aðamans asked: I already know corn isn’t the most efficient method for creating
ethanol. That’s not my question. I’m just wondering why everyone is
pointing fingers at corn
ethanol when corn is already used for so many other things like high-fructose corn syrup (which is in EVERYTHING these days) and for cattle feed. Why doesn’t anyone point to those uses as putting a strain on supply? Why does
ethanol get singled out? Is this just a
bandwagon that everyone has jumped on without knowing the whole story? Are the oil companies trying to badmouth alternative energy sources? What’s the deal?
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Tags:
Bandwagon,
Ethanol,
High Fructose Corn,
Pointing Fingers
You are correct that ethanol is not the only use for corn – it is just the most recent and least essential.
It is also the fastest-growing on a percentage basis. Granted, it’s not fair to say that corn consumed in food production grew 4% while corn consumed in ethanol grew 22% if this is the ninth year that we’ve tracked ethanol but 200th that we’ve tracked food. Ethanol is still a growth industry, while food is pretty mature.
There’s a profound indignation about using food supplies for fuel, especially when there is still hunger in the world. These voices of opposition have been around since ethanol research began, and have only become louder during a time of poor harvests (droughts and floods being major contributors). Indeed, corn’s primary usage is as a food, and it seems unethical to take corn off the market so Americans can have more environmentally-friendly gas.
I don’t think it’s an oil company issue – quite the contrary as the oil companies have a vested interest in ethanol since most of them are funding the research and distribution of ethanol. The lobbyists on Capitol Hill pushing for ethanol subsidies included corn farmers and reps of BP-Amoco, Texaco, and Exxon-Mobil. Why go with something alternative to oil? Because they realize that people will cut back on oil consumption, which means switching to another product, which means they’d like a stake in that emerging product. Believe me, if the only alternative to gasoline was the bicycle, BP would buy Huffy and Exxon would buy Schwinn.
Finally, as far as rhetorical arguments go, it is much easier to suggest we cut back on ethanol usage than that the rising middle class in India cut back on eating meat. Actually, our diplomats did suggest that – and the response was “We’re not the obese ones.”
its the rate of change that matters. with oil prices soaring, the market for ethanol jumped higher than expected, which changed the cropping plans. so the competition for corn not only raised prices for corn, but it constricted supply for wheat and other things grown in places where corn will also grow. once the supply of wheat and other food grains went down, the price of course goes up.
So its kind of an equilibrium jolt that causes movement in the supply and demand curves.
Well from what I hear, ethanol can be used for making food when it is being used for clean energy. The more that it is used for clean energy, the less there is to use for food. That is what I heard. I don’t know how valid that argument is though. I’ll need to look at them (arguments) alot more.