Ethanol Demand Is Boosting Food Prices Worldwide 599
hereisnowhy writes "The rising demand for corn as a source of ethanol-blended fuel is largely to blame for increasing food costs around the world, the CBC reports. Increased prices for ethanol have already led to bigger grocery bills for the average American — an increase of $47 US compared to July 2006. In Mexico last year, corn tortillas, a crucial source of calories for 50 million poor people, doubled in price; the increase forced the government to introduce price controls. The move to ethanol-blended fuel is based in part on widespread belief that it produces cleaner emissions than regular gasoline. But a recent Environment Canada study found no statistical difference between the greenhouse gas emissions of regular unleaded fuel and 10 per cent ethanol-blended fuel. Environmental groups have argued that producing ethanol — whether from corn, beets, wheat, or other crops — requires more energy than can be derived from the product."
Monbiot:"People - and the environment - will lose" (Score:5, Interesting)
George Monbiot wrote [guardian.co.uk] about this 2 months ago in the UK Guardian:
and corn farmers everywhere (Score:5, Interesting)
All we have to do now is declare corn growers as reducing global warming, and that every stalk of corn planted saves a child to make the headlong rush toward bio-diesel an unrecoverable flop.
Food is too cheap (Score:3, Interesting)
I frankly don't give a shit whether the emissions are "cleaner" with ethanol. If it means I'm not forced to shovel money into the pockets of Arab governments, Russia, Venezuela, etc, just to continue to make a living and survive, then I'm all for it.
Green? Who cares? (Score:3, Interesting)
All I want is the cheapest fuel possible. At the very least, I don't want to be tied to a single source for the fuel. Especially the Middle East.
The day oil ceases to be a major fuel source is the day the whole Middle East dries up like a popcorn fart and blows away in the wind of irrelevance.
I hope to not have to buy a car again for another five years. When the time comes, though, I won't consider any car that doesn't get at least 60 MPG. Hopefully it will be electric instead. Give me a SmartCar that is pluggable, does 100 miles at 70 MPH between overnight charges, and I'm there.
Few Clarifications & Corrections (Score:5, Interesting)
If I'm not mistaken, that means $47 per year. Which really isn't that bad when you notice the price of gasoline lately.
Ethanol is not really chosen for its environmental friendliness. The environmental models I know of are based on the fact that the increased crop production produces a greater number of carbon sinks. Increases in carbon sinks won't show up in the EPA testing.
The real reason for choosing ethanol is its availability. It's easy to come by and is currently cheaper than gasoline. The US also has a great deal of surplus farming capacity from which to draw greater yields. (Though folks generally argue about how much surplus capacity there is, and how much can be brought online before food production is seriously impacted.)
Actually, that comes from the US Government's ethanol studies done in the 1970s. Dr. David Pimentel headed up those original studies. Since then, technology has improved and the US Government's studies have shown it to be energy positive. However, Dr. Pimentel has continued to rely on the outdated figures in attempts to discredit the newer findings. So the ethanol community is in a bit of a flux, with Pimentel rallying his forces against the idea that ethanol is a sustainable energy source.
Let's not forget... (Score:5, Interesting)
...that most fertilizers and pesticides applied to corn are derived from petroleum bases. Farming equipment also uses diesel/gasoline during the planting, cultivating and harvesting of corn. Adding to this, natural gas and propane are commonly used to run corn dryers used to reduce the moisture content of the harvested corn. At one point in 2005, the cost of the fuel for these dryers was more than the revenue produced from the corn itself, making it a wash to even bring the corn to market.
Sure, the price of corn is being driven up by its use for ethanol production, but let's not forget that the cost of growing corn has risen sharply as well in recent years, mostly due to the rising price of petroleum based products.
I call BS! (Score:5, Interesting)
- The cost of fresh produce increased in price in terms of real dollars by over 40% between 1985 and 2000 whereas soft drinks using corn syrup declined in cost by 23%.
- A dollar buys you 1200 calories of cookies or chips but just 250 calories worth of carrots.
- The top subsidies are for corn, rice, wheat, soybeans and cotton. There often translate into cheap meats and dairy as most of this gets reused as animal foodstuffs.
- Most estimates are that subsidized US corn has displaced over 2 million Mexican farmers who move north to get jobs.
Blaming ethanol production for these ills is just plain stupid. Follow the money of the farm bills for real answers.cane coke (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Green? Who cares? (Score:1, Interesting)
Try living in the U.S. somewhere other than downtown metropolis. Public transportation is only a functional solution above a certain population density.
Re:Monbiot:"People - and the environment - will lo (Score:2, Interesting)
zero sum game? (Score:3, Interesting)
News Flash: Environmental groups argue for the second law of thermodynamics!
Really... the whole reason fossil fuels are so compelling is the energy that went into making them was used eons ago. Ethanol requires resources *now*. The big advantage of ethanol (from a climate change standpoint) is it's a zero-sum game with regards to carbon dioxide emissions. We're not taking concentrated carbon from millions of years ago and turning it into an atmospheric gas, we're using plant material that was created, in part, from recently utilized atmospheric CO2.
In my opinion, feeding people now trumps using a fuel source which consumes enormous resources. Let's also not forget irrigation - our aquifers are being depleted faster than then can get restored. I doubt California is going to embrace growing corn, which can require large amounts of irrigation, for ethanol when they are running out of drinking water.
This could actually be a very good thing! (Score:5, Interesting)
Either that, or we're gonna kill a lot of people.
only time will tell.
-Rick
SUBSIDIES are a serious pain in the posterior (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Monbiot:"People - and the environment - will lo (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Monbiot:"People - and the environment - will lo (Score:3, Interesting)
It depends entirely on the plant and the location. Plants are simply solar collectors that store sunlight as chemical energy in the form of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins (amino acids). I agree that plants for energy should probably not displace plants for food, but there are a lot of places unsuitable for food plants that may be suitable for fuel plants.
Secondly, even if biofuels were to require more energy to grow than you could get out of them there may still be an argument for them as a portable energy storage medium. This would depend entirely on the source of the excess energy. Say it takes 50% of the energy in a biofuel to grow the fuel and 55% of the energy in a biofuel to refine the fuel. If the refinery energy came from solar then the biofuel could be a decent portable energy storage medium. Possibly better than hydrogen.
Re:It's going to happen to soybeans too (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, that has already happened. There was an article on that very subject in the Wall Street Journal just a few months ago, and how the switch is already under way.
Maybe if we stopped subsidizing oil, gas, corn, and other things the market would work better, huh? But I'm not holding my breath. That's why I bought a few hundred shares of Valero Energy (ethanol from corn) at the IPO.
Re:Corn Syrup (Score:4, Interesting)
In the past few decades Cuba has reworked its economy entirely, due to the trade limits of it's biggest nearest neighbor, and has since made itself nearly a self-sufficient entity, which is actually quite remarkable in itself.
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Food is too cheap (Score:3, Interesting)
Ask yourself, "Why is the price so high?"
In EVERY case of people starving on this Planet in this day and age is because of failed states. Period. Africa's food problems? Just look at their governments and how they appropriate food for their armies and buddies of the "President" (read Dictator). Sorry, the only food and starvation problems today are Government made. And no, I DO NOT mean some "evil corporation in their corporation offices being all corporaty" causing the problem. That reason is a smokescreen.
Alarmist reporting? Also, NAFTA... (Score:5, Interesting)
As for Mexico, how many ethanol plants are there in Mexico, a country that produces 3.5 mm bbl/day of oil and consumes 2.0 mm bbl/day of oil products (source: April IEA OMR)? Not that many. So why the impact in Mexico? It's because the US used to grow so much corn that we couldn't use that we dumped it on the Mexican market, lowering their cost of corn, and taking some of their producers out of the market. The sudden increase in ethanol production due to oil product price increases has sucked up this additional supply, and now those producers will come back into the market.
Yes, it sucks that Mexican consumers were hit with such a swing this year, but it's due more to NAFTA than anything else. So if you want to get your knickers in a twist about something (which I don't advise), blame free trade and the natural delay in the supply/demand feedback loop. But note how there weren't a bunch of articles when the price of tortillas went down after the implementation of NAFTA.
How about sequestering using clams? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Corn Syrup (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Corn-based Ethanol is a Tragedy (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe I'm wrong, but doesn't most third world countries depend on agriculture products as exports? So if agriculture products become more expensive, the food they buy is more expensive, but they will also have more money with which they can buy the expensive food.
Most third world countries can't export agriculture products because there's no-one to export to. First world countries, (read: the US and EU) have very powerful agriculture lobbyists. Our government subsidizes agriculture production - our farmers can produce the same crop cheaper than the African farmer because the government pays most of his costs. Even if the African farmer could produce a bushel of corn or cotton or whatnot cheaper than a domestic producer, tariffs and quotas prevent him from selling there.
If food becomes more expensive, the third-world countries are SOL. The vast majority of people in the world (first or third) are not commercial farmers who sell the food they grow, so the price increase benefits very few people.
In the meantime, starving people have to pay more for the same inadequate rations.
Taxohol (Score:2, Interesting)
A 1.3 to 1.5 energy gain is miserable compared to other sources. It can never be more than solar power, because quite literally, the energy comes from the sun. Slowly!
You'll notice that the farmers aren't using alcohol to produce the crop or the pesticides and fetilizers.
How many of the dryers and stills use the alcohol or byproducts to get their heat?
And just forget about making steel or aluminum with energy from alcohol. There is energy used in every step of the process for everything that gets produced.
Force a low-density energy source on the economy, and watch it go back to pre-1900 levels. Because that's what they had then. They broke out of their condition and created an industrial revolution that raised the standard of living of mankind beyond anything before in history, mainly by lowering the cost of energy. The society that resulted from an industrial economy then raised a generation of brats who figure they can destroy the basis of their civilization without it affecting them.
Watch as the exodus of manufacturing from the U.S. continues ....
Can we just move to biodiesal already? (Score:3, Interesting)
Biodiesel, on the other hand, can be made with nearly ANYTHING and nearly ANYWHERE. Human waste? We can make biodiesel out of it (There was even a slashdot article about that). Used frying oil? We can make biodiesel? Algae, grown in swampy areas unfit for farming? We can use it. The catches are seriously minor too. For the U.S., the big issue is a lack of acceptance of Diesel as a whole. Secondly, colder climates could have problems with it, due to it solidifying. The second one may be an issue if you life in ice cold weather, but as a whole, it seems FAR more promising than Ethanol (And, it seems that Europe has pretty good Biodiesel penetration, too). The U.S. needs to give up on the ethanol dream.
No! Oysters! (Score:3, Interesting)
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