It is always nice to hear how well the unfettered, unregulated free market is working in a nation that is unencumbered by any socialist ideology. Vive el free enterprise - the citizens benefit so nicely!! We should find a way to replicate all over the world!!

Personally, I think our salvation is to be found in the secular cow economy.

Ethanol diverts corn from food to fuel. Therefore can we say suzuki advocates starving children in order to reduce greenhouse gas. I again raise the question, what happens if there is a major drought in canada and no crops are produced. Where will the product come from to be converted to fuel. Will we have to import it, at what cost, and have these possibilities been factored in when giving us the cost of ethanol. Will millions be spent, or millions starved, so the latte crowd in GTA, dion and suzuki can feel good about possibly reducing a minor amount of greenhouse gas. Or, maybe dion will be out trying to get his car started on hot air bought from china. Time for these people and decision makers realize that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Heh - that was fun. The tragedy, the weepiness of it all...

We should also consider the price of water, which has increased greatly in cost because of the leftist fetish for bottled water. And water is needed in various industrial activities, including the production of nuclear power. Definitely, we should stop bottling water and also stop nuclear power plants. Save the water.

Then, the increased urbanization in all parts of the world has led to increased requirements for electricity. And televisions. All that plastic and glass. Costly. Oh - and cell phones. They are really big in developing countries. And cars. And....

The cheapest way to live is, well, it's like it was back in the Mayan days. Of course, you'd have to give up your television, your cell phone, your cars, your...
And you'd have to cut global population by about 90% because that Mayan style won't support any more than that...

amazon rainforest cutting was driven largely by subsidies and tax policy. ethanol is driven by the same thing.
unintended consequences from government interference

I've only had one cup of coffee this morning and am having a little trouble interpreting the first post. Was he referring to Mexico as having an unfettered, unregulated free market and unencumbered by any socialist ideology?

*
Sorta like... "If you elect Stephen Harper, he'll kill you."

Remember the Liberal election ad of years past, that showed a handgun slowly being
turned out to point right at viewers from their television sets?

Then, of course, the quick cut as Stephen Harper fired the gun into your livingroom.

*

Rebarb,

LDog was trying to draw the conclusion that the rising price of corn was due to "unfettered, unregulated free market" forces. Of course, this is idiotic. The rising price of corn is, as Stephen mentions, primarily due to the law of unintended consequences caused by the leftists' insistence on making GHG reduction their pet cause.

With most of the media on their side, they can convince a lot of people that this is the biggest issue they currently face. The votes of these same people are required to lead the country and therefore the government has no choice but to follow along, at least until they can educate the people

Oh no, the dreaded tortilla crisis.

Leftards to the rescue.

So will this mean no more Taco Bell Drive throughs?....gas or food.......tough choice. Steak is looking better and better.

"Very, Very Big Corn. Ethanol and its consequences."

http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110009587

"That's also why the percentage of the U.S. corn crop devoted to ethanol has risen to 20% from 3% in just five years, or about 8.6 million acres of farmland. Reaching the President's target of 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuels by 2017 would, at present corn yields, require the entire U.S. corn harvest."

"No wonder, then, that the price of corn rose nearly 80% in 2006 alone."

I don't think Mr.Bush is to blame here.
The price of corn is set to rise much more in the coming years as more corn finds itself being used in american ethanol prodution... if the mexican corn growers can get a better price for corn, why wouldn't they grow more?

Or, "global climate change" will take hold in western Canada, and finally we'll be able to grow corn too, instead of "just wheat".

Nice piece of loopy fawning journalism. It was barely readable. Never mind that we have 12 million(?) Mexicans illegally and unfettered here sending tortilla money home. Mexico has never had to pay real economic or political consequences for their elite's bad behavior. They can export any discontentment or economic disparity rather then correct it.

My first thought when I read that headline on Drudge was "And so it begins...". Trying to create a grain-based fuel stream is silly, and anyone who reads Car&Driver has known that for a good 10 years. With worldwide food production now officially falling behind demand, this will only exacerbate the problem. The only real way to reduce carbon-based fuel consumption is for the price to rise, yet Canadians have told pollster after pollster that they won't accept that option. They also reject more nuclear power at the behest of the greens. This leaves a quandary. There is one ray of sunshine in the drive to reduce our reliance on Mid-East oil, though. It's called "depolymerization" and turns slaughterhouse offal into a low-grade diesel fuel. In the United States, there is enough excess waste from slaughterhouses to produce enough fuel to fill the tanks of the largest single-desk petroleum customer inthe world- the U.S. military. The first full scale production facility is under construction at a Butterball turkey plant in Kentucky. One of my customers manufactures ancilliary components for the plant. Apparently it's fairly impressive.

They forgot to say that George eats babies too.

Cargill,

That corporate name keeps popping up on these unfair market practice stories with a Monsanto sort of regularity.

Just observing. . = TG

The price of popcorn better not double or there will be rioting in the Theater and streets. My new Humvee
is warmed up now, gotta go!

Right, Penny - with reference to that Mexican 'free market economy'.

Mexico has a neat and extremely simple strategy to get out of having to provide services, such as schools, housing, hospitals and jobs, for its people. It doesn't.

And that means that its population streams illegally into the USA, where they receive low wages BUT - these wages are 'theirs, theirs, theirs'! No deductions for income tax. No deductions for state taxes, city taxes, education taxes! But - they use all those services - they send their kids to the local schools, without paying taxes to pay for the schools, use the hospitals, roads, services - all without paying a penny for them.

AND, send millions back to their relatives in Mexico - who use that money to survive in Mexico. So that the Mexican government doesn't have to provide jobs for its people, or services or..anything.

Neat. The US taxpayer bears the burden of Mexico.

Leftdud's solution would be to make the U.S. of A. more backwardly socialist so as not to inappropriately show the glaring differences between the purchasing power in a free enterprise society versus a backward socialist society.

According to an article in the Post, Canada will benefit nicely from global warming, including:

- Corn instead of wheat on the Praries.

- New arctic shipping routes.

- A boom in trade with the 150 million strong Russian market.

- Shiraz instead of ice-wine in Niagara.

- Lower heating and snowplow bills.

- Fewer deaths due to pneumonia.

It goes on to say that "Much research fails to take into account that humans will adapt to change." "Early research never took adaptation into account," said Robert Mendelsohn, a professor at Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Further, in another article, Aldyen Donnelly, a pioneer in the environment and respected worldwide president of Gemco says, " I did the first agriculture (carbon trading) deal in the world and I did the first carbon dioxide capture and injection to enhance oil recovery in the world."

By 2003, Gemco and its members had become the world's third-largest buyer of carbon credits. To date, carbon trading projects Ms. Donnell has worked on have led to an estimated 50 megatonnes of greenhouse gas reductions.

She said that the emissions trading markets she once saw as the glittering hope of companies in need of greenhouse reductions are bunk.

"They're expecting us to exchange our Canadian dollars for Zellers coupons," she said.

She says markets such as the European Union's emission trading scheme are primed to crash -- their currency in trade, carbon credits, are nearly useless because the market has been oversupplied with allocations by politicians wary of harming industry with deep emissions cuts.

She says as Canada draws closer to establishing its own emission restrictions, Ottawa can avoid the mistakes made by Europe -- whose carbon market has been volatile, based in part on over-allocation of credits to emitters -- by refusing to develop a market here.

"I'm shifting my recommendations dramatically," she said. "I'm very close to saying that in Canada the government should absolutely not participate in any way in the construction of any infrastructure to support a market system. Just regulate."

Sounds like a Dion slayer. Sign her up Mr. Harper.

After this, I wonder what the next neo-com tactic is going to be?

Typical leftist policy. We need to kill poor Mexicans to save the environment and stop global warming NOW!

But what good is saving the environment, if you're dead...

Price of grain going up?.....Farmers might actually make money?...HORRORS!!...Call out the National Guard.... Bring on the War Measures Act!....sorry-that's still in place to inforce The Canadian Wheat Board Act.. no matter...If those red-necked right wing farmers make a buck, that CAN'T be good for we upper-middle aged fat-butted consumers whose priviledged RIGHT is to keep our heel on the throat of those who put bread (and beer) on the table...off to the slammer with them!

According to Cornell researcher David Pimental, if the entire U.S. grain crop were converted to ethanol, it would satisfy about 15% of U.S. automotive fuel needs. Mandatory automotive fuel efficiency could probably achieve that and more.

And even the most optimistic estimates of net energy from ethanol are that we'll get a scant 30% more than we put in.

Another Kyoto scam, anyone?

Hey, even plumbers can own Bentleys.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/3938769a30.html

global warming, or poor Mexicans starve...quite a decision for the eco-socialists to make...LMAO

It states it right there in the article.

"Dramatically rising international corn prices, spurred by demand for the grain-based fuel ethanol, have led to expensive tortillas."

Greenpeace and their fellow enviro-imperialists are to blame.

DOWN WITH GREENPEACE.

To have a lot of corn on the prairies, instead of wheat, one need irrigation. For dion, irrigation uses and needs lots of water. It also needs energy to pump that water thru the system. Then that corn has to be hauled somewhere for processing, again using fuel. Then you might end up with stupid women on city council (like Lethbridge did) who protested turning an abandoned brewery, after years of operation, into a special barley processing plant. Her reason, do you really want truck loads of barley travelling thru our city.
The plant relocated to the states, and someone asked this stupid woman, what do you think beer is made from. She was clueless.
The surrounding area of small towns boycotted Lethbridge businesses for several months, to let them know, without the farmers they would go broke. The point was made, and she didn't run again.

- Corn instead of wheat on the Praries.

What is better about maizse than wheat?? pray tell.

- New arctic shipping routes.

Good.

- A boom in trade with the 150 million strong Russian market.

Double good.

- Shiraz instead of ice-wine in Niagara.

Sorry. Fuck the Shiraz. Evrybody and his mother makes Shiraz. How 'bout sumfink els.

- Lower heating and snowplow bills.

Yeah.

- Fewer deaths due to pneumonia.

Fewer deaths. Point a la line. (yes, yes, I realise that deaths must always be 100%. Don't you just hate that?).

oh so many directions.

the free market- always always always the most efficient way to distribute goods. - support biofuel- twist the food market, got to love it.

future benefits of global warming - well lets hope for brazilian waxes over the "neaderthal look"

and crazies in Lethbridge- nothing could ever match the fury , the frost and the fibs of Dar Heatherington.

Well we know millions have died because Greenpeace panicked an got governments t ban DDT.

Know they'll murdering millions more with their rabid pursuit of the sky is falling Kyoto accord.

Kyoto . . killing poor people everywhere so the champagne socialists, the latte sipping enviro-weenies can travel around the world, attending conferences, destroying economies and preaching the religion of global warming.

Go figure.

I guess this would not be the correct time to bring up the theory that we can get cheap gas from beans. This would solve the tortilla problem but what would they scoop with the tortillas?

Rene: "that we can get cheap gas from beans."

...is this before or after ingestion?

Wait...I know...Let's create a World Barley Board...force all those ne're do well farmers to join, peg the price of corn rock bottom which in turn will make every body simply giggle with joy...green peace' the Mexicans, polution spewers and not to be forgottn...fat-butted consumers...and those rednecked plough boys?...who cares

Consider this picture.

The tactical team want to have reserves of alternate fuels to Oil/Gas.

Ethanol - 85 is impractical and costly, yet it does offset numbers of barrels of oil.

It also eases, [slows], the shift to battery and fuel-cell auto-motion.

Gotta figure out how to get $20 road maintenance tax out of an EV driver who buys an 18 cent battery charge.

And then there is a question of how to handle mass unemployment when only three cylinder air-cooled engine / battery chargers are required. = TG

More From The Post-Standard

Farmers' interest grows in ethanol industry

Feb. 14 program to introduce them to selling to, or buying from, Northeast Biofuels.

Sunday, January 28, 2007

By Charles McChesney
Staff writer

Hundreds of farmers are expected to gather at the Holiday Inn in Salina on Valentine's Day to talk about doing business with Northeast Biofuels.

The event comes as farm experts are predicting record-high corn prices and the most corn planted in 60 years.

Cornell Cooperative Extension of Oswego County and Operation Oswego County are sponsoring the afternoon program and have reserved space for 200 people - which could be expanded to 400 if enough farmers register.

The program is for farmers who are interested in growing corn for Northeast Biofuels, which is constructing a plant at the former Miller Brewery in Volney. The meeting is also for farmers - particularly dairy farmers - who might buy dried distillers grain from the plant to feed their animals.

When up and running, the new plant is expected to turn 40 million bushels of corn into 114 million gallons of ethanol.

That ethanol will be added to gasoline at refineries on the East Coast.

Each week, Ann Peck, executive secretary of the New York Corn Growers Association, fields four or five calls from farmers interested in selling to the ethanol industry. Along with the plant in Volney, a second plant is in the works in Orleans County, she said.

Peck, whose office is in Newark, Wayne County, said she could see 300 or even more farmers attending the meeting in Salina.

In recent years, New York state has produced around 60 million bushels of corn. That is not nearly enough to supply feed for farm animals and the growing demand created by the ethanol plants.

The Earth Policy Institute in Washington this month released a report saying grain prices could hit all-time highs because ethanol makers will need far more corn than had been estimated. The institute estimates that demand for corn will more than double in the next year as 79 new plants will consume 51 million tons of grain. Currently, operating plants use about 53 million tons of grain, the institute said, and will use 8 million more tons due to work done to expand capacities.
A ton of corn equals 39.4 bushels, and state figures show farmland in Central New York yields about 140 bushels per acre.

"It's really a slam dunk," said Bryce Knorr, senior editor of Farm Futures magazine. Commodity markets are showing prices above $4 a bushel, he said. That means farmers can make $150 of profit per acre, far above the $40 to $50 they might make in a typical year, he said.

A survey by Farm Futures found that American farmers would plant 88.4 million acres of corn this spring, 10.1 million acres more than in 2006.

"If realized, this would represent the highest corn acreage total since 1946," the magazine said in a release.

Much of the new acreage will come at the expense of soybean crops, said Knorr. Farmers frequently switch between the two crops, he said.

But soybean supplies are high and, Knorr said, and the price has slipped compared to corn.

Along with ethanol, the Northeast Biofuels plant will produce dried distillers grain, which can be used to feed animals.

"It's a co-product," said L. Michael Treadwell, executive director of Operation Oswego County.

On a visit to the Northeast Biofuels plant last year, Perdue officials said that corn farmers who once sold their crop to animal farmers could sell to the ethanol plant and the animal farmers could then buy distillers grain to feed their animals.

Perdue Agribusiness, which will buy corn for the plant and sell dried distillers grain, will make presentations at the Feb. 14 meeting, Treadwell said.

Treadwell said the meeting was scheduled to start at 1 p.m. but didn't know how long it would last.

Paul Forestiere, executive director of Cornell Cooperative Extension of Oswego County, stressed that the meeting is for farmers.

"This informational meeting is intended for corn growers, dairy farmers and other agricultural producers," says a flier Forestiere handed out recently.

Preregistration is required by Feb. 5. To sign up, call 963-7286, ext. 201, or send an e-mail to kmm14@cornell. edu.

Cal2, I never mentioned her, hoping she was long forgotten. What an embarrassment to women in politics & mothers everywhere. Just proves all the wacko voters are not in TO at least for city council.

To all, try googling "switchgrass", you might find it interesting.

>There is one ray of sunshine in the drive to reduce our reliance on Mid-East oil, though. It's called "depolymerization" and turns slaughterhouse offal into a low-grade diesel fuel.

Don't know if that would go over too well with the Muslims. But it might slow down the ones wanting to learn how to drive a big-rig forwards but nevermind learning how to backup... over.

what, this is a surprise?

food crops into fuel you say?

kinda like when germans starved for a couple potatoes because the whole crop was fermented for rocket fuel in the waning months of WW II.

politishuns really need to read up on history to see if they are committing the old adage of repeating it.

"primarily due to the law of unintended consequences caused by the leftists' insistence on making GHG reduction their pet cause"

exactly.

face it, theres a demonstration outside by leftys celebrating their 'victory' in forcing ethanol percentages, theyre singing and swooning.

meanwhile youve got 500,000 bushels of corn in your barns (sounds biblical LOL !) which you can sell in the regulated mkt for 40 bucks a pop or the unregulated mkt which is responding to the simple math that refiners have to come up with the ethanol to meet requirements, and from those buyers you get 80 bucks a pop.

which will it be?

tacos tonite dear or do we climb into the suv and burn some ethanol and pick up supper at the taco bell?

I'm not exactly sure what the title of this entry has to do with the news story, but it's an interesting topic in any case and something that just came onto my radar. I just hours ago heard Elizabeth May's interview with the Ottawa Citizen [podcast] where she mentioned trouble with corn prices in Mexico.

Everyone should be aware that every acre planted to corn means an acre taken out of production for other food crops. What are the vegans going to do when no soybeans are produced. How much will you pay for a loaf of bread, box of cereal, canned or frozen vegetables to name a few, just so you can feel good you helped reduce not only greenhouse gas, jobs, economic growth and caused millions to starve in the developing countries. Unfortunately we will all suffer because of your allegience to suzuki, gore and the rest of the wackos. By the time that all the damage is done, those idiots will be dead, but our grandchildren should sue their decendants, the liberals and the green party of europe, (and their supporters in Canada)

This is an absolutely priceless article -- utterly predictable for anyone who takes the time to think things through in advance. Don't be surprised if the effects of diverting food crops to idiotic fuel production programs is used as an example of the evils of capitalism in the near future.

Using corn to make ethanol makes sense in very few situations; if a country has it's oil supply cut off and needs to fuel its military vehicles then corn based ethanol production might be essential. In a situation where there are plentifull supplies of higher density energy available, ethanol production from corn is simply assinine.

Human civilization has advanced by exploiting energy sources which are increasingly concentrated and the logical next step up from oil would be to nuclear power and hopefully soon fusion power. Ethanol is retrogressive in that not only does it use a highly dilute form of energy (sunlight), but it wastes much more of the energy than if one used photovoltaic cells to convert the same area of sunlight to electricity. Corn plants take up CO2 and build large molecules and ethanol production takes just a small percentage of these larger molecules and then rips them apart to produce simpler molecules. It would make far more sense to genetically engineer algae or bacteria to produce ethanol directly from CO2 and H2O. Producing ethanol from corn makes about as much sense as performing liposuction on obese Americans and converting the adipose tissue gathered to gasoline.

Corn based ethanol production is a classic example of government interference in the market and it is an industry that could not exist without government support. On the other hand, maybe this was the whole point of this exercise: banning vehicles as every time you start your car a child dies in Mexico, but this would require ascribing far more intelligence and foresight to politicians than they have thus far demonstrated.

my favourite idea for source for biodiesal is used frying oil.

I got fat feeling sorry for the poor children in India and China as a boomer kid.

Now I have eat 30 lbs of fried spuds everyday to fuel my car. never once does the MSM ever try to put a scale to these ludicrous proposals.

"the pipples will nod 'ave to water the poitintoes in order for substain a billy tee." borat dion.

Consumer Reports and Car and Driver have already detailed the flaws in the Ethanol Myth. In fact that is the front page special report title of the Consumer Reports article. Mileage decreases using E85 and the range of a Tahoe went from 440 miles to 300 miles, needing more frequent fill ups. The fuel is primarily available in the Mid-West so you couldn't drive your vehicle to the New England states as there are no E85 stations.

The other problem is poor starting in cold weather, an issue up here in Canada. This was mentioned in a Popular Mechanics article.

Another issue that isn't mentioned is that E85 is extremely corrosive as Gasoline isn't. It means that your fuel system now has to be made out of Stainless Steel and Plastic that is resistant to Ethanol corrosion - something a mechanic warned me about years ago. Never use ethanol in any of your small engines, it eats out the carburator valves and seats as well as the gaskets....

I still vote for soybeans and conversion to BioDiesel, it increases our fuel economy, soybeans can be grown in Canada and it is a lubricant not a corrosive....

The clincher for me was when they revealed that you used more energy to produce a gallon of Ethanol than you got out. All the petro fuel to farm the land, transport the crop, make the fertilizer and process the Ethanol - so E85 is a net loss fuel.

The first vehicle to run on Ethanol was - wait for it - the Model T Ford, why, so farmers could make their own fuel! This isn't a new idea and there was a reason it did not take off. An interesting idea is the FFV - Flexible Fuel Vehicles which can run on either fuel, still doesn't make up for all the drawback in E85 though.

Buy yourself a TDI, convert it to a grease car and start burning straight fry oil from your local McDonalds, you are saving the environment and your exhaust smells like french fries, what could be better than that....

I believe I pointed this out on another thread, but ethanol from sugar cane is cheaper than ethanol from corn, and has a better energy in/energy out ratio. However, Brazilian ethanol faces a $.41/gallon tariff, whilst domestic corn ethanol receives a $.51/gal subsidy.

Which is why leftdog's comment to start this thread is pointless. This isn't an example of a free market at all; it's completely distorted by government barriers that prevent the importation of all but a few million tonnes of sugar cane (to protect growers in LA and FL), tariffs that keep out competing products, and subsidies that encourage inefficient use of resources. In fact, it's a classic example of how government intervention (and I'm not going to use labels like right or left, as both the Republicans and Democrats do it) screws markets up.

For all of you who are so eager to make snide comments about the eating habits of Mexicans in economic crisis, why don't you read the article (or get someone to read it out loud so you don't have to sound out the big words by yourselves). It clearly says that:
"Ethanol ... is generally made with yellow corn. But the price of white corn, which is used to make tortillas, is indexed in Mexico to the international price of yellow corn". Fuel corn is not being taken out of the mouths of the hungry. This issue is one of relative markets and PR. Would it be a surprise to discover that this "humanitarian concern" about maize-as-food is related to counter alternative fuels campaigns??

Further to Angela's comment:

For what reason is the price of white corn indexed to yellow corn? If it's causing a hardship, why not break the link?

The same hollywood jerks who whine about those who drive SUVs are the same ones who drive to their dumb awards show in the gas guzzling 4 mpg limos or who fly to the rediclous earthday events in their priavate jets whata bunch of hypotcrits