[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

Ah well it is just that, supposition. But a logical one IMO. The source of corn is green, its a plant, reducing the carbon footprint to start with. then there's a tractor, a few trucks, and some ancillary machines, but that's about it, and the distillery (different than a refinery, a lot less wasteful).

A tractor and a few trucks? Some ancillary machines? I take it you're not a farmer.

Alright, I didn't mean any offense by any of that, but it did make me laugh. I can't even blame you for your logic, because it's actually quite logical. However, the reality is quite a bit different.

I takes about 25 pounds of corn to yield one gallon of ethanol fuel. That may not sound like much, but it takes a lot of land to grow 25 pounds of corn, and that ain't corn stocks or corn cobs, it's the actual little yellow seeds that you can buy in bags at the grocery store and eat. I forget exactly how much land it takes but it's about an acre to produce that much corn. That's land that could be used for the much more efficient task of producing stuff people already use and eat. Still not so bad? It gets worse.

Turning that corn into ethanol uses a lot of energy. The distilleries that produce it consume vast amounts of electricity, and that electricity has to come from somewhere. Simply growing the corn has a lot of energy costs and carbon footprint associated with it as well. Corn is a relatively hardy crop, but it still has to be fertilized regularly and dusted for pests, fungi and weeds or it dies en masse. Those fertilizers and whatever-cides aren't cheap or environmentally-friendly to produce, and it takes a great deal of them and the machines to distribute them to sustain the vast cornfields needed to produce the amount of ethanol we require.

But don't take my word for it. Look at what the ethanol craze has accomplished thus far. Our gasoline is only 10% ethanol, despite a surge in corn production since the Energy-whatever Act of 2005, and it didn't lower gas prices, it raised them. It also had the side effect of raising food prices by wasting land that could have been better-used or better-suited to other crops.

And it doesn't even stop there. Corn-ethanol is so inefficient that it requires $17 billion in annual Federal subsidies just to remain viable. That's after the price-hikes. This is not "green" policy, it's Farm lobby policy dressed up as green policy and peddled to pandering politicians who don't know any better.

Oil needs a rig (many trucks/ships), a refinery (power source, waste gases), shipping (trucks/ships), etc etc. It's amazing to think that oil doesnt burn more fuel than it produces.

Well, it actually does burn more fuel than it produces, but it is still comparatively efficient, which is why we use the hell out of it.

Yeah. ethanol is still a CO2 emitting fuel, but we really need to switch to it to preserve the oil supply, so other petroleum products that alternatives have yet to be found (plastic?) can continue on.

Preserve the oil supply? What makes you think we're running out? I know that people say that we're running out all the time, but if that's true, why do the oil companies seem so unconcerned?

I know why. It's because we aren't running out, and they have artificial substitutes. I trust them. They didn't get to be mega-conglomerates and captains of industry just by being short-sighted and greedy, contrary to the general public impression.

Also financially speaking, as A US citizen, I would like to be free of the OPEC countries hold over us. And corn production is one of the few commodities that the US could be the leader in. We have all this open space, might as well use it.

We were the leader in corn production before ethanol came around, but back then we were actually selling it to people and not subsidizing it quite so much. And there is not enough arable land in this nation to produce the ethanol we need or reduce our dependency.

And forget ethanol, what about vegetable oil in diesels? way more fuel efficient to start with!

I don't know enough about that to really opine, but that seems like a good idea. I think Platapus commented on the efficiency of diesel engines somewhere. As best I can tell, and from my own experience with diesel locomotives, they seem like a great thing. But I trust you took notice of how diesel, the sludge of petroleum products, has somehow become more expensive than gasoline, which requires a lot more cracking? The same government and the same lobbyists that pushed this corn-ethanol nonsense on us were also responsible for that. It wasn't speculators or greedy companies, it was a direct measure taken by the same people we trust to lead us and the farmers we all love because farmers are always nice, right?