^ Did you read what I wrote? If you did, you would realize my point is that your point is irrelevant. If the article is 100% true then the market will order Ethanol producers to produce as much energy as they can without cutting into food consumption. If the article is 100% false then the market will order Ethanol producers to produce as much energy as they can without cutting into food production.

Quote :

"debunk that based on the science used to prove the amt. of energy it takes to produce x amt of energy"

If you wanted to talk about the "energy efficiency" issue then you should have said that, not the "We'll starve to death because of Ethanol!" argument, which is bunk for the exact same reason.

You see, although we say the government is subsidizing Ethanol a lot we are kind of exagerating, the vast majority of it is done by taxing competing fuels (Ethanol is exempt from the gasoline tax). As such, the market is going to maximize value. The argument that Enron is taking 100 watts of fossil power and selling 10 watts of power to end users is specious, information is lacking to determine whether this is a socially efficient behavior.

For example, let us say Enron is selling electricity which it generates by burning coal. The process is not perfectly efficient, so it takes 2 watts of heat from burning coal to sell 1 watt of electricity. Thus, it took 2 watts of fossil fuel to get 1 watt of end use, we don't know the value until we assign prices. If coal is selling for 5 cents a kilowatt/hour and electricity is selling to end users for 10 cents a kilowatt/hour then we know this conversion was efficient.

Now, let us assume your article is about taking "fossil energy" and turning it into Ethanol. If "fossil energy" includes something cheap like coal, while Ethanol is a subsitute for something expensive like gasoline, then depending on the prices this conversion may be very efficient. From the article you linked, "corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced" Therefore, about 13 watts worth of coal are being burned for every 10 watt equivalent of Ethanol. However, if coal is again selling for 5 cents a kilowatt/hour and Ethanol is selling to end users for 6.5 cents or more a kilowatt/hour then we know this conversion was also efficient.

Remember, while physics entusiasts love playing with natures measurements such as energy conversion efficiency, you must always remember that there is only one measure that matters to mankind under a free-enterprise system, and that is money efficiency (does it cost more money to buy the inputs than you get by selling the outputs?)

8/13/2006 12:45:06 AM

maybe if we had unlimited land to grow corn on...are we ready to contribute that much land? will money make it magically appear?

8/13/2006 2:10:59 PM

i apologize for thinking physics first and economics second, i guess i put too much stock in science and dont have ultimate faith in economic models.

8/13/2006 2:12:45 PM

^^ If land is in short supply then the price of corn will rise; if the price of gasoline, which Ethanol is a substitute of, does not rise then people will stop wasting expensive corn in the production of cheap Ethanol.

^ You can be forgiven, those of us that understand it often forget how difficult the economics of resource allocation can be for some to grasp.

Another way of thinking about it is to view prices as humanity's way of making sense of reality. It is how humans find out if a resource is plentiful, or if others have better uses for a resource than we do. It is how we answer the most complex question ever to confront the human race: what should be produced and how should it be produced?

People that try to ignore the price system are trying to ignore reality, which is what it sounds like your article was trying to do.

[Edited on August 13, 2006 at 3:51 PM. Reason : .,.]

8/13/2006 3:49:22 PM

of course, most people dont see economics as everything like you do.

8/13/2006 5:16:59 PM

Economics is just economics, it is nothing more than it is.

And I know you don't see economics in anything because you simply fail to grasp the complexity of reality around you. Life is not as simple as the energy conversion equations from your physics textbook, it involves the intricate interactions between self-interested human beings, which cannot be solved by simply plugging them into matlab.

8/13/2006 5:43:28 PM

it's not all as simple as capitalism as our savior either

8/13/2006 5:46:25 PM

No, it is the system we have in place to handle the problem you were complaining about. Now, if you want to complain it isn't working perfectly and we should replace the price system with some form of feudal or committee based system, go for it, I'll respond to you in kind. But don't make blanket complaints that the system is failing by pretending the system doesn't exist. It is intellectually dishonest.

8/13/2006 6:01:52 PM

Now the picture becomes clear. Evidently, this effort by Wal-Mart is a pre-emptive strike against the oil industry, which allied with some underperforming, now-defunct German stores to create the company's first profit fall in a decade!!1

Courtesy of Drudge...

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/08/15/D8JH2Q400.html

Quote :

"Wal-Mart Posts 1st Profit Fall in Decade Wal-Mart Stores Inc. posted its first profit decline in a decade Tuesday as the world's largest retailer paid a hefty price for closing its loss-making German stores while high energy prices hit its sales and costs at home. Chief Executive Lee Scott said sales were disappointing at Wal-Mart's U.S. stores, its largest division. Customers were making fewer shopping trips to save gas, while Wal-Mart's own bills for fuel and utilities were up, he said. ..."

[Edited on August 15, 2006 at 5:10 PM. Reason : .]

8/15/2006 5:09:35 PM

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/

Quote :

"it involves the intricate interactions between self-interested human beings, which cannot be solved by simply plugging them into matlab."

I bet a lot of these people would disagree with that (the plugging in to matlab part).

Perhaps you are unaware of the versatility of matlab.

8/15/2006 5:45:08 PM

Somebody still believes in rational self-interest.

It's so cute.

8/15/2006 5:51:15 PM

so basically ethanol is corn liquor mixed with 15% gasoline, what If I made my own ethanol at home with some everclear and gas.

8/16/2006 12:01:24 AM

^How much is 85% of a gallon of everclear? Might be cheaper to stick to gas.

8/16/2006 7:38:24 AM

Here's a fortune article on the cost of ethanol- same type of data: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/08/21/8383659/index.htm?cnn=yes

Quote :

"Ethanol could leave the world hungry One tankful of the latest craze in alternative energy could feed one person for a year, Lester Brown tells Fortune. By Lester Brown August 16 2006: 5:39 AM EDT (Fortune Magazine) -- The growing myth that corn is a cure-all for our energy woes is leading us toward a potentially dangerous global fight for food. While crop-based ethanol -the latest craze in alternative energy - promises a guilt-free way to keep our gas tanks full, the reality is that overuse of our agricultural resources could have consequences even more drastic than, say, being deprived of our SUVs. It could leave much of the world hungry. We are facing an epic competition between the 800 million motorists who want to protect their mobility and the two billion poorest people in the world who simply want to survive. In effect, supermarkets and service stations are now competing for the same resources. This year cars, not people, will claim most of the increase in world grain consumption. The problem is simple: It takes a whole lot of agricultural produce to create a modest amount of automotive fuel. The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol, for instance, could feed one person for a year. If today's entire U.S. grain harvest were converted into fuel for cars, it would still satisfy less than one-sixth of U.S. demand. Worldwide increase in grain consumption The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that world grain consumption will increase by 20 million tons this year, roughly 1%. Of that, 14 million tons will be used to fuel cars in the U.S., leaving only six million tons to cover the world's growing food needs. Already commodity prices are rising. Sugar prices have doubled over the past 18 months (driven in part by Brazil's use of sugar cane for fuel), and world corn and wheat prices are up one-fourth so far this year. For the world's poorest people, many of whom spend half or more of their income on food, rising grain prices can quickly become life threatening. Once stimulated solely by government subsidies, biofuel production is now being driven largely by the runaway price of oil. Many food commodities, including corn, wheat, rice, soybeans, and sugar cane, can be converted into fuel; thus the food and energy economies are beginning to merge. The market is setting the price for farm commodities at their oil-equivalent value. As the price of oil climbs, so will the price of food. In some U.S. Cornbelt states, ethanol distilleries are taking over the corn supply. In Iowa, 25 ethanol plants are operating, four are under construction, and another 26 are planned. Iowa State University economist Bob Wisner observes that if all those plants are built, distilleries would use the entire Iowa corn harvest. In South Dakota, ethanol distilleries are already claiming over half that state's crop. The key to lessening demand for grain is to commercialize ethanol production from cellulosic materials such as switchgrass or poplar trees, a prospect that is at least five years away. Malaysia, the leading exporter of palm oil, is emerging as the biofuel leader in Asia. But after approving 32 biodiesel refineries within the past 15 months, it recently suspended further licensing while it assesses the adequacy of its palm oil supplies. Fast-rising global demand for palm oil for both food and biodiesel purposes, coupled with rising domestic needs, has the government concerned that there will not be enough to go around. Less costly alternatives There are truly guilt-free alternatives to using food-based fuels. The equivalent of the 3% of U.S. automotive fuel supplies coming from ethanol could be achieved several times over - and at a fraction of the cost - by raising auto fuel-efficiency standards by 20%. (Unfortunately Detroit has resisted this, preferring to produce flex-fuel vehicles that will burn either gasoline or ethanol.) Or what if we shifted to gas-electric hybrid plug-in cars over the next decade, powering short-distance driving, such as the daily commute or grocery shopping, with electricity? By investing not in hundreds of wind farms, as we now are, but rather in thousands of them to feed cheap electricity into the grid, the U.S. could have cars running primarily on wind energy, and at the gasoline equivalent of less than $1 a gallon. Clearly, solutions exist. The world desperately needs a strategy to deal with the emerging food-fuel battle. As the world's leading grain producer and exporter, as well as its largest producer of ethanol, the U.S. is in the driver's seat. "

Anyone know anything about this wind power? How does that work?

8/16/2006 2:25:49 PM

After reading the basics, I'd say this is what you're looking for:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power#Debate_for_and_against_wind_power

8/16/2006 2:34:19 PM

If the poor start having difficulty affording food then give them food stamps.

Government meddling in the corn market would be destructive.

Besides, the price of corn is no where near the record high set in 1996.

8/16/2006 3:18:29 PM