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Corn Ethanol Is Of No Use

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Re: Corn Ethanol Is Of No Use

#31

Post by hga »

zhte415 wrote: post #26
randomdata wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who grows corn (in a country where the crop is not subsidized, I might add), the way I see it is that we're going to grow the corn anyway, so turning it into fuel is better than letting it rot away as was happening before the ethanol program was put into effect. The problem is that our crops need to be rotated. Corn seems to be the only crop that fills the gaps that is also compatible with the equipment we…

I'm curious about corn rotting. I live in a country that produces quite a lot of corn. Some is sold as fresh produce, but any surplus ends up on the rooves of farmers' houses, dried, consumed during the winter as the major starch. The husks are used for fuel - quick and hot burn stir fry. There is no need to let corn rot. Why let it rot?

We certainly didn't let it rot in the US before this debacle. The corn is dried using propane or maybe natural gas if the farm is lucky enough to have a hookup, the husks, or sometimes the whole plant, are used for silage and fed to animals, as is most of the corn, although that's generally sold to middlemen and bought by feedlots for cattle, and those who specialize in feeding other animals.

Re: Corn Ethanol Is Of No Use

#32

Post by randomdata »

zhte415 wrote: post #26
randomdata wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who grows corn (in a country where the crop is not subsidized, I might add), the way I see it is that we're going to grow the corn anyway, so turning it into fuel is better than letting it rot away as was happening before the ethanol program was put into effect. The problem is that our crops need to be rotated. Corn seems to be the only crop that fills the gaps that is also compatible with the equipment we…

I'm curious about corn rotting. I live in a country that produces quite a lot of corn. Some is sold as fresh produce, but any surplus ends up on the rooves of farmers' houses, dried, consumed during the winter as the major starch. The husks are used for fuel - quick and hot burn stir fry. There is no need to let corn rot. Why let it rot?

Lack of storage capacity was the problem. Even more capacity wouldn't really have solved the problem though. There was still more coming in that was needed to be used.

Re: Corn Ethanol Is Of No Use

#33

Post by hga »

cheepin wrote: post #2

How did these laws pass (besides lobbying from people growing corn)? I wasn't following too closely at the time.

One detail is that the EPA's excessively stringent smog metrics require the addition of oxygenates (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygenate) during the summer (when the US gasoline market Balkanates into close to 20? separate regions, each with its own blend). Refiners used to use methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) but that was declared icky in comparison to ethanol.

Re: Corn Ethanol Is Of No Use

#34

Post by randomdata »

hga wrote: post #31
zhte415 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious about corn rotting. I live in a country that produces quite a lot of corn. Some is sold as fresh produce, but any surplus ends up on the rooves of farmers' houses, dried, consumed during the winter as the major starch. The husks are used for fuel - quick and hot burn stir fry. There is no need to let corn rot. Why let it rot?

We certainly didn't let it rot in the US before this debacle. The corn is dried using propane or maybe natural gas if the farm is lucky enough to have a hookup, the husks, or sometimes the whole plant, are used for silage and fed to animals, as is most of the corn, although that's generally sold to middlemen and bought by feedlots for cattle, and those who specialize in feeding other animals.

Perhaps I didn't fully characterize the situation. Certainly we had other uses for corn, but around the year 2005-2006 there was so much corn being grown it started to exceed the storage capacity and immediate need for the crop, so it was being dumped outside because there was nowhere else to put it. Exposure to the elements started the process of decay. The ethanol programs came in to use up those excesses.

Re: Corn Ethanol Is Of No Use

#35

Post by hga »

Bsharp wrote: post #7
afhdshufdufdo wrote: post #4

Most new cars will be electric in 10 years. Then instead of oil, coal or nuclear (power plants) will be the primary power source and ethanol for automobile fuel will be a minor issue.

Given the size of Big Oil, Big Agriculture, and Big Auto, I don't think you'll see a major shift to electric in 10 years.

And don't forget infrastructure. We have a very well developed one for gasoline and diesel, we'd have to spend massively to enhance the electric grids to accommodate this new usage, right down to neighborhood transformers, which are sized to heat up in summer days and cool down at night.

California is already dealing with this problem, where the addition of as little as 2 electric cars in a neighborhood could cause the transformer feeding it to blow.

And right now the anti-coal jihad is focusing our new power plant creation on replacing coal fired plants with natural gas ones quickly enough so that we don't suffer brownouts and blackouts. The really serious net increases in power generation would take some time to accomplish ... might be possible in "10 years", but I think it'll be demand driven vs. proactive for something that might never happen, so again I think that timetable is wildly optimistic.

Re: Corn Ethanol Is Of No Use

#36

Post by hga »

randomdata wrote: post #34
hga wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We certainly didn't let it rot in the US before this debacle. The corn is dried using propane or maybe natural gas if the farm is lucky enough to have a hookup, the husks, or sometimes the whole plant, are used for silage and fed to animals, as is most of the corn, although that's generally sold to middlemen and bought by feedlots for cattle, and those who specialize in feeding other animals.

Perhaps I didn't fully characterize the situation. Certainly we had other uses for corn, but around the year 2005-2006 there was so much corn being grown it started to exceed the storage capacity and immediate need for the crop, so it was being dumped outside because there was nowhere else to put it. Exposure to the elements started the process of decay. The ethanol programs came in to use up those excesses.

I do remember that, but it was a temporary problem.

E.g. right now at least my part of the Midwest is suffering from 3 years of drought, and we haven't had even 1 inch total of rain this spring since snow stopped. Save during the fat years, consume during the lean years and all that.

Re: Corn Ethanol Is Of No Use

#37

Post by randomdata »

hga wrote: post #36
randomdata wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I didn't fully characterize the situation. Certainly we had other uses for corn, but around the year 2005-2006 there was so much corn being grown it started to exceed the storage capacity and immediate need for the crop, so it was being dumped outside because there was nowhere else to put it. Exposure to the elements started the process of decay. The ethanol programs came in to use up those excesses.

I do remember that, but it was a temporary problem. E.g. right now at least my part of the Midwest is suffering from 3 years of drought, and we haven't had even 1 inch total of rain this spring since snow stopped. Save during the fat years, consume during the lean years and all that.

Which technically should be sorted out through the market price. Ethanol is only viable when corn is cheap, which is only reached when supply greatly exceeds demand. However, then you run into people not liking their jobs tied to the random fluctuations of the corn market. The whole situation is kind of a big market failure full of small patches trying to stop the leaks.

Re: Corn Ethanol Is Of No Use

#38

Post by hga »

randomdata wrote: post #37
hga wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do remember that, but it was a temporary problem. E.g. right now at least my part of the Midwest is suffering from 3 years of drought, and we haven't had even 1 inch total of rain this spring since snow stopped. Save during the fat years, consume during the lean years and all that.

Which technically should be sorted out through the market price. Ethanol is only viable when corn is cheap, which is only reached when supply greatly exceeds demand. However, then you run into people not liking their jobs tied to the random fluctuations of the corn market. The whole situation is kind of a big market failure full of small patches trying to stop the leaks.

I don't think it's a "market failure" so much as people not being willing to accept that "Sorry, today the value for the corn you painstakingly grew is close to $0", and they've been told since at least the '30s that the Federal government will take care of them (well, back then, it would if they were Democrats).

The New Deal policies, BTW, both raised food prices while the same USDA (US Department of Agriculture) estimated 25% of the population was malnourished, which was confirmed by the WWII draft. Which lead to the Federal school lunch program, which was eventually widely extended to breakfast, and now even dinner I hear in some places.

Re: Corn Ethanol Is Of No Use

#39

Post by randomdata »

hga wrote: post #38
randomdata wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which technically should be sorted out through the market price. Ethanol is only viable when corn is cheap, which is only reached when supply greatly exceeds demand. However, then you run into people not liking their jobs tied to the random fluctuations of the corn market. The whole situation is kind of a big market failure full of small patches trying to stop the leaks.

I don't think it's a "market failure" so much as people not being willing to accept that "Sorry, today the value for the corn you painstakingly grew is close to $0", and they've been told since at least the '30s that the Federal government will take care of them (well, back then, it would if they were Democrats). The New Deal policies, BTW, both raised food prices while the same USDA (US Department of Agriculture) es…

The government needing to take care of you seems like a pretty big market failure to me. And those attempts to take care, instead of solving the root of the problem, is what has ultimately lead to the need for ethanol.

Re: Corn Ethanol Is Of No Use

#40

Post by hga »

randomdata wrote: post #39
hga wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's a "market failure" so much as people not being willing to accept that "Sorry, today the value for the corn you painstakingly grew is close to $0", and they've been told since at least the '30s that the Federal government will take care of them (well, back then, it would if they were Democrats). The New Deal policies, BTW, both raised food prices while the same USDA (US Department of Agriculture) es…

The government needing to take care of you seems like a pretty big market failure to me. And those attempts to take care, instead of solving the root of the problem, is what has ultimately lead to the need for ethanol.

Well, the problem is, how does a society address the issue of steadily decreasing commodity prices as science and engineering produce them?

The New Deal helped farmers, back then a much larger percentage of the population, at the expense of everyone else. The real solution was to move people from farming to industry, or as it turned out, the US military and industrial production to support it for WWII (and per the WWI song, "How 'Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm? (After They've Seen Paree)" (Paris), between that, the "GI Bill" subsidizing college education, learning all sorts of useful skills, etc. I gather many if not most didn't return).

The New Deal, as I've pointed out above, didn't really solve the problem when it's policies damaged so large a portion of the population. No Holodomor, but just as deliberate. I've seen a newsreel of this: http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/crops_17.ht... ; you can imagine what hungry people back then thought when they saw it.

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