
> very large farmer that receive very large checks from the USDA, but they
> have little to no effect on planting decisions.

bottom line on this - the majority of the billions spent every year in
agricultural benefits ends up not in the hands of the farmers the public
are taxpayers are [not un]happy to pay for, but in the hands of two
companies - adm and cargill. i have no problem with farmers getting
money to feed the nation, provide very important [but often forgotten]
food security, and to provide [very important] foreign policy leverage.
in fact, i think that's probably a better investment than a lot of our
misdirected military spending [osprey for example]. but i want it in
the hands of [producing] farmers, not the corporations that manipulate
the markets.


>
>>> 5) Actually the only subsidies paid to farmers related to corn production
>>> are the result of the low price of corn. If corn prices increased becasue
>>> of
>>> the deamnd for more ethanol, the subsidies related to corn production
>>> will
>>> likely disappear.
>>
>> jeepers, "likely" disappear? so they haven't yet? how freakin' high do
>> they need to be to make them disappear then???
>
> The subsidies being paid today are not tied to currrent crop prices (which
> are in fact historically low when adjusted for inflation). They were set by
> the last farm bill. They are significantly lower than set by the prior bill
> and I can only imagine them going lower when the bill is replaced (2011?).
> To be honest for a small farmer like me, they are almost not worth the
> trouble.

they sure are to the big farmers. there is a texan ranch that receives,
iirc from an npr program i heard, over $1bn a couple of years ago. for
that kind of dough, you can hire some pretty good accountants and
administrators to make sure you're getting every cent of what you can.

you could do some corroborative sleuthing from he
http://farm.ewg.org/region.php?fips=48000


> In order to get the subsidies you have to comply with all sort of
> rules and I have to constantly go to the FSA office to file reports, etc.,
> etc. If they go much lower, I think farmers will start ignoring the
> bureaucracy. The current subsidies have three effects that I see - they help
> keep large marginally profitable farmers in business, they give the
> government a certain amount of control over what is planted, and they
> "encourage" farmers to provide information to the government. US food prices
> are low by developed world standards, so I think you are probably getting a
> decent return on your "subsidy" dollars. But, It would not bother me if they
> went away.Without the subsidies, farming would be much more risky and there
> would probably be much wider swings in food prices. This would present
> oppurtunities for good, well financed farmers to make a lot more money.
> Farmer who are barely holding their heads above water would probably go
> under.
>
>>> None of the current subsidies encourage production since
>>> they are not based on the quatity produced. In theory the LDP payment
>>> could
>>> encourage production by setting a floor on the price, but the floor set
>>> by
>>> the current LDP price is below the cost of production, so it has no
>>> impact
>>> on production.
>>
>> eh? so why is corn acreage at historic high if it's not about price and
>> therefore quantity?
>
> Is corn acerage at a historic high? I suppose you can claim historic highs
> if you limit history to the last 10 years. But the acerage devoted to corn
> production steadily decreased for decades, so I am not sure it is fair to
> ignore a 85 years of statics and concentrate on a period of reduced
> production (see
> http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/FeedGra.../Default.aspx).
>
> Here are the actual peak years (at least since they started collecting the
> data in the 1920's):
>
> 1932 - 113 million acres
> 1933 - 110 million acres
> 1931 - 109 million acres
> 1930 - 104 million acres
> 2007 - 94 million acres (2007 was the highest acerage in "this" century)
>
> In fact when comparing the 85 years from 1926 till 2010, 2007 was the
> highest ranked year of the new century and it was only 16th on the list.
> 2010 ranked 21st, 2009, 25th and 2008 26th. The average number of acres of
> corn planted from 1926 through 2010 was 82 million acres. 2010 was only 89
> million acres. So I don't think you can claim we are at historically high
> acerage for corn.
>
> Corn has a lot of advantages as a crop for mechanized farming. Compared to
> other "summer" crops (say cotton, peanuts, or soybeans) it requires relative
> fewer and cheaper herbicides and insectidides, yeilds well, doesn't suffer
> from soil borne diseases, and is easy to plant and harvest.
>
> Personally I have been shifting away from corn becasue of historically LOW
> prices (when adjusted for inflation). For 30 years corn was the crop that
> paid the bills for my family. Now, I barely break even on it. The yields are
> better than ever, but the prices when adjusted for inflation are less than
> half of what they were in the late 70's.

http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-03-3...market-bushels


>
>>> As it is, the subsidies paid to farmers related to corn
>>> production that do exist are small and decreasing. The subsidies to oil
>>> companies are another matter. I am not in favor of those, but then I am
>>> not
>>> in favor of all the subsidies that encourage the use of pertroleum
>>> either.
>>> How much lower would our defense budget be if we weren't defending oil
>>> producing states?
>>
>> no that ed, is a grand question. you should have words with your friends
>> about this. but we're not defending oil producing states...
>
> We aren't? So what was was the Gulf War about? Would anyone give a d$%n
> about Kuwait if there was no oil there? How about the military forces in
> Saudia Arabia. Are they just there on vacation? Did we invade Iraq becasue
> of the scenery?

the purpose of first gulf war was indisputably clear. what was [is] the
second war about? who did iraq invade? were they refusing to sell us
oil?


>
>>> 6) Modern cars are all ethanol tolerant. Of course that doesn't help
>>> people
>>> with older cars (or boats) that are adversely affected by ethanol in the
>>> gas.
>>
>> we are /all/ adversely affected by ethanol in gas - because lower energy
>> content means we have to burn more, thus buy more, thus have less money to
>> spend on anything else. giving tax subsidies to ensure we have to pay
>> more is utter bull**** and you need to tell your friends that.
>
> Actaully I am against the ethanol subsidies paid to oil companies.

good. i am against any tax breaks for oil companies, regardless of
pretext. and i am against hocus pocus called "oxygenate" when it isn't,
but which means commodity conglomerates and oilcos use unfair means
[federal deceit] to get into our back pockets.


>
>>> 7) I know that in theory ethanol should reduce fuel economy. I keep
>>> detail
>>> records of my gas purchases for both of my vehicles. I can't honestly say
>>> that I can detect a difference in fuel economy based on the presence or
>>> absence of ethanol.
>>
>> not recently. when mtbe was suddenly mandated as "oxygenate", and the gas
>> companies weren't uttering a cheep of protest, guess why? because, like
>> ethanol, mtbe lowers calorie content! amazing isn't it.
>>
>> ever wondered why the expense of producing new federally mandated low
>> sulfur diesel hasn't been met with a storm of protest by producers? not
>> event he faintest cheep? because it's about 5% lower calorie content,
>> that's why! you'll take 5% greater sales in return for bringing forward a
>> little of your routine maintenance won't you ed?
>>
>>
>>> Some pumps are labeled with a warning that the fuel may
>>> contain up to 10% ethanol, but many are not. Costco has added the
>>> warning,
>>> then removed it, then added it back. I general I buy gas at either Costco
>>> (currently has up to 10% ethanol), Hess (no ethanol label), BP (no
>>> ethanol
>>> label) and Murphy (has 5 % ethanol). I've tried comparing the mileage
>>> when
>>> just using Costco gas to similar periods when just using BP gas and can't
>>> find a consistent difference. Maybe it is there, but the diffrence is so
>>> trivial it is masked by other factors. I assume on a national average
>>> basis
>>> it is real and significant, but I sure can't prove it based solely on my
>>> records.
>>
>> the content of each refining run varies hugely. and you can bet your rear
>> end, the refineries know /all/ about keeping to the low end of the calorie
>> content range - because it directly feeds sales.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> At least where I live (NC) the Federal gas tax is a fixed amount per
>>> gallon,
>>> not a percentage. The North Carolina state gas tax has a fixed component
>>> and
>>> a componet adjusted based on the price of gasoline. Yesterday I paid
>>> $2.489
>>> for gas at the local Costco. I believe the price breaks down as follows:
>>>
>>> Gasoline - $2.004 per gallon
>>> Federal Tax - $0.184 per gallon (this is a fixed amount, not a
>>> percentage)
>>> Current NC Tax - $0.301 per gallon (0.25cpg inspection tax.17.5 cpg flat
>>> rate plus a variable rate of 12.35 cpg wholesale price component)
>>>
>>> If you assume the US uses around 140 billion gallons of "pure" gasoline a
>>> year, and that ethanol increases fuel consumption by 1%,
>>
>> no, increasing ethanol by a further 5% increases consumption by ~1%. 10%
>> ethanol increases consumption by ~2-3%.
>>
>>
>>> then you would
>>> assume that the US would use around 141.4 billion gallons of gasoline a
>>> year
>>> and that this would generate an additional 0.26 billion dollars
>>> ($26,000,000) of revenue per year. However, US gasoline consumption is
>>> actually declining at the moment, so I am not sure how to account for the
>>> effect of ethanol.
>>
>> it's declining because people are out of work and thus driving less. this
>> is the retardation of high gas pricing - it's skinning your sheep, not
>> shearing it.
>>
>>
>>> I am also not sure how to account for the ethanol subsidy
>>> paid to oil companies. I believe oil companies get a subsidy of $0.51 per
>>> gallon of ethanol blended into gasoline, which works out to something
>>> like
>>> $0.051 per gallon of E10.
>>
>> those are the direct subsidies. you need to add the accelerated
>> write-offs they get which help increase the final #'s further.
>>
>>
>>> So I suppose you could say that the Feds could
>>> paid out nearly 7 billion dollars in subsidies to fuel blenders (assuming
>>> all 141.1 billion gallons of gasoline were E10 which is not close to
>>> true)
>>> in order to create an additional 0.37 billion dollars of tax revenue. A
>>> net
>>> loss of over 6.6 billion. So I don't think it is reasonable to suggest
>>> that
>>> requiring the use of ethanol is some sort of revenue enhancement plan.
>>
>> well, the states are all for it...
>> http://www.californiagasprices.com/tax_info.aspx
>>
>> ~3% extra sales volume at 62�/g works out as???
>>
>> and it's still a raw deal for the consumer federally. giving tax
>> subsidies to get lower mpg's so we need to buy more gas? that's bull****.
>
> Again, I am not for the $0.51 per gallon of ethanol subsidy.

we should scrap it. and if we're serious about foreign oil and energy
security, we should get serious about improving fuel efficiency. the
best way not to import forign oil is to not burn it!


>
> Ed
>
>


--
nomina rutrum rutrum

On 06/25/2010 05:29 PM, dsi1 wrote:
> On 6/25/2010 2:14 PM, jim wrote:
>>
>> Doesn't the petroleum have to be shipped in also? I believe the state of
>> Hawaii is trying to encourage a local ethanol industry.
>
> Unless I'm misinformed, oil is shipped here and all the gas in the state
> is supplied by one refinery. I have not heard of any state effort to
> mass produce ethanol here. I think Brazil is heavily invested in making
> fuel out of sugar cane. We could do that too on a smaller scale, I guess.
>
>>
>> -jim

well, if any state /could/ produce sugar for ethanol, hawaii is it. but
you don't because you're not politically important. and this is all
politics.


--
nomina rutrum rutrum

On 06/25/2010 12:43 PM, jim wrote:
>
>
> "C. E. White" wrote:
>>
>> "jim > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> On 06/21/2010 12:53 PM, C. E. White wrote:
>>>> A few counterpoints:
>>>>
>>>> 1)Ethanol has value as an oxygenate that helps lower HC emmisions. I'd
>>>> rather they use ethanol for this purpose instead of MBTE.
>>>
>>> it increases the "oxygen content" of exhaust, simply because there is
>>> oxygen in an ethanol molecule. but that oxygen doesn't help combustion
>>> because it's already chemically combined.
>>
>> OK. I buy that, but if the choice is MBTE or ethanol, I'd rather have
>> ethanol. If the choice also includes neither, I am for that.
>
> Use of ethanol as fuel for the most part has nothing to do with oxygen.

but that is the "official" reason, even if it's a factual misrepresentation.


> Most of the ethanol is being added as an octane booster.

bull****. even the oilco's don't say that any more.


> MTBE was the
> first choice of the refiners to replace lead in gasoline when the phase
> out of lead started in the mid 70's.

it's not about lead replacement, it's about "oxygenate", otherwise known
as "calorie reducer" or "volumizer".


>After most of the states and
> finally the EPA banned the use of MTBE because it was showing up in
> drinking water all over the country, ethanol took off because it is
> really the only viable octane booster available.

see above. and it's a politically acceptable cash cow for the
agricultural conglomerates.


> Everything else has
> environmental ot economic disadvantages.
> And the main reason an octane booster is used is it saves petroleum at
> the foundry.

"foundry"??? is ethanol used to make steel? and it /increases/
gasoline sales, not reduces it.


> The refiners can meet the octane requirements without
> ethanol but it would require about 3% more petroleum input.

no, they would lose 3% in sales because of the higher calorie content.


>
> The EPA also claims an oxygenate must be added in the winter in some
> urban areas in the country where smog is a problem.

hocus pocus.


>
>
>>
>>>> 2) While the sort of corn used to make ethanol is food, it is mostly food
>>>> for livestock. And after you use it to make ethanol, the stuff left over
>>>> is
>>>> actually still usable as high protein animal feed, so the loss to the
>>>> food
>>>> chain is much much less than the anti-ethanol people claim.
>>>
>>> isn't livestock classified as "food"? feeding corn to cattle makes a
>>> damned sight more sense than burning it. especially when that corn
>>> consumes more energy during cultivation and processing than it yields in
>>> energy output.
>>
>> See references further below regarding the "energy balance." And of course
>> there is a whole different discussion rearding the use of corn to feed
>> animals, instead of using corn (or other crop grown instead of corn) to feed
>> people directly. I raise around 50 head of cattle. I don't feed them any
>> corn at all. They eat grass, with limited quantities of oats and stored hay
>> as a winter supplement. But most Americans prefer beef with high fat contnet
>> and that means "grain fed" beef.
>
> That is right. The more corn that goes into ethanol the less diabetes
> and heart disease.

idiot.


>
>> Think how many Mexicans we could feed if we
>> stopped diverting all that corn to cattle, hogs, and chickens.
>
> Mexicans had no problem growing enough corn to feed themselves before US
> dump surplus grain on Mexico in the 90's. Destroying rural economies is
> not feeding people it is wiping out their livelihood through greedy
> predatory marketing.
>
>
>>
>> Actaully I am against the ethanol subsidies paid to oil companies.
>>
>
> The stated purpose of the subsidy when passed by congress was to
> compensate the oil companies for closing down their MTBE production
> facilities. The ethanol producer organizations say they can do without
> the subsidy as it won't affect ethanol usage, but eliminating it will
> raise the cost of gasoline.

bull****.


--
nomina rutrum rutrum

jim beam wrote:
>
> On 06/25/2010 12:43 PM, jim wrote:
> >
> >
> > "C. E. White" wrote:
> >>
> >> "jim > wrote in message
> >> ...
> >>> On 06/21/2010 12:53 PM, C. E. White wrote:
> >>>> A few counterpoints:
> >>>>
> >>>> 1)Ethanol has value as an oxygenate that helps lower HC emmisions. I'd
> >>>> rather they use ethanol for this purpose instead of MBTE.
> >>>
> >>> it increases the "oxygen content" of exhaust, simply because there is
> >>> oxygen in an ethanol molecule. but that oxygen doesn't help combustion
> >>> because it's already chemically combined.
> >>
> >> OK. I buy that, but if the choice is MBTE or ethanol, I'd rather have
> >> ethanol. If the choice also includes neither, I am for that.
> >
> > Use of ethanol as fuel for the most part has nothing to do with oxygen.
>
> but that is the "official" reason, even if it's a factual misrepresentation.

No it is not the official reason. Oxygenated formulas are only required
in the winter in a relatively small geographical part of the US. The
official reason is it was approved back in 1975 for the new cars that
required lead free gas. Ethanol was one of several permitted lead
substitutes. Today it is the only one left standing.


>
> > Most of the ethanol is being added as an octane booster.
>
> bull****. even the oilco's don't say that any more.

Yeah well than why is it in almost every gas tank in the US. It is the
middle of summer in case you haven't noticed.


>
> > MTBE was the
> > first choice of the refiners to replace lead in gasoline when the phase
> > out of lead started in the mid 70's.
>
> it's not about lead replacement, it's about "oxygenate", otherwise known
> as "calorie reducer" or "volumizer".

Your stupidity is only surpassed by your ignorance.

>
> >After most of the states and
> > finally the EPA banned the use of MTBE because it was showing up in
> > drinking water all over the country, ethanol took off because it is
> > really the only viable octane booster available.
>
> see above. and it's a politically acceptable cash cow for the
> agricultural conglomerates.
>
> > Everything else has
> > environmental ot economic disadvantages.
> > And the main reason an octane booster is used is it saves petroleum at
> > the foundry.
>
> "foundry"??? is ethanol used to make steel? and it /increases/
> gasoline sales, not reduces it.

FYI, foundries don't make steel.

That sentence should have been - the main reason an octane booster is
used is it reduces petroleum input at the refinery.
>
> > The refiners can meet the octane requirements without
> > ethanol but it would require about 3% more petroleum input.
>
> no, they would lose 3% in sales because of the higher calorie content.

There is no point talking numbers with some one who can't add, subtract
or count.

"jim beam" > wrote in message
t...

cut out some repetivie and unrelated stuff.....

>>>> The energy balance is actually much better than the anti-ethanol
>>>> crowd claims.
>>>
>>> show your numbers ed.
>>
>> http://www.carbohydrateeconomy.org/l...Gallon_.htm l
>> http://journeytoforever.org/ethanol_energy.html
>>
>> I can't speak for all the experts out there. But for me.....I raise about
>> 120 acres of corn per year. Each acre requires about 0.6 hours of
>> "tractor
>> time" (tilling / planting). This burns about 4 gallons of diesel fuel. I
>> use
>> around 120 lbs of nitrogen fertilizer which is primarily made from
>> natural
>> gas (for sake of arguement, say this is equivalent to another 12 gallons
>> of
>> diesel fuel). Throw in another gallon for harvesting, another for
>> transporting the corn, and another for the pesticides, and say I am using
>> 18
>> to 20 gallons of diesel fuel to make 150 bushels of corn (9,000 lbs).
>> This
>> corn can make around 300 to 400 gallons of ethanol plus around 3,000 lbs
>> of
>> high protein animal feed. I have no idea how much energy is used to
>> distill
>> the ethanol, but I cannot imagine it is equivalent to the energy content
>> to
>> the 300+ gallons of ethanol produced.
>
> http://www.c4aqe.org/Economics_of_Et...hanol.2005.pdf
>
> typically, "positive" energy balance numbers, seem to selectively omit
> elements of the energy equation. and are published by vested interests.
> these two factors are not unrelated!

That was the most wacko "energy" balance I have ever seen. A total pile of
crap. A hectare is about 2.5 acres. They are claiming ridiculous numbers,
even fior a small farmer like me. I've never spent 4.5 hours of labour on an
acre of corn (11.4 hrs per hectare). The large farmers with more modern
equipment spent even less. And I am not sure how they translate that into
"energy." I don't irrigate my corp and most farmers don't either, so that
line is BS. How do you convert "machinery" into enrergy usage. It seems they
assume the equipment is only used for corn converted to ethanol. I use the
same equipment for all my crops, not just corn. Finally they are claiming a
corn yield of around 70 bushels per acre. No farmer would stay in buisness
long if they could only raise 70 bu per acre (the US average is about twice
that). My worst year so far was over that (although this year might not be).

It looks to me like the "authors" of the this "report" picked unrelated
statistics at random in an effort to make a case againt ethanol produced
from corn. Total BS. Did you look at the links I provided?

......

>> The subsidies being paid today are not tied to currrent crop prices
>> (which
>> are in fact historically low when adjusted for inflation). They were set
>> by
>> the last farm bill. They are significantly lower than set by the prior
>> bill
>> and I can only imagine them going lower when the bill is replaced
>> (2011?).
>> To be honest for a small farmer like me, they are almost not worth the
>> trouble.
>
> they sure are to the big farmers. there is a texan ranch that receives,
> iirc from an npr program i heard, over $1bn a couple of years ago.

I am not sure where you are getting that 1 billion dollar number. According
to the database link you provided the top Texas receipient of USDA Subsidies
received $10,593,474 over a 15 year period (an average of around $706,231
per year). The biggest single recipient in 2009 was not a person at all, it
was a Peanut Marketing Association and they got just short of 4 million
dollars. But this is really misleading. This this was a group of farmers who
pooled their peanut production for marketing reasons. And in this case the
subsidy was not actually a subsidy at all. The government runs a program
where farmers can get a loan from the government based on the value of their
crop. They government holds onto the crop until it is eventuially sold and
the loan is repaid. So eventually the government recouped all of that
"subsidy."

> for that kind of dough, you can hire some pretty good accountants and
> administrators to make sure you're getting every cent of what you can.
>
> you could do some corroborative sleuthing from he
> >http://farm.ewg.org/region.php?fips=48000

I know there are farmers that get very large program payments. But the way
the plan is structured it is hard to say a particular subsidy is a "corn"
subsidy. The payment are based on past production. So while you might get a
certain level of direct or countercyclical payments because you planted corn
in the past, the amount of the subsidy is not related to what you are
planting now. And remember the data they are giving you is the "total from
1995-2009." If you look at the charts the trend is downward.

I compared what I actually got in subsisudes from the government to what
this web sites says I got. They showing about double what I actually
recieved. I assume this is mostly becasue of the way they treat the loan
program. Until this year I raised peanuts. Every year I have to put my
peanuts under loan to get paid in the fall. Eventually the peanuts are
pulled out of storage by the endl user (a "peanut company") and the loan is
repaid (and it is actually repaid by the company that buys the peanuts, not
me). It is a silly system that the government set-up and peanut (and cotton)
companies manipulate to their advantage. It lets me get paid in the fall and
allows the peanut companies to not pay for the peanuts until they actually
need them. Apaprently the Enivromental Working Group would rather not
properly accont for this program. It is not a subsidy to the farmer at all,
but they apparently pretend it is. I am sure they would much rather distort
the facts to further their position that fairly report tthings.

.......

>>> eh? so why is corn acreage at historic high if it's not about price and
>>> therefore quantity?
>>
>> Is corn acerage at a historic high? I suppose you can claim historic
>> highs
>> if you limit history to the last 10 years. But the acerage devoted to
>> corn
>> production steadily decreased for decades, so I am not sure it is fair to
>> ignore a 85 years of statics and concentrate on a period of reduced
>> production (see
>> http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/FeedGra.../Default.aspx).
>>
>> Here are the actual peak years (at least since they started collecting
>> the
>> data in the 1920's):
>>
>> 1932 - 113 million acres
>> 1933 - 110 million acres
>> 1931 - 109 million acres
>> 1930 - 104 million acres
>> 2007 - 94 million acres (2007 was the highest acerage in "this" century)
>>
>> In fact when comparing the 85 years from 1926 till 2010, 2007 was the
>> highest ranked year of the new century and it was only 16th on the list.
>> 2010 ranked 21st, 2009, 25th and 2008 26th. The average number of acres
>> of
>> corn planted from 1926 through 2010 was 82 million acres. 2010 was only
>> 89
>> million acres. So I don't think you can claim we are at historically high
>> acerage for corn.
>>
>> Corn has a lot of advantages as a crop for mechanized farming. Compared
>> to
>> other "summer" crops (say cotton, peanuts, or soybeans) it requires
>> relative
>> fewer and cheaper herbicides and insectidides, yeilds well, doesn't
>> suffer
>> from soil borne diseases, and is easy to plant and harvest.
>>
>> Personally I have been shifting away from corn becasue of historically
>> LOW
>> prices (when adjusted for inflation). For 30 years corn was the crop that
>> paid the bills for my family. Now, I barely break even on it. The yields
>> are
>> better than ever, but the prices when adjusted for inflation are less
>> than
>> half of what they were in the late 70's.
>
> http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-03-3...market-bushels

Did you read the article? It says a "Farmers will plant a record-high
soybean crop while boosting the amount of corn acres by 3 percent this
spring...." It didn't say they were planting record high acerages for corn.
I gave you the 2010 acerage above. It is far from a record.

One factor that probably led to an increase in 2010 corn planting is the
disppointing 2010 winter wheat crop. I would guess a lot of farmers assumed
lower wheat production would lead to higher corn prices next fall. So far
that is not the case. Corn prices have been drifitign down all summer. I
wish I had not planted as much corn as I did (and I already cut back some).

Ed