Is Corn Really that bad?

Technocrat

Is Corn Really that bad?

zogger

Sat May 10 17:37:14 -0700 2008

Science

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A lot has been said negatively about the economics of raising corn for ethanol fuel production because of increased food costs. Here is a professional farmer's rebuttal.

.."Because corn and soybeans cost about the same per acre to produce and process, the fuel - 420 gallons of ethanol from an acre - is virtually free. In essence, in raising corn, we raised as much food, oil and protein as if we had planted soybeans or any other crop and got 19% more starch for processing. How is that not a good thing?"

ed.z.: What he said. You need to look a little further uphill in the economic food chain past the guys in the overalls to see where the fast rising higher food prices are coming from. Blaming the farmers and corn is a misdirection.

Is Corn Really that bad?

Charles E Hill

Sat May 10 18:23:26 -0700 2008
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All the rants I've seen about corn ethanol revolve around two main points.

Ethanol is heavily subsidized, so the price is artificially low compared to gasoline. And the bulk of the subsidies go to Archer-Daniels Midland (ADM), a humongous corporation, and not small farmers.

Corn ethanol alone isn't a solution to our dependency on petroleum. Lots of people scream "but we'd have to plant the entire Western U.S. with corn to replace all the oil we use!" Duh! Corn ethanol is just part of the equation, not some magic bullet.

I'm in the market for a used flex-fuel vehicle right now, since there are plenty of E85 stations where I now work.

goofy idea

zogger

Sat May 10 18:52:55 -0700 2008
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I wonder how a two stroke would run on a mix fuel of home made ethanol for the main gas and veggie oil for the oil mix part? I ran one once for 30 seconds on homebrew, just to see if I could get it to fire and run at all, but used normal mix oil. Sort of wondering because a chainsaw is an *important* part of my reality. I done did the biodrive bucksaw action for several years, several cords a year, when I lived out in the boonies in Maine, and I now admit I am not in my 20s and chainsaws sure work good...it gets terrible bad, I can go to ox cart for transpo with a little training of the youngest available beefer around here..really, but hand cutting cords of wood..hmmm...

Anyway, your points, and I sure made them before as well, right now ethanol and biodiesel are *it* for anything practical to replace petroleum products, say...huge swaths of the middle east become glazed glass surfaces due to unforeseen political fubars getting out of hand, and regular oil gets to $2,000 a barrel. We are in a transition stage now, have to crawl before we walk and run. And with that said, internet window shopping the other day, there's a ton of electric scooters out there now for cheap, wouldn't take just a couple solar panels to keep one of those running for some modest use. Cheap electric cars should be along shortly I think. They won't have 500 mile range, but 25 to 50, which would work pretty well for a lot of people. Call that a mild prediction. Two disruptive technologies this year hit the consumer market (leaving out the iPhone), the Tato Nano car at 2500 bucks, and the Asus eeePC running linux at 300 bucks. Those are industry booty-kickers, wake-up calls, gauntlets thrown down. If they can do a gas car for 2500, seems an electric car wouldn't be much more than that, primarily for a marginally stouter frame and the battery pack. Basic transport you could make your own fuel for.

Good luck on your vehicle quest, let us now what you find!

goofy idea

Uncle Entity

Sat May 10 19:45:29 -0700 2008
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Should be just a matter of jetting the carb if the seals can hold up. Don't know about the long term lubrication qualities of vegetable oil though—do know it can be used in a pinch.

goofy idea

Richard Sexton

Sat May 10 20:42:25 -0700 2008
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A cheap gas car? What if you start from scratch rather than begin with the idea of your fathers Oldsmobile. Seems to me one of those 4 wheel atv thingers with a coupls of dc brushless motors and either a lot of lithium battery packs or even AGM lead acid batteries might work for a lot of poeple for some part of the year. Ok you're not gonn haul 3 kids on one or take some sheets of plywood home but for the proverbial qiuck trip to the store or grandmas on sunday it might be ideal. Some entrerprising soul might even be able to weatherproof one for winter use, too.

golf carts

zogger

Sun May 11 10:08:18 -0700 2008
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Even easier, some places already allow golf carts on the road as part of the neighborhood electric vehicle standards, and they could carry a few people and some groceries. they have lights and turn signals, etc. As to the ATVs, they are already driven quite openly on the roads around here, cops apparently don't care as long as you stay away from town and off the larger roads, I see dozens a day driving around. I don't have one, my ATV is a tractor and if I need to I drive it on the road as well, do it all the time. I have no idea what sort of road mileage it gets though. I can work well over a long day at 2,000 rpms with ten gallons diesel. It would pull a *large* trailer no problems, but hauling people in a trailer is verbotten..except in parades...

golf carts

Richard Sexton

Sun May 11 10:25:27 -0700 2008
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Yeah I thought about golf carts. I mean they're so sexy looking compared to todays Vader-esque ATVs.
The problem with them is they use between 3 and 400 pounds of lead acid batteries. I was thinking a lightweight ATV racing frame, a couple of seriously powerful dc brushless motors (I worked with these once. Scary powerful) and a bunch of lithium cells. This ought to be way more efficient and faster.
An electric motorcylcle was my original idea, but the ATVs I think are an even better idea.
My future has to have an electric vehicle. I have solar and windpower now, but I also have a waterfall here and a back of the envelope calculation says I can charge 10 Tesla roadsters from it overnight if I could harness half its power.
They drive atvs on ther road here too. A lot.
I wonder why there aren't any electric atv's already?

cost

zogger

Sun May 11 12:52:00 -0700 2008
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Lithium batteries are so far outside my price range I couldn't afford the operators manual. Heh Anything I build big like that for a vehicle will be lead acid, most likely a forklift battery pack pushing a lightweight pickup truck. What sort of solar rig do you have? And, you ever hear of these things, electric tractors?

cost

Richard Sexton

Sun May 11 13:18:27 -0700 2008
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Lithium batteries are only expenisve here where they go though 5 guys marking them up.
I have a buddy who brings a container from china every month. They're stupid cheap from the factory; a lot depends on the deal you make with them.

cost

Richard Sexton

Sun May 11 13:27:31 -0700 2008
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"And, you ever hear of these things, electric tractors?"
I've gone from yawn-maybe-I'll-look to I-have-to-get-one in about 30 seconds. Thanks!
Anybody wanna buy a barely used John Deere 20HP lawn tractor?

goofy idea

President4242

Sun May 11 07:47:56 -0700 2008
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And I wonder why I can have an 18Volt, 1200 torque cordless drill and not an 18 volt cordless chainsaw. Seems to me that the load requirements should be similar.

Today, however, living in the city what I really need is a cordless lawn mower. I have an old electric lawn mower with a burnt out motor- I'm going to try a zip tie on my cordless drill to run it.

For the tall stuff, the weed eater will knock it down to size, but I can't afford the gas for my gas mower right now.

electric

zogger

Sun May 11 09:55:29 -0700 2008
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Fix the mower. Seems like about any old used 110 VAC vacuum cleaner motor might work. Similar size and power (close enough anyway). Probably get a used one for a few bucks or maybe you have one kicking around already. I wouldn't burnout my good cordless drill on a lawnmower project, especially if it really doesn't need to be cordless. Or do the small portable chicken run and drag it over a new piece of grass/lawn every day, they'll take it down. Or a tethered goat. Free milk, plus lawnmower.

load

zogger

Sun May 11 10:18:24 -0700 2008
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Load is much higher on the chain saw then drilling one hole or driving in one screw. The closest I have seen is they make AC corded chainsaws cheap, most any hardware stores have them, they work OK I used to have one, and for a few years you could buy a DC chainsaw with 50 foot leads, designed so you could run a pickup into the woods, cut a load, then have enough battery left to start the truck and get back out, but that was like 30 years ago and haven't seen one since. I have one of those B&D combo cordless units that take attachments, and with the jigsaw part the batt doesn't last long. They make them with small circular saws as well, but I don't own one so can't comment.

Is Corn Really that *Good*?

Bhima

Sun May 11 00:24:40 -0700 2008
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I saw this image on theoildrum.com recently. I am a pretty big supporter of biofuels but I don't think that there is a future in biofuels from stuff stuck in ground and grown. Given the prices of oil, 126 US$ right now... and rate of the change 100% in the last year, I have to think the development of alternative fuels will also accelerate.

One other comment: as far as I know there are projects employing grey water and flue gas in the production of algae which substantially increases the rate of growth and reduces the impact on local water supply.

Is Corn Really that bad?

Simon

Sun May 11 01:08:14 -0700 2008
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Urm the summary is a tad simplistic I think.

As he said "we need other crops".

Whilst they can replace Soy with Corn, since both are effectively crops predominantly aimed at low quality food or industrial uses no one in the US will see much change, if we turn it into ethanol we aren't producing something else.

If it is such a big win over Soy, why weren't they growing it before? Here is where you ask an Economist, not a farmer.

But no, the current food price changes are probably down to other issues. With bad wheat harvests in Europe and Canada last year you'd expect higher prices for many western staple foods. The UK's weather last year was pretty weird - although the wheat growing areas weren't as badly affected (they are inherently drier being on the East cost) by the torrential rain.

Expect climate change to drive food prices higher still.

mash

lars

Sun May 11 06:14:21 -0700 2008
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It's not a question of fuel XOR food. The mash left over from the fermentation does not have to go to waste. It makes great animal feed, having been improved by the yeast.

Is Corn Really that bad?

Spider

Tue May 13 00:56:08 -0700 2008
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I would go along with the views of the professional farmer, at least regarding corn. The Greens were ( and still are ) strong promoters of ethanol, bio-fuels etc. to replace oil products. In my country where there is a political party called the "Greens" the new cry to be heard on the media is " vote Green and starve people to death ".

There have also been recent media reports here that local scientists have made a "breakthrough" in making ethanol from sewage and are presently keeping the method a secret until all aspects of production and use are fully tested. Credence has been given to this report as apparently Boeing is showing real interest in the method and product. They state also that the residual water is good enough to drink and could be used for irrigation.

Once a "surefire" method of producing ethanol, in quantity. especially from cheap waste products hits the market the price of the oil balloon will pop.