More reasons Ethanol is a scam
After reading about so many reasons we should not be investing into ethanol as an alternative fuel, I came across one more I had to post quickly
A little-recognized risk: Fires require special firefighting foam
Ethanol fires are harder to put out than gasoline ones and require a special type of firefighting foam.
Many fire departments around the country don’t have the foam, don’t have enough of it, or are not well-trained in how to apply it, firefighting experts say. It is also more expensive than conventional foam.
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Now add this a few other facts
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fertilizer is oil based so if there is an oil shortage, we won’t get as much as yield on corn crops making ethanol that much more innefficient
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Using ethanol is contributing to higher corn prices
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If a car is altered to run ethanol and you put regular fuel in it, it runs worse than if you left it alone to begin with
Very few realize that Brazil went ethanol for very different reasons that don’t apply to us.
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sugar ethanol production is far more cost effective and efficient
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Brazil gets 4 harvests per year (most fertile place on planet), where North America only yeilds 2
The whole equation change to food=energy always will scare me. Monsanto and ADM are becoming the new Exxon and Shell.
Henry Kissinger once said that if you want to control countries, you must control oil and if you want to control people, you must control food
Post Feedback
I agree. Ethanol is a dangerous hype.
Requiring more energy to produce than itself produces as well as the destruction of aerable land for corn production.
But the corn lobby is happy.
Thank you, thank you! I am glad I am not the only one seeing this ruse. Has anyone noticed the cost of food lately? Especially the cost of food that has a high content of corn or corn-based edibles?
There have been many demonstrations and in some cases food riots in Mexico, Italy and a growing number of other countries that have a corn or wheat based diets. Milk in the US is scheduled to go up 40% in April…do to…yep you guessed it… plus the rising cost of automobile/truck fuels.
It is quickly coming to the point that very soon you/we will have to make a choice in either to drive or to eat and for me, since I don’t own a car but pay the ever increasing cost of fuels that deliver my food by truck, it will be more expensive to eat but I won’t have that delimna.
Iowa was once a net exporter of corn to the world, because of all the ethanol plants being built in that state, they are now a net importer of corn to keep the plants hummering along! And those Iowan farmers are the most heavily subsidized farmers in the world!
But it just isn’t food! It is also all the other chemicals that are corn or gluten based that is also affected.
In transportation, about the only thing that I worry about is breaking a shoelace on my winter hiking boots!
We have taken a basic food product and inflated its price for the production of energy. What are we feeding the animals?
This is going to cause problems in the basic food chain as most products contain corn which will become a scarce product.
Enough hype. Let’s not mess with the economy.
There will be serious reprocussions from this one.
Instead let’s start tapping the huge energy resources we have here in Canada. We talk the talk, but we don’t walk the walk.
I think we can all agree that grain based ethanol is hardly the panacea that has been promoted by agri-business and government. There still however is the possibility of producing ethanol from cellulose material, such as wood fibre, switchgrass, straw residue. However that method is still not operational at a commercial level and requires substantial investment to move belong the pilot-plant phase.
Another thing to mention about corn, is that in order to get the good yields, you need to add a lot of fertilizer. Plus being an annual crop, it requires working of the soil every year, with associated erosion concerns….
That would be the fertilizer that is made from oil. Oil shortages will result in lower corn yields
I heard another ADM initiative in addition to the the Food = Energy
which is Food = Plastic
Biodegradable plastics made out of corn.
I wonder if there’ll be any left for us to eat?
What comes after “Peak Oil”?
“Peak Food”
Where you spend your hard-earned money is a constant reminder of your values. Go with UrbanRat and choose food.
Interesting to see that Maclean’s magazine has a big article on the price of food escalating and food shortages not seen in 50 years! All because…oil! But hey we can keep sprawling and driving and driving some more. This lifestyle of the last 15 years which I have stated time and again isn’t sustainable, is now becoming that reality.
Get ready to pay for this lifestyle folks…for the rest our lives!
Increasing dependence on the grain leaves the U.S. vulnerable to drought-induced price spikes in food and fuel.
By Jerry Hirsch
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 2 2008
Corn is a key element of the U.S. food supply. It is what dairy cows eat to make milk and hens consume to lay eggs. It fattens cattle, hogs and chickens before slaughter. It makes soda sweet. As the building block of ethanol, it is now also a major component of auto fuel.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-corn2mar02,0,2246506.story
Visit latimes.com at http://www.latimes.com