Ethanol plans threaten corn shortage

[NickB79]

"Ethanol plants need a lot of corn and a lot of water, and Minnesota has a lot of both. But even the land of lakes and cornfields has its limits.

Suddenly, so many new ethanol plants are planned in Minnesota that a once-unthinkable debate has begun: Will there be enough corn to go around?

Investors plan to quadruple the size of Minnesota's ethanol industry within just a few years, according to permit data from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. If they do, they'd devour more than half of Minnesota's 1.2 billion-bushel corn crop."

snip

"In Iowa, the effect is even more dramatic. There, some 55 ethanol plants are open or proposed, and "if all these plants are built, it would use virtually all the Iowa corn crop," said Iowa State University economist Bob Wisner."

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/business/14916259.htm

ALL of Iowa's corn supply? All Iowa is is fields of corn, corn, corn.

Hmmm, two front-page articles from the MN Pioneer Press in four days. Someone there doesn't like ethanol too much.

[Arger68]

1. And at the same time they're building

new housing developments on farmground in Southern MN and Iowa all the time. The last crop is houses. :eyes:

[skooooo]

2. There's plenty of corn....

Lots of states grow LOTS of corn. It's coming out of our ears. What a joke.

[shain from kane]

4. Remember the saying, "She's so beautiful, I'd follow her around just

to pick the corn out of her sh*t."

May need a mass recovery effort. Another job no one else wants to do.

[NickB79]

5. Um, all of Iowa's corn and half of MN's corn would be used up

The southern plains are currently in drought, and this may continue over the years as temps rise due to global warming. The Dakota's are planning on using up large amounts of corn for ethanol. Where exactly is there lots of corn?

[skooooo]

9. Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, etc. etc. etc.

[amandabeech]

23. Other large producers are #2 Illinois and #3 Nebraska.

Illinois and especially Nebraska have been dry this year. Nebraska farmers irrigate some of their acreage.

Other producers include Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee, as the previous poster noted, as well as Missouri, which is in drought, Ohio and Michigan, both of which have had relatively normal precipitation.

Corn is used primarily as food for cattle, hogs and chickens. What is left over from the corn once the starch is fermented out can be fed at least to cattle and hogs, but they need other items in their diet. Cattle especially do best with grasses as pasture and dried as hay.

If all corn in Minnesota and Iowa end up as ethanol and leftovers, more feed must be send to these states to fill out the diet of all the cattle, hogs and chickens grown there. With diesel higher than gasoline these days, the cost to the farmer would be much greater than feed grown on the farm or close by.

[silverweb]

3. Here's an idea:

Quit putting corn syrup in every goddamned food product on the shelf and use the stuff for making fuel instead!

Duh!

:crazy:

[RoseMead]

7. Thank you!

I was going to say that, but you beat me to it. HFCS is in just about everything. Hideous.

[Up2Late]

8. Exactly, High Fructose Corn Syrup is way over used...

...turn that crap into Bio-Diesel.

Here's a book all about the problem: <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594200823/ref=sr_11_1/104-1786145-3277511?ie=UTF8>

The Omnivore's Dilemma : A Natural History of Four Meals (Hardcover)
by Michael Pollan



From Publishers Weekly:

"...Oil underlines Pollan's story about agribusiness, but corn is its focus. American cattle fatten on corn. Corn also feeds poultry, pigs and sheep, even farmed fish. But that's just the beginning. In addition to dairy products from corn-fed cows and eggs from corn-fed chickens, corn starch, corn oil and corn syrup make up key ingredients in prepared foods. High-fructose corn syrup sweetens everything from juice to toothpaste. Even the alcohol in beer is corn-based. Corn is in everything from frozen yogurt to ketchup, from mayonnaise and mustard to hot dogs and bologna, from salad dressings to vitamin pills. "Tell me what you eat," said the French gastronomist Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, "and I will tell you what you are." We're corn.

Each bushel of industrial corn grown, Pollan notes, uses the equivalent of up to a third of a gallon of oil. Some of the oil products evaporate and acidify rain; some seep into the water table; some wash into rivers, affecting drinking water and poisoning marine ecosystems. The industrial logic also means vast farms that grow only corn. When the price of corn drops, the solution, the farmer hopes, is to plant more corn for next year. The paradoxical result? While farmers earn less, there's an over-supply of cheap corn, and that means finding ever more ways to use it up...."

[NNadir]

12. The chemistry of high fructose corn syrup and biodiesel are completely

different.

One can make ethanol from corn syrup, but not biodiesel.

Biodiesel can be made from corn oil, but not corn syrup.

[Up2Late]

13. Oh, that's right, sorry. I got a bit confused on that one.

I was thinking Corn Syrup> Sugar> _______> Fuel. It's ethanol that needs the sugars I think.

[JohnWxy]

28. good poiint!

[Up2Late]

6. From the article: "There's plenty of corn to go around,"

"There's plenty of corn to go around," said Mark Hamerlinck of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association. "We're still shipping a great deal of corn out of the state. Now, will it affect exports? It could … but doesn't it make more sense to ship corn 40 miles down the road to an ethanol plant than 12,000 miles across the globe?"

What a ridiculous article, and Ethanol sucks anyway. Bio-Diesel is the near future.

<http://www.biodiesel.org/>

[smtpgirl]

11. Exactly, no more high fructose corn syrup and farm subsidies

BIODIESEL BABY. There is no shortage of used restaurant grease.

What is with these people???

No ingenuity at all, just say there will bee a shortage and there you have it.

[NickB79]

16. Currently, there is plenty of corn to go around

What the article is discussing is the planned tripling to quadrupling of ethanol plants and ethanol production in our state over the next 5-10 years. Those corn surpluses, as this article states, will evaporate as these plants come online.

[bananas]

19. Will there be enough for popcorn?

:popcorn::popcorn::popcorn::popcorn::popcorn::popcorn::popcorn::popcorn::popcorn::popcorn::popcorn::popcorn:

[poverlay]

10. Are you people kidding? We PAY big farms through the nose NOT

to grow corn. Running out isn't the issue. Not yet anyway.

[blueinchicago]

15. Corn is evil

Don't put more money in the pockets of Cargill, Monsanto, and ADM. Cellulose ethanol from grass has more bang for the buck AND doesn't need pesticides, herbicides, and irrigation to help it grow. Way better for environment and for us.

I make every effort to delete HFCS from my diet. Did you know? Sugar beets are Dem friendly, corn syrup is Rep friendly. (see Open Secrets web site) Use sugar beet sugar or stevia (even better on your pancreas).

Blue

[bananas]

18. How about nutritional brewers yeast grown on sugar beets?

Are the little critters (R) or (D) ?

[blueinchicago]

24. Well if its made by TwinLabs

the yeast is Republican.
But you could have looked that up yourself.

[JohnWxy]

14. Congress approved legislation to repeal cotton export subsidies

http://ustr.gov/Document_Library/Press_Releases/2006/February/Congress_Approves_Legislation_Repealing_Cotton_Subsidy_Program.html

Congress Approves Legislation Repealing Cotton Subsidy Program
Step 2 Repeal Addresses Important Trade Priorities 02/01/2006

WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation that will repeal a support program for cotton known as "Step 2." The next step is for the President to sign the measure into law.


Two years ago The WTO ruled against the U.S.'s use of export subsidies in support of cotton exports.

If these subsidies are repealed it would make cotton no longer profitable for farmers to plant.

the amount of acreage planted in cotton is almost equal to the acreage planted in feed lot corn for ethanol. thus , if the cotton farmers chose to plant corn for ethanol it would almost double the amount of acreage planted to corn for ethanol.

[dbackjon]

22. One can also easily grow corn on land currently planted in Tobacco

[JohnWxy]

29. correction: cotton export subsidies: $4 Billion/ yr --

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0310/p09s01-coop.html

It's official: an appeals panel of the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled last week that most of the $4 billion-plus that the US government gives annually to producers and exporters of US cotton is illegal under current trade rules. The panel also stated that these payments - of which $3.2 billion are producer subsidies, while the rest help underwrite costs of exporting - must be ended by July 1.

[Strelnikov_]

17. There Is Nothing Wrong With Corn Ethanol That A Renewable Energy Source

for process energy can't solve.

Producing corn ethanol as an Energy Carrier is perfectly viable. Most of the food value remains following processing (more ‘human’ food from wet vs. dry milling, less ‘net’ energy) so the ‘fuel or food’ argument is not an issue. The only question, for me, is where does the energy input for production of the ethanol come from (most of which is consumed in the fuel plant) since corn ethanol is not an energy source. Using natural gas or coal makes no sense from an energy standpoint since liquid fuel can be made from these sources directly with a viable EROEI (5+). Using these sources to produce ethanol is essentially throwing away 4 units of potential liquid fuel energy for every one unit of corn ethanol energy produced.

Why not renewables, such as wind generated electric, as the process energy source? We would then be converting renewable wind energy to a readily storable, energy dense form.

Basically,

1 Unit Corn + 1 Unit Energy -> 0.8 Unit Food (Corn Equivalent) + 1 Unit Energy (liquid fuel)

And as for why so much corn is grown? Storage, yield and adaptability to the major growing region in this country. Sugar cane has to be processed as soon as it is cut, sugar beets similar (unless frozen, as they used to be able to do in the Red River valley), whereas corn can be readily stored for long periods.

Humans were growing lots of corn long before ADM and Cargill. We could ask the Anasazi, but they had their own tussle with population overshoot and climate change .

[JohnWxy]

20. The return on energy invested in producing corn based ethanol is

according to Shappourri (USDA) 1.7 : 1, as opposed to gasoline which is 0.89 : 1.0 (i.e. a 19% loss on energy invested/consumed - Wang, Argonne National Laboratory). NOte that most figures thrown around include performance of older much less efficient plants. A huge amount of capacity is being built currently and these facilities will be much more efficient than those built just 5 years ago. Older plants are getting major upgrades and becoming more efficient. Some facilities are including renewable fuels to supply energy needed to produce the ethanol (although, I'd like it to be more).

Progress is being made (too slowly, unfortunately) in developing renewable sources of energy for the ethanol production process. Animal waste into methane is one that is being used. Much more of this needs to be done and put into practice, there is tons of animal waste and acricultural plant waste that could be used as a fuel source forthe ethanol process which would make ethanol production process pretty nearly fossil fuel free.

Reasons for going to renewables such as ethanol is greater efficiency, sustainability and reduction of GHGs. But another BIG reason is to reduce our imports of foreign oil. this is something that CANNOT wait. We must reduce our imports and use of oil as quickly as possible to strengthen our economy and our national security. While the global warming issue and sustainability issues are very important so to is the matter of reducing imports of foreign oil.

ONe thing people seem to forget too, is that we won't be using Internal Combustion Engines forever. Fuel Cells technology is being developed. In 1 to 2 decades we could be seeing fuels cells for automobiles. these will be 2 to 3 times as efficient as ICEs and thus the renewable fuels will be able to meet just about all the transportation needs without need for very much gas. (NOte that there are a number of companies (Acta is one) working on fuel cells using methanol or ethanol as the source of hydrogen. this will be the way we will see fuel cells being used in general transportation - much cheaper than dealing with compressed hydrogen.)

[blueinchicago]

25. Yes, but the Anasazi

weren't funding Republican PACS and right-wing think tanks. ADM and Cargill do.

And I don't agree about adaptability argument. Corn doesn't adapt to the region, the region has to be adapted to the corn. Rain doesn't fall in the Plains, its an ARID biome. Thus, you have to pump water from the ground to take the rain's place in the form of irrigation. This is causing sever threats of water shortage. The Ogalla Aquifer is endangered. When an underground aquifer is overpumped to water cornfields, the ground above it subsides. That means you cannot get the aquifer back.

Most of the world's irrigation systems are only 30-40 percent efficient. (Wired News) Growing corn wastes too much water.

And since corn is a monoculture, you have to replace the nitrogen that would normally be fixed by other types of plants and roots (bacteria that grows on them) with fertilizers, causing the major disruption to the nitrogen cycle that has resulted in the Gulf of Mexico dead zone.

Then there's the pesticides and herbicides. And the evil maneouvering of a corporation whose name starts with M to take over family farms. M dumps GMO corn that is patented near a family farm that grows heirloom or non-GMO corn. Nature takes its course, and some of the plants from the GMO reproduce with the farmer's plants. Then Monsanto sues the farmer for patent infringement. This happened in Canada.

Corn is evil. Cellulose ethanol, whether from rapeseed or switch-grass or other biomass, if given the support, can solve our energy needs and get us off the mideast oil addiction, and no one can put a patent on grass. (Well, they will try, but international courts will stop them.)

[Strelnikov_]

26. Seems Your Hard On Is For Industrial Agriculture, Not Corn

and who do you think will be growing the switchgrass? Family farms?

Regarding cellulosic ethanol, I will be waiting until it is out of the research lab and proven scalable before I assume that it 'can solve out energy needs'. I hope it works out, but I have been hearing a similar story with fusion and hydrogen as the lead characters since I was in enginnering school in the late 70's.

Oh, my grandfather who grew corn, without pesticides, fertilizer and irrigation inputs (ever hear of crop rotation) was a life long Democrat. Granted, today, he would not be able to complete with the industrial agriculture monoculture approach to farming.

But, then again, I was not making a claim that corn ethanol 'can solve out energy needs', I was simply pointing out that corn ethanol could be a valuable way of converting wind energy to an energy dense liquid fuel with most of the food value remaining.

[blueinchicago]

30. Sure, why not family farms?

Farmers already grow switchgrass for forage for livestock. The return on investment for switchgrass is necessarily greater than the ROI for corn.

Your anecdote about your Grandfather is sweet but offpoint.

My point is that if we are going to invest in an infrastructure for homegrown ethanol, should we, as liberals, give our tax dollars to ADM/Cargill/Monsanto (where the corn to ethanol main profits will go) or to smaller industries. To wit, corporatists or true entrepreneurs?

Recall that ethanol was a already a viable alternative to gas at the turn of the 19 century. The very first cars built by Henry Ford were made to run on ethanol. But it was (artificially) too expensive to use for fuel, because it was heavily taxed (as was all alcohol) to pay for the civil war. So Ford used gasoline instead. By the time that tax went away, the infrastructure for oil was in place...and no one was about to dismantle the oil infrastructure at that point.

If you put the corn to ethanol infrastructure in place NOW, it won't every change to cellulose or any other alternative source + we'll be securing the power of the corporatists for the next several generations at least.

[JohnWxy]

corn fields are irrigated with water. Oil fields are irrigated with blood.

Yeah, let's sit around and do nothing until cellulosic ethanol is commmercially ready.

BTW how much irrigating is done in growing feed lot corn vs sweet corn for human consumption?..HUH?

If all you say about corn is true since only 13% of the corn crop is for ethanol were in deep trouble. I'm surprised the whole agricultural system didn't colapsed long ago (maybe it did and this is all a dream).

We better stop growing corn for food too!

... then we can dig for roots and tubers,,,,,and grubs (yum-yum).

[blueinchicago]

31. Radicalism 101

Let's begin class with an allegory. If you pull a weed off at ground level, but leave the root in place, the weed will just grow back. If you pull the weed out by the root, the weed will not grow back.

Now. If 50% of the the oil imported to the US is consumed in the corn monoculture, then, actually, 1/2 of any war fought for oil is fought for the oil used in the corn monoculture.

This means that reducing overall consumption of the corn monoculture would naturally reduce the need for oil AND the wars to get the oil.

See, getting rid of the need for oil wars by getting at the very root of the problem, our American consuming habits.

Now let's go over your "argument" line by line.

Line one: Fallacy of bifurcation. "Let's sit around and do nothing..." In fact, other alternatives exist. CAFE standards, changing the speed limit back to 50, extolling the virtue of mass transit, there are alot of things that we can do to lower our dependence on foreign oil.

Line two: Fallacy of the red herring. The quantity of water for feedlot corn versus sweet corn is entirely irrelevant to the argument.

Line three: The American agricultural system did collapse. The industrial corporate agricultural system took its place. http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter3.htm

Line four: Not a bad idea, since corn is linked to diabetes.

Line five: Once again the fallacy of bifurcation. Either we grow corn or dig for roots. Um, did you know there are other plants besides corn and tubers? Yes, yes, there are. There's all kinds of vegetables, fruits, and grains. And they can all be cultivated and grown in gardens and farms.

Seriously, are you still in high school?

[JohnWxy]

32. I'm all for doing anything that works - CAFE standards, fuel cells,

plug-in hybrids getting power from wind turbines and .. yes, most think ethanol and bio-diesel will be part of the equation.

My response was couched in such a way as to poke fun at your extreme view of the situation. You are pretending not to get it. But, I think you knew I was speaking tongue-in-cheek. How else to respond to such a dark view of it all?

YOur disaster like scenario regarding the agricultural system (your cataclysmic criticism of ethanol production applies to all agriculture) reveals you are well versed in the rhetoric of extremism. You present the situation in very stark terms. I don't take such a dark view of it.

I'm just a pragmatist. Maybe you are right (I'm not saying there aren't improvements to be made in all the agricultural sector, I'm sure improvements can be made), but regarding the energy problem, I like to work on practical approaches. I'm not given to the preaching evangelical messages. I'll leave that to others. You show a talent for that sort of thing. Have at it.

Meanwhile us more pragmatic types will just keep plunking away trying to make things a bit better.

[NNadir]

33. Anything that works?

:rofl:

[JohnWxy]

27. corn fields are irrigated with water. Oil fields are irrigated with blood.

Yeah, let's sit around and do nothing until cellulosic ethanol is commmercially ready.

BTW how much irrigating is done in growing feed lot corn vs sweet corn for human consumption?..HUH?

If all you say about corn is true since only 13% of the corn crop is for ethanol were in deep trouble. I'm surprised the whole agricultural system didn't colapsed long ago (maybe it did and this is all a dream).

We better stop growing corn for food too!

... then we can dig for roots and tubers,,,,,and grubs (yum-yum).

[JohnWxy]

21. Protein content recovered in ethanol production process -

Only the starch content is used in making ethanol. The protein content of the corn is recovered and sold as feed to cattle farmers and dairy farmers. So there really is no loss too the food supply.

Incidentally, two years ago teh WTO ruled against the U.S. in the matter of export subsidies for cotton farmers (about $250 million per year). A law has been sent to Bush for his signature repealing the export subsidies to cotton farmers. without these subsidies the farmers would not be able to compete with foriegn sources of cotton. NOw, if the farmers are not able to sell their cotton except at a loss - chances are they will stop growing cotton. And given the demand for corn for ethanol they might very well choose to plant corn for ethanol.

How much acreage is now planted in cotton? - just about as much as the acreage planted in corn sold to ethanol producers. So if those cotton farmers decided to grow feed lot corn for ethanol we would see nearly a doubling of the acres devoted to growing corn for ethanol.

And for those who are worried about the impact on the land. Cotton is one of the worst crops for depleting the land of its nutrients.