Texas seeks U.S. ethanol cutbacks; cites corn costs

[lovuian]

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/35367

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Friday asked the U.S. government to cut "skyrocketing" food prices by waiving half of the renewable fuel standard for ethanol made from grain.

The Republican governor from the oil-producing state said in a statement that such a waiver was "the best, quickest way" to ease rising food costs before lasting damage was done.

"We're diversifying our state's energy portfolio at a rapid rate, but this misguided mandate is significantly affecting Texans' family food bill," he added.
more...
Where is the Federal government???

[slinkerwink]

1. I don't like ethanol. I think reducing the fuel standard and increasing the wind standard would be

better.

[Canuckistanian]

11. Nothing intrinsically wrong with ethanol

But getting it from corn is unethical, impractical, inefficient and stupid.

Switchgrass. Sugar cane. Canola.

Any of these would make more sense.

[lovuian]

2. its obviously needs to look at other plants verses food

its getting stressful out there

[thunder rising]

3. Quit whining and start a garden ... it's still April ya'know.

[thunder rising]

4. Live from Texas ... anybody see BIG OIL connection here?

[RC]

6. We just got 7 inches of snow yesterday.

[BulletproofLandshark]

5. How about waiving the ENTIRE ethanol standard

The proponents of ethanol knowingly sold our elected leaders a bill of goods. It's not making gas any cheaper, and it's helping to drive up the cost of everyone's grocery bill. We should be looking for another way make biodiesel that doesn't drive food prices through the roof, but I guess the switchgrass lobby doesn't have enough pull in D.C.

[RC]

7. How about growing something that actually has energy in it?

Sugar beets. tons are left to rot in the fields every year. Or sugar cain. If Brazil can do it, why can't we.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil

[BadgerLaw2010]

8. Ethanol is garbage and has very negative secondary economic effects. Cut.

[RB TexLa]

9. Or replant the unused sugar cane land in Louisiana and Florida

Oh, never mind, NEVER as long as Iowa votes first. Oh, well.

[ThoughtCriminal]

10. We're subsidizing the wrong biofuel crops

GasHole: Dirty Oil and the Biofuel Myth:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/14268

Oil puppets like Perry would like us to think that corn is the only possible source.

[Historic NY]

12. Jeez finally someone gets it ...it cost $1.74 per gal. to make.

if OPEC can't sell oil then the market get short on product. I said before we cannot grow our way out of the energy crunch with corn, its been tried before and failed in the 70's. Sugar and grass are better sources since they do not disrupt the food chain. The farmers near me have now had to go back to planting feed corn for their dairy herds. If we stopped tomorrow the price of gas would drop by large amounts and OPEC would meet the demand.

<snip>
Ethanol from corn costs about $1.74 per gallon to produce, compared with about 95 cents to produce a gallon of gasoline. "That helps explain why fossil fuels-not ethanol-are used to produce ethanol", Pimentel says. "The growers and processors can’t afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol. U.S. drivers couldn’t afford it, either, if it weren’t for government subsidies to artificially lower the price".

The approximately $1 billion a year in current federal and state subsidies (mainly to large corporations) for ethanol production are not the only costs to consumers, the Cornell scientist observes. Subsidized corn results in higher prices for meat, milk and eggs because about 70 percent of corn grain is fed to livestock and poultry in the United States. Increasing ethanol production would further inflate corn prices, Pimentel says, noting: "In addition to paying tax dollars for ethanol subsidies, consumers would be paying significantly higher food prices in the marketplace".

The average U.S. automobile, traveling 10,000 miles a year on pure ethanol (not a gasoline-ethanol mix) would need about 852 gallons of the corn-based fuel. This would take 11 acres to grow, based on net ethanol production. This is the same amount of cropland required to feed seven Americans.
<snip>

http://healthandenergy.com/ethanol.htm