Ethanol

26 February, 2007

Factories Around the World Consider Halting Production of Biofuels as Price SoarsLess than a month after George Bush used his State of the Union address to announce that the US would use biofuels to achieve energy independence, companies across the globe are threatening to stop production because of rising prices.

"Corn prices reached a 10-year high yesterday for the second successive day when they touched $4.31 a bushel, up five cents. This increase, at the same time when oil prices are at the same level they were a year ago confirms doubts raised by biofuels critics.
But the doubling of the price of corn, a main feedstock for US ethanol producers, over the past year at a time when oil prices are at the same level they were 12 months ago has raised questions over the viability of the biofuels industry without heavy government support."
".......High grain prices create problems for biofuels companies which produce ethanol from wheat and barley. Other biofuels companies make biodiesel from oil-bearing crops such as soya, peanuts, palm oil and rapeseed. The prices for most of these commodities have also risen sharply, reflecting the competition between demand for these crops as food and demand for them to produce fuel."
".....Brazil is the world's biggest producer of ethanol, and its industry will be unaffected by high grain prices because its producers use sugar cane rather than wheat.
Brazilian companies have been repeatedly accused of illegally clearing rainforest to plant crops for biofuel production."
This month's issue of the Ecologist, available in newsagents now, features a 19-page special report on biofuels.

http://www.theecologist.org:80/archive_detail.asp?content_id=770

Sky's Comment: What ethanol producers really want is a government subsidy so that the taxpayers will fund their growth. The major middle-people such as Cargill and ADM have been soaking the public through farming subsidies for years. The irony here is huge. Not a week goes by that I am not reminded as to my obligation to help feed the poverty stricken and starving millions. Now we have millions of acres which have been in the past used for food production switched over to meet the ethanol demand. This ethanol demand is fueled by the utterly mindless 3 car garages filled with an SUV for holidays, a junker for shopping and a swish sedan for the wage earner to drive to work. It is also fueled by transportation costs of shipping grain from recently chopped rainforest. (the soil is carbon deficient allowing only a year or two of crops. Then comes the super with its shippng cost, nitrate runoff and nitrous oxide, the most harmful greenhouse gas. So, as a double irony, you have the primary sink for carbon dioxide on the land chopped down to make room for grain to produce ethanol to save on emissions causing excess carbon dioxide. If this is our response to global warming, then we will certainly see the social and economic devastation which will result from excessive grenhouse gases. What comes to mind is the talk of humans as co-creators of the Earth's destiny and also the vision of humans colonising other planets. Oh please, let it not be true. We have sent up cannisters into space with indications of what earth creatures and humans are like. Let there be a warning to all to keep us away.