Corn Supplies/Cereal Prices

 Yes corn is a food source, but we don't use that food source up by making ethanol out of it. Something near 90% of the original food value is still there after making ethanol.
 I don't believe ethanol is the answer to our problems either but it beats the heck out of printing more money and sending to the middle east in exchange for more crude. What alternative fuel source isn't subsidized by the government?
 Wind generators are subsidized till they are up. They might run 7 or 8 years and then nobody ca afford to repair them to keep them going. I don't know how many $ our school district spent putting up a wind generator saying how it would pay for itself in so much time. Well the power generated in the first 5 years won't pay for the maintenance cost so far let alone pay back the original investment or any interest on it.
 I don't believe we will ever have a good answer for our energy needs as long as the government has any input, which probably means we will never have an answer to our energy needs.

"Ethanol is a loser.It has to be subsidised to get produced."

Oil, without government subsidies would never work either. It's just that the subsidies have been going on for so long, that nobody thinks about them.

As far as the internal combustion engine being inefficient.  Maybe so, but I don't buy that these little electric jobbys are any better (just a passing fancy in my opinion).  Thier power comes from somewhere and I don't just mean the outlet on the wall (have to look beyond that).  Anyway get the EPA out of the equation and the internal combustion engine can get a lot more efficient.  On the Dodge truck I built I looked over probably 20 different cams and picked one from Mopar.  It was a "resto cam" for a 70 340.  Well after installing it and originaly running it - I hated it.  It had no low end grunt (torque).  The power came on after about 2000-2500 rpm or about 35 mph in my truck.  I couldn't even squeak a tire, but I could really fly down the highway after it got moving.  Anyway I pulled it out and replaced it with a Comp Cams RV style cam (not the smallest, but the next one up from that XE256 if I remember correctly) and mileage improved and power was phenominal.  That truck was a different animal after that.  Anyway the point of the story is that 340 resto cam turned out to be the factory truck cam for a 360 truck from 70's right up until about 87-88 (maybe even later).  I couldn't figure out why Dodge would put such a horrible cam in a truck like that until I got to reading on the internet that they installed that cam to get emmision where the EPA wanted them for that time period.  Its no wonder everyone thinks 360's are fuel hogs, with that cam they definately are!

Edited by Sandknob - 12 Feb 2011 at 9:33pm

just like dave said. the corn for fuel comes from live stock feed not for human consuption and its still avable for livestock after its produced and adds foodvalue

I can't believe all of the negative ethanol comments on this site. I thought most of you lived in the rural U.S. or more approriately grew up or still live on a farm. There hasn't been a single thing that has done more for rural farm economies than ethanol production. Do you remember the days of $1.90 corn, no market, great stockpiles, the PIC program, the farm crisis of the 80's? I am sure many of you lived through all of that. Why on earth are famrers maligning the one economic advancement that has made their profession profitable again. I don't get it. And to the subject of food vs. fuel, field corn is mostly used for livestock feed, ethanol production and the sweetener market. Very little actually goes directly into human food consumption. The sweet corn (food) market is relatively small and contract driven as someone mentioned earlier. And to the subsidy issue, the oil industry recieves way more subsidies than agriculture, but that is never mentioned. There is a great DTN in depth study that looks at that issue. Why are we content to just keep putting foreign oil in our gas tanks? Have you seen the profits at Exxon/Mobil lately? I just don't get it. I am losing faith in our public and more importantly in our farming community. And for the record, I am a crop and livestock producer. I know what it costs to feed cattle $7 corn. I also know what the local ethanol plant has done for my farm's bottom line.

I'm an invester in a farmer owned ethanol plant here in Ontario. In two years of production we have retired 70% of our debt. For every tax dollar of subsidy the government gets 3 dollars back in tax revenue so its been a good investment for the government. Corn farmers were tired of having little or no profits so we created a new market for our corn. DDGs are a great source of livestock feed. I'm a little tired of over producing livestock farmers complaining about the price of corn. Do something about it and find a new market for your product like we did. I'm not runnig a charity to produce corn at a loss for the benifit of the livestock farmers. Been there and done that!

Here you go Spud!

When I am at the gas pump I can decide if my money goes to corn growing americans or sand packing foreign countries, not a hard choice for me.

Sounds like alot of people are misinformed on the issue.

"Company's like GM make flex fuel motors which are designed to be more efficient with ethanol blends. That is the result of design not the fuel itself."
 The auto industry has yet to build a production engine designed to run on ethanol. If it did, the efficiency would definitely increase. Flex fuel engines have to be able to burn gasoline and don't have the compression ratios needed to efficiently burn ethanol. They never will build an ethanol engine as long as Big Oil has hold of the EAR of our government or should I say hand in the pocket of our government.
 Ethanol is produced by extracting the starch from corn and converting it to alcohol. As far as I know, you can't live long on eating starch. It might help gravy stick to your ribs but is basically only carbohydrate. The left over distillers grain is a high fiber high protein by product perfectly suited to the livestock producer. Ethanol- no protein was used in the making of this product.
 Read this article.
 http://www.allaboutfeed.net/article-database/shedding-light-in-the-corn-for-fuel-or-food-debate-id1455.html
"Dr. Terry Klopfenstein, an animal nutrition expert at the University of Nebraska, has concluded that the energy value of DDG when fed to cattle is as much as 145% of the original corn. He contends this feed credit needs to be calculated when determining the overall demand for corn for ethanol production."

CTuckerNWIL wrote: "Company's like GM make flex fuel motors which are designed to be more efficient with ethanol blends. That is the result of design not the fuel itself."  The auto industry has yet to build a production engine designed to run on ethanol. If it did, the efficiency would definitely increase. Flex fuel engines have to be able to burn gasoline and don't have the compression ratios needed to efficiently burn ethanol. They never will build an ethanol engine as long as Big Oil has hold of the EAR of our government or should I say hand in the pocket of our government.  Ethanol is produced by extracting the starch from corn and converting it to alcohol. As far as I know, you can't live long on eating starch. It might help gravy stick to your ribs but is basically only carbohydrate. The left over distillers grain is a high fiber high protein by product perfectly suited to the livestock producer. Ethanol- no protein was used in the making of this product.  Read this article.  http://www.allaboutfeed.net/article-database/shedding-light-in-the-corn-for-fuel-or-food-debate-id1455.html "Dr. Terry Klopfenstein, an animal nutrition expert at the University of Nebraska, has concluded that the energy value of DDG when fed to cattle is as much as 145% of the original corn. He contends this feed credit needs to be calculated when determining the overall demand for corn for ethanol production."

I have a GM "FlexFuel Chevy, gets 19-21 on ethanol 26 on a good day on regular and 27 on mid grade, the math figures to me burning the same amount of actual gasoline on either regular or ethanol blend.

Here's an idea, let's get rid of the tax breaks for ethanol, and oil. Then let's move the cost of ALL the associated military expenses for support of protecting the foreign oil supply from the general federal budget to the cost of gas, then let the consumer decide at the pump which one they want to support.

We cut cereal out a couple years ago but not because corn was too high but a box of corn flakes is too high and it isn't too healthy either. Also we don't buy hot dogs or use fluoride toothpaste. Pop, both regular and diet, is another cut we are in the process of making although that one must be addictive cause it's turned out to be very difficult to stop drinking. Sorry, not totally on topic.

Edited by Lonn - 13 Feb 2011 at 5:23pm

Besides the DDGs the corn oil is still available after using the starch to make sugar and then ethanol.

Gerald J.