Corn: it’s-not-what’s-for-dinner. Signs of the times I guess. I saw an odd story yesterday from Armarillo TV station KDFA titled:
Memorial Day cookouts could cost you more this weekend as food prices continue to rise. According to economist, food inflation is the highest it’s been in two decades. Forcing shoppers to dig deeper in their pockets for their holiday bashes.
Complete story here
Then I saw this article this morning in the WSJ:
Wall Street Journal May 24, 2008; Page A10
The state of Texas is now in official opposition to the federal ethanol mandate. Governor Rick Perry has petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency for a one-year reprieve, and the reason is simple and increasingly familiar: Washington’s ethanol obsession is hurting the state.
We all know that corn farmers everywhere love ethanol. Don’t tell that to Texas cattle ranchers. Because of the mandate to add this biofuel to gasoline, ranchers are being forced into bidding wars with ethanol plants for the grains they feed their cattle. They don’t appreciate being hammered on price because of a subsidy to corn growers. Thus, Governor Perry’s petition.
Complete story here
Don’t mess with Texas. Perhaps they’ll be the ones that will put this biofuels nonsense back in the closet until the market can figure out how to meet ethanol demand without compromising the food supply.
Maybe this is the solution, governors suing the Feds. First Alaska about polar bears, now Texas about ethanol. Why can’t we look at things as scientific evidence? Why must they become legal evidence before we can adjudicate the truth?
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Why can’t we look at things as scientific evidence? (kim, 04:23:47, 25 May.)
Perhaps because in the present climate, kim, 31,000 scientists don’t carry the weight of 2,700 scientists + political weight.
It’s a hard swallow, but I feel we have to accept, for now, that science, that truth, don’t matter beans against the personal agendas of the hard-eyed carpetbaggers.
But, somehow, we must change this.
The ethanol mandate is another prime example of how government mandates screw things up. This and the refusal to allow drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska have created an atmosphere where speculators and amateur investors jump in and drive prices up. By simply having serious discussions of repealing the ethanol mandate and allowing drilling we can panic those folks, get them out of the market and drive prices back down.
LOL, kim! Adjucation without legal evidence ? Hmmm…. in some courts, I suppose 😉
I’m going to be awfully cynical here…
If you want to see what the barbeque of the future looks like, then watch the end of this stupid video (Made in Germany) with 9 tips to save the planet. It’s in German, but the pictures will tell the story.
http://klimakatastrophe.wordpress.com/2008/05/24/schlau-in-120-sekunden-die-utopia-jahresendbeichte-sandra-maischberger-okostrom-jetzt/
The Griesshammer guy is such a dork. Now where could such a character possibly come from?
http://www.wbgu.de/wbgu_griesshammer_en.html
Recognise any of the names?
These are arrogant people who think it’s their job to nanny the rest of the misbehaving western world. To be real frank, they take their nonsense and put it where the sunspots don’t appear.
Soon misbehaving and freedom will be a luxury for rich folks only.
I urge all readers here to send Griesshammer an e-mail telling him what you think of his silly tips. Email: r.griesshammer@oeko.de
He undertands English very well.
There is going to be a big fight over the ethanol. The EPA has until the end of July to make a decision, but they have the power to call a timeout on the ethanol mandates.
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Pierre, please let’s stick to topic.
Milton Friedman said Government solutions to problems are often worse than the problems themselves. Ethanol is like Vista. Doesn’t do much for us, does a lot to us. The 900 lb gorilla(s) that won’t go away.
Here in NE Alabama I have yet to see a cotton field this year. Of course I haven’t been able to travel as much or as far as usual due to family and costs. All the cotton fields near home have been changed over to either corn or soybeans. I pray that we will not see the food riots such as in Africa and other areas over rice and grains.
We are headed to hard times and our green folks are going to have to make a decision food or fuel and how many do they want to kill by starvation over the carbon issue. The results of the bio fuel mandate may be far worse than the results of doing nothing.
Start your garden folks we are in for hard times even with the best results if current cooling continues. We enjoyed our first radishes from our garden yesterday. Looking forward to more.
Bill Derryberry
Yep, them good ol’ free market cattle producers liked buying that corn at a dollar below the cost of production.
How did they do that, you ask? Easy, I (being a taxpayer) subsidized it. I, also, subsidized YOU every time you ate a hamburger. Now, I’m saving about $0.35 gal on every gallon of gas I buy.
I like it better This Way. Sorry.
Per Morningstar analyst Ann Gilpin re ethanol:
Source:
Grin. Ya think?
To be fair, the $5.00 rise in food costs cited can probably be put directly on the increase in transportation costs.
I experience a moment of mild insanity every time I consider that the excesses of th ethanol insanity may save the situation by its stark and horrible consequences. If it does so it will be because of the loss of human life. How many more will have to die on account of this? Isn’t saving the lives of the people hit hardest by this the very thing that modern liberalism is all about?
This is not liberalism. This is a religion that has already indulged in more human sacrifice than the Maya, Inca and Aztec horrors put together.
Kum: you had better check your figures. Fed government subsidizes every gallon of ethanol ($0.51/gal of your money). You get fewer miles/gal. More energy is used to produce, transport and blend the energy in the ethanol than is derived when you burn it (higher demand for oil = higher prices). Corn for ethanol raises your food costs (been to a grocery store lately?). You may think you are saving money but you are not. Not only that but ethanol has its own pollution problems (might want to check out atmospheric formaldehyde concentrations due to burning ethanol), but also ethanol production produces enormous quantities of that killer gas OCO. Have a great day.
An above the fold SacBee op/ed written by Ray Lane, a managing partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, that’s the firm Al Gore joined and pushes with his travelling public relations sermon & sideshow, appears today.
State needs to stay strong on global warming act
Here’s a little of what it says; The more we spend on pricey oil, the less money is available for more productive uses, including job-creating investments.
Worse still, burning oil contributes to global warming, a clear risk to California’s economy because of the projected impacts on air quality, public health and mountain snowpack.
Assembly Bill 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act that was adopted in 2006 to cap greenhouse gas emissions statewide, will help all of us use energy more efficiently, cut dependence on costly oil and reduce the risks of climate change. It’s important to keep the state on track toward implementation. and on like that.
“If California dawdles, the investments will go elsewhere. Texas will gladly take the wind dollars, Germany the solar and the Midwest will capture the biofuel investments.” he says.
Sorry for going off topic Anthony, but it’s an extraordinary circumstance when Sacramento’s only newspaper allows a private enterprise vulture like KBCB to hawk legislation, which is a threat to every Californian, only to enrich KB’s carbon offset investment schemes, and the Bee’s political position.
If you don’t let this one go through I’m fine with that. I just thought you should know about this.
I’ve got the Propane grill/smoker fired up today. Caught some chicken wings and smoked sausage links on sale and they’re presently on the upper rack with a water pan over the burner for a 2 hour slow-cook.
I have a method of wrapping my Hickory smoke wood loosely in aluminum foil, punch it with pinholes and placing it close to the burner.
Guess I should to pray to the eco-gods to forgive my BBQ sins. Maybe after I get my belly full and catch a short nap.
Bill in Vigo,
Sadly, I have to agree with you.
Doesn’t the sky rocketing cost of fuel/food over the last 2 years have something to do with the democrats winning a majority of the legislative branch in 2006?
Just some fuel/food for thought.
First of all, if you ever find yourself in or around Austin, TX, definitely do check out Royer’s Cafe in Roundtop. Besides spectacular BBQ (there are a lot of those scattered around the hill country though), they have the best pies in the universe. Another great place is Copeland Inn in Copeland, TX. There you can go out back and pick your cow. Okay, I’m kidding. But they have great BBQ. The beef is locally grown and the sausages are from Elgin, the sausage capital of Texas. But as good as the BBQ is, the other attraction Copeland has is the kicker bar across the street. You can’t miss it: there are only two streets in Copeland. But I digress…
To be perfectly fair, a couple of recent studies by respected groups indicate that the diversion of food crops to ethanol have had an effect on food prices, but not a huge one. As the author of the first article in the topic noted, Economist blame the rising food prices on lack of crops due to bad weather, economy and rising fuel prices forcing higher transportation costs.
That’s likely true, but it’s getting to be beside the point. There are growing indications that crop-based ethanol is a bad idea, and not only food crop-based ethanol either. Certainly food crop-based ethanol is the worst — besides displacing existing arable land or forest land for fuel production, many of them also use considerable amounts of fertilizer (leading to higher prices there too, not to mention potential problems with nitrogen cycles), require considerable amounts of water, and require considerable amounts of transportation fuels (read: oil) to cultivate, harvest, transport, and ferment. If that wasn’t bad enough, this report indicates that many of the plants considered best prospects for cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel production are invasive species. And considering the scope of things, that could be a calamity much larger than kudzu. Then there’s an infrastructure issue — you can’t pipe ethanol through existing petroleum pipelines because it’s too corrosive. You either have to build a replacement network or truck it.
And yet congresscritters on both sides of the aisle, in addition to Bush himself and (I think, though I am admittedly on shaky ground here) all of the presidential candidates, are still on board the ethanol program. To be fair, I suppose there might be arguments to be made in favor of it (e.g., an eventual transition to algal, waste and garbage sources), but whatever they are they are becoming less and less obvious, especially considering the required scale. I think we need to start holding our representatives’ feet to the fire to explain themselves.
OK This post won’t add anything scientific but will bring a closer realisation as to what we are up against.
We are having our first summery day here in Ottawa, Canada. 21C, blue sky sun warmth and only high altitude clouds to lower our albedo.
I’m strolling around downtown, past the US Embassy and there are two demonstrators outside. I read their signs and shout at them:
“You ‘king morons. What are you to use as energy, Pixie Dust?”.
They were demonstrating against the US building more coal fired power stations. No mention of China.
It’s the perfect storm, to use a metaphore that will get me more on tiopic. Leftists attemtping to stop the US using energy. And with an argument that will get lots of suburbanite yoga practitioners onboard, along with those who love polar bears.
The main reasons for increased food costs on commodity markets are the higher cost of fuel and fertilizer, and the increased demand for livestock feed from China and other emerging nations. Biofuels are a distant fourth or fifth on the list.
The mandates are rather irrelevant. It is the tariffs on Brazilian ethanol that should be repealed.
Kim,
You are subsidizing the production of ethanol at the rate of approximately $.40 per gallon. Additionally, ethanol derived from corn takes approximately the same amount of carbon fuels (coal or oil) to produce as it produces as a fuel.
Ethanol also requires HUGE quantities of water during production.
I would appreciate it if you could direct me to the line to buy corn for my livestock at $1.00 below production cost, I haven’t been able to find it in my state (Ohio).
Blood Diamonds have nothing on ethanol.
Blood Alcohol. What’s your limit?
Tim @ur momisugly 15:38:25, you mean kum dollison @ur momisugly 11:30:03. I didn’t understand his comment, either.
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