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Author Topic: Tortilla crisis!  (Read 996 times)

Offline rpm

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Tortilla crisis!
« Reply #15 on: February 01, 2007, 05:56:39 PM »
Mav, I live on a farm. I know farming. Not everything is used as fertilzer. The government pays a LOT of money to farmers to set aside their land to keep crop prices inflated. Switch the subsidy to fuel crops.  

Waste from paper mills and other agribuisness plants can be used to make ethanol as well. There is also a fair amount of usable landfill waste that can be converted.
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Offline Maverick

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Tortilla crisis!
« Reply #16 on: February 01, 2007, 07:41:23 PM »
No subsidy would be needed to switch to fuel crops. The price increase in Mexico's tortilla's is proof of that. The farmer sold his product to the highest bidder. That middle man then resold it to an ethanol plant to be used for fuel instead of food. The result? Less and more expensive food and no substantive change in petro usage.

The simple fact is that the ethanol was not being made from garbage, plant refuse or any other cast off. It was made from food grade corn. If, or should I say when, the price recieved for supplying ethanol plants with food grade material exceeds the price received of food supplies, the crops will be diverted to the higher paying avenue.

It would be a silly farmer not to turn down $5.00 a bushel for food if he can get $8.00 selling it for fuel.
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Offline rpm

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« Reply #17 on: February 01, 2007, 08:02:00 PM »
Mav, how much did you make in farm subsidies last year? You clearly do not grasp what the situation is today. The government gives you money not to grow stuff. Really, they do.
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Offline Maverick

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« Reply #18 on: February 01, 2007, 10:48:08 PM »
RPM, I do understand what subsidies are and how they work, truly.

Now for the sake of discussion, are you postulating that there is sufficient arable land (not federal land but farm land) to supply the fuel needs of the country? If not how many million barrels of gasoline per day can ethanol supply with the unused arable land?

FWIW I like the idea of alternate fuels. I just don't accept it's a cure or able to take the place of gasoline or diesel. I think the solution is something else that will be economically comparable to petro fuels. Ethanol and biodiesel are stop gap at best.
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Offline rpm

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« Reply #19 on: February 02, 2007, 12:10:24 AM »
Do I think it will take over 100% of oil use? No way. Will it take 20-30%? Yeah, and quite easily. Ethanol is a stop gap measure with many plusses. It's easy, it's domestic, it's clean burning, it's renewable and it puts Americans back to work.
I don't have links to all the numbers of acres/gallon but it's feasable. Just look at Brazil as a model for what can be done.
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Offline 1K3

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« Reply #20 on: February 02, 2007, 12:19:07 AM »
Ethanol+gasolone is bad!  I've been warned that I should not put Ethanol-gasoline in my 1992 Acura Integra.
« Last Edit: February 02, 2007, 12:36:20 AM by 1K3 »
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Offline rpm

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« Reply #21 on: February 02, 2007, 12:33:28 AM »
It could be bad for a vehicle that old. Alcohol could crack some plastic parts.
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Offline oboe

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« Reply #22 on: February 02, 2007, 09:24:32 AM »
Ethanol production also takes quite a bit of water, which is another resource that will become scarce if too much pressure is put on it.   And I'm not sure if we know just how much we can use in a sustainable manner.

Ethanol has a few good points - its domestic, its renewable, it fits perfectly within the existing distribution system, and will run in most of our vehicles.

I don't think its a good long term solution though.
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Offline Shuffler

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« Reply #23 on: February 02, 2007, 09:41:58 AM »
This whole thread is corny
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Offline lasersailor184

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« Reply #24 on: February 02, 2007, 10:42:18 AM »
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Ethanol production also takes quite a bit of water, which is another resource that will become scarce if too much pressure is put on it. And I'm not sure if we know just how much we can use in a sustainable manner.


:huh :huh :huh


If 75% of this planet is covered in water, then why is it called planet "Earth?"
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Offline Maverick

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« Reply #25 on: February 02, 2007, 11:04:51 AM »
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Originally posted by 1K3
Ethanol+gasolone is bad!  I've been warned that I should not put Ethanol-gasoline in my 1992 Acura Integra.


Twice I've already had to replace the fuel pump and lines in my 90 BMW K75 motorcycle. The ethanol that was added to the gas in wintertime ate them up and spread them around my tank. The rubber lines were turned to the consistency of tar as was the rubber mounting vibration dampener for the fuel pump. The internal plastic of the pump impeller walls also ended up melting and killed the pump. At $325.00 a pump I was not and am not a happy camper about ethanol in gas.

RPM, the experiance in Mexico is an indicator of the trade off we will end up dealing with. The food crops will be sold to the highest bidder. The only result of that will be rising food prices as resources are shunted to ehtanol and bio diesel. I would imagine that the shift will go until there is some kind of legislation to maintain a sufficiency of crops to actual food purposes since there is no way that farmers can provide enough to supply the daily country fuel needs much less food and ethanol production.

Garbage conversion will also fall short of the production needed even if every municipality had the eqipment needed to do it now.

We simply need a different alternative to petro fuel that does not impact other parts of the economy. I dunno what it will be but it's not on the horizon yet.
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Offline VOR

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« Reply #26 on: February 02, 2007, 11:57:23 AM »
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Originally posted by Shuffler
This whole thread is corny


If I admit that I laughed when I read this, will you all think less of me?
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Offline john9001

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« Reply #27 on: February 02, 2007, 01:22:20 PM »
food crops are already sold to the highest bidder.
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Offline airspro

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« Reply #28 on: February 02, 2007, 03:10:05 PM »
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The same applies to the sugar beets. The current crop of sugar beets already supplies the majority of sugar in the US


Inported sugar is a fact here in mid Michigan . They already closed one sugar beet plant because of cheap imported sugar .

We could farm alot more ground than we do now , that's a fact . Farmers had a hard time farming fence row to fence row in the 80's then having the prices drop .
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Offline -Concho-

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« Reply #29 on: February 02, 2007, 03:37:04 PM »
This article should answer some q's.

USDA Article
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