Bush - Backing Away From Ethanol No Answer To Food Price Hikes - .......

[Crazy Horse]

Instead, Go Cellulosic!! - NYT

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x137334

 

hatrack  (1000+ posts)      Thu Mar-06-08 08:57 AM
Original message
Bush - Backing Away From Ethanol No Answer To Food Price Hikes - Instead, Go Cellulosic!! - NYT
 Advertisements [?]Edited on Thu Mar-06-08 08:57 AM by hatrack


President Bush said Wednesday that the national drive toward ethanol production was also driving up the cost of corn and other foods, a problem he said needed to be addressed. The boom in alternative fuels, he said, was “beginning to affect the price of food. And so we got to do something about it.”

Mr. Bush has previously pointed out that the price of corn has been pushed up by competition from ethanol manufacturers and that this had raised costs for companies that raise beef and hogs on corn. But addressing a conference on renewable energy on Wednesday morning, Mr. Bush said that this was also affecting the price that consumers pay for food.

But, he said, the solution was not to back away from ethanol, but to develop ways to make ethanol from agricultural wastes, wood chips or similar materials. The Energy Department has spent nearly $1 billion trying to incubate a “cellulosic ethanol” industry, he said.

Mr. Bush said it was “amazing to think how far our country has come” in ethanol production, which reached 6.4 billion gallons last year, he said up from 1.6 billion gallons in 2007. Under the president’s goal of reducing gasoline consumption by 20 percent between 2007 and 2017, ethanol production would rise to about 35 billion gallons a year, far more than could be made from corn kernels.

EDIT

http://www.ecoearth.info/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?lin...

 
I could've swore that a group of people were talking about this happening.....

Kittycat  (1000+ posts)      Thu Mar-06-08 09:25 AM
Response to Original message
1. Great - so now that we've built another economy on sand...

 
YOU ARE ****ING KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS ETHANOL BULLSHIT IS ALL BEACUSE OF YOU DUMBASSES, JUST LIKE THE DAMN INCADESCENT LIGHT BULB BEING BANNED BY A DAMN MERCURY FILLED BULB. 

Is anything ever you own damn fault you sorry excuses for primates

[franksolich]

I don't have any opinion about ethanol, pro or con.

But I must say ethanol production has not been responsible for high food prices.

What a farmer gets for a bushel of wheat is nothing, when compared with what a food-processor, a food-wholesaler, and a food-retailer (grocery store) gets for the products of that bushel of wheat.

It's always been that way, for both crops and livestock.

A bushel of wheat at $4 per bushel (what the farmer gets) is a negligible cost when compared with the hundreds of bags of Cheetos that bushel produces, for which the primitives pay anything from 99 cents up to $3.49.

What the farmer or rancher gets, when compared with the price at the grocery store, is in the low single-digit percentage of the ultimate price.  Three or four percent of the 50-cent price on a can of beans for example. 

Not three or four cents, but three or four percent.

What drives up food prices are the costs of transportation, the costs of processing, and the costs of distribution.

[Bondai]

I don't have any opinion about ethanol, pro or con.

But I must say ethanol production has not been responsible for high food prices.

What a farmer gets for a bushel of wheat is nothing, when compared with what a food-processor, a food-wholesaler, and a food-retailer (grocery store) gets for the products of that bushel of wheat.

It's always been that way, for both crops and livestock.

A bushel of wheat at $4 per bushel (what the farmer gets) is a negligible cost when compared with the hundreds of bags of Cheetos that bushel produces, for which the primitives pay anything from 99 cents up to $3.49.

What the farmer or rancher gets, when compared with the price at the grocery store, is in the low single-digit percentage of the ultimate price.  Three or four percent of the 50-cent price on a can of beans for example. 

Not three or four cents, but three or four percent.

What drives up food prices are the costs of transportation, the costs of processing, and the costs of distribution.

************************************************************************************

http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/30/news/economy/corn_ethanol/index.htm

Ethonol production has been driving up corn prices. It looks as though it is mostly a speculation issue rather than a real shortage.

Calming ethanol-crazed corn prices
With alternative fuel in the limelight, the cost of corn has skyrocketed, but experts say the free market should keep food prices in check.
By Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney.com staff writer
January 30 2007: 3:54 PM EST


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Ever since President Bush proposed a four-fold increase in "alternative fuels" during this year's State of the Union address, the media has been abuzz with doomsday reports on what this will do to the price of corn.

But how much higher corn prices will go, and how much more of an effect they will have on food costs, is a matter of debate.


Corn is the main ingredient in ethanol, the primary alternative fuel in the United States and rising demand has sent supplies to their lowest levels in 34 years according to Phil Flynn, a senior market analyst at Alaron Trading in Chicago, a commodities trading firm.

"Ethanol is just lighting the [corn] market on fire," Flynn said.

[franksolich]

You know, I just got back from having lunch with a friend, who happens to know something about raising food, and the costs of food.

Right now, there's a surplus of pigs in America.

There's so many pigs in America pig-producers are losing circa $35-40 per head, per pig.

The pig-producer gets circa 6-7 cents per pound of pig.

On my way back, I was going to check pork prices at the grocery store, but then alas I forgot to.

But I suspect one isn't finding pork selling in grocery stores at less than, say, $2 a pound.

What the farmers get for what they produce, isn't but pocket-change compared with the price paid by the consumer.

What the primitives know about producing food, and the cost of food, is less than the eye of a flea.

The cracked primitive isn't concerned about high food prices; the cracked primitive was obviously looking around for something to blame on George Bush, nothing more.

As usual.

[Crazy Horse]

Coach,

Corn was being sold this past fall at about $12/bushel almost a 150% increase here in eastern NC.

As for hog a good 115lb hog cost about $125, see we like to cook the whole hog naked here in Eastern NC.

Also remember that corn is a major feed for livestock.

[Duke Nukum]

Every time one attempts to "solve" a "problem" that isn't a problem, one ends up with a mess of real problems out of all proportion to the original "problem."

Most problems solve themselves if people are just patient and don't get all emotional and hyper anxious.

Even the recent ethanol legislation is a reaction to problems that were created by trying to solve other false problems.

There's the sugar thing, which I don't understand at all.  We can't drill for our own oil.  We can't build new refineries.  We have to "do something" about Misanthropomorphic Global Warming(TM) which is itself a hoax created by people who have no purpose in life so they have to invent false crises so they can feel relevant.

Life isn't about solving problems.  The sooner people get that, the fewer problems they will have.