Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Shuckins on April 21, 2008, 05:22:00 PM
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Many of you have, doubtless, seen the headlines about this. According to an AP article in today's paper, the environmental push to develop alternative fuels, has led to legislative mandates and international agreements to push for increased development of ethanol....much of it derived from corn.
World food stocks have fallen drastically: world-wide production of cereal grains such as wheat and rice, have decreased between 100 and 150 MILLION tons. That's enough to feed 450 million people for a year. As a result, famine and rising food shortages have hit developing countries in Africa and Asia, leading to riots in Ethiopia and Egypt and other nations.
President Bush, who had pledged two billion dollars to subsidize ethanol production as a result of criticism from environmentalists that he was not doing enough in that regard, is now facing criticism that his subsidy has contributed to the problem.
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What a pack of fools. So many intelligent people pushing this agenda....yet none seems to have seen this coming.
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I know that when I didn't eat my vegetables when I was a wee tad, my Mother would package them up and send them to the poor little starving kids in China. :(
No War for Corn!!!
RTR
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Yup, ethanol production is too inefficient and is in now way an answer to clean energy. The ethanol fiasco merely serves to make environmentalist whackos feel good.
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Yup, ethanol production is too inefficient and is in now way an answer to clean energy. The ethanol fiasco merely serves to make environmentalist whackos feel good.
Righto! :aok
Ask ANY farmer if they use ethanol in THEIR farm equipment.
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only in my hotrods and then only because it burns cooler!
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Righto! :aok
Ask ANY farmer if they use ethanol in THEIR farm equipment.
why would said farmers want to bring revenuers down on their necks?
they might talk different from the city slickers, but they ain't dumb.
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That is part of it,,, poor weather and a little thing called demand by a larger and getting larger world population is also part of it. The thing I find interesting, as a commodity trader, is that the UN is throwing a fit cause now the G -7 now have to worry about providing reasonablely priced food for their people instead of throwing billion upon billion upon billions of dollars and euros into the abyess that is called third world famine.
Many countries that have tried to become self sufficent in agriculture get tired of throwing money at it or tired of the political upheaval it can cause. The Bad - Saudi Arabia made it thier goal to become self seficent in wheat 20 years ago, they did and now they say screw it, we are going to import everything. The Good - Brazil, the higher prices for commodities will continue to encourage the Brazilian farmer to expand the amount of acres that they can farm, and they have plenty. The US and Europe have finite amount of land that can be farmed,, yea yea we have the CRP debacle to get out of but it does not change the amount of acres. The real winner in this will be eastern europe, under the commies - ag production was crippled but now with higher prices for commodities, it will bring not only land back into production but with better practices to increase yeilds. The CHICOMS are the real issue, from crude to soy they have the dollars, no pun intended, to buy their way out of any problems, we saw them do it 1996 (go back and look at prices for ag commodities then) and they can do it again, one of my favorite stats - if everyone in China used 1 more quart of cooking oil a year, there is not enough feed stock (soy, palm, sun) etc, to do that even with the acreage increases in Brazil and Argentina. Ramble and Ramble.
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http://www.wfp.org/country_brief/hunger_map/map/hungermap_popup/map_popup.html (http://www.wfp.org/country_brief/hunger_map/map/hungermap_popup/map_popup.html)
When has equatorial Africa for example ever been food self sufficient?
In 2004, almost 1 billion people lived below the international poverty line, earning less than $1 per day. HOw much food assistance can you buy for $1 / day?
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Yeah, WTFG to Congress, the EPA, and the rest of the morons. Increase the cost of a tank of gas by forcing the refinery to blend in at least 10% ethanol, which eats my fuel system and reduces my fuel mileage. I LOVE paying more for less. This is the same government fools desire to have run the health care system.
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Stop using corn and start using switchgrass. Easier to grow, 10x the ethanol per acre.
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Stop using corn and start using switchgrass. Easier to grow, 10x the ethanol per acre.
Also the trees cut down from the inevitable land clearing associated with ethanol production can be used to produce ethanol (it's just somewhat expensive).
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But then we will have a shortage of 2 x 4's
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it's essentially unsustainable as well.
topsoil erosion in the past century alone is good enough reason with more than half it washed away by irrigation...then you have the nutrient issue and finally you arrive at the water issue, which, according to some, is in dire straights fast as far as aquifers are concerned. a vast swath of the land that is most useful for that type of crop has already drastically lowered the water table through increased irrigation.
while i wholly agree that the next major step for humans will be to massively reduce burning fuels, i am not a proponent of bio fuels for mass markets.
i think we need some big thinking here.
while some may disagree that there is an environmental problem, it seems reasonable to conclude that pollution is bad. especially given that we have the capacity as a society to curb and eventually cure the major difficulties that it represents.
this is going to require massive pushes...not quick fixes.
miles upon miles of solar collectors in remote regions, harnessing geothermal energy and some advanced nuclear power (perhaps small reactors built deep inside of the earth? might this also not solve disposal problems?)
these things could run the grid if they were large enough and dedicated enough.
get a good battery and lightweight materials...and yer golden.
just thinking out loud here...but i think that we have to get away from making profits and solve the damn problem in a way that benefits
our future course.
if you don't allow smoking in your house then you know what i mean. i consider it the same thing.
its toxic. screw that.
;)
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I can't say I don't allow smoking in the house per-se.
Sarah has to go into the laundry with the exhaust fan on to smoke :)
I totally agree with ditching the profit ideals o come up with a workable solution. We are only really in this mess because of greed, If the oil companies were not so greedy then huge inroads into affordable sustainable alternative energy sources would have already been made.
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perhaps. but the stockholders essentially ARE the oil compainies. which makes it worse.
goes deep.
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perhaps. but the stockholders essentially ARE the oil compainies. which makes it worse.
If your 401K is in any of these, and too many more to list, you are the greedy SOB's that are the oil companies...
Barclays Global Investors UK Holdings Ltd 4.18 %
STATE STREET CORPORATION 3.61 %
VANGUARD GROUP, INC. 3.05 %
FMR LLC 2.07 %
Bank of New York Mellon Corporation 1.68 %
AXA 1.58
BANK OF AMERICA CORPORATION 1.52
JP MORGAN CHASE & COMPANY 1.40
NORTHERN TRUST CORPORATION 1.27
WELLINGTON MANAGEMENT COMPANY, LLP .93%
FIDELITY EQUITY-INCOME FUND
WASHINGTON MUTUAL INVESTORS FUND
COLLEGE RETIREMENT EQUITIES FUND-STOCK ACCOUNT
We have met the enemy and they is us.
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Nope. I hold no stock in any of those companies.
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That's only about 15% of the outstanding stock of Exxon/Mobil only.
If you have a mutual fund chances are you are a stockholder.
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Hmmm you make a good point.
I'll have to have a look into what my options are when it comes to how my money is invested.
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why is it my fault the africans can't grow enough food to feed themselves?
read the other post "e-mail from Zimbabwe"
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Many of you have, doubtless, seen the headlines about this. According to an AP article in today's paper, the environmental push to develop alternative fuels, has led to legislative mandates and international agreements to push for increased development of ethanol....much of it derived from corn.
World food stocks have fallen drastically: world-wide production of cereal grains such as wheat and rice, have decreased between 100 and 150 MILLION tons. That's enough to feed 450 million people for a year. As a result, famine and rising food shortages have hit developing countries in Africa and Asia, leading to riots in Ethiopia and Egypt and other nations.
President Bush, who had pledged two billion dollars to subsidize ethanol production as a result of criticism from environmentalists that he was not doing enough in that regard, is now facing criticism that his subsidy has contributed to the problem.
_________________________
What a pack of fools. So many intelligent people pushing this agenda....yet none seems to have seen this coming.
Envirocommunist you mean. The only famine is in countries who have Regimes. The Regime is rich.... selling food donated to the country for the starving. We can't all be blamed for that.
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88, back to your topsoil erosion from farming... If they changed to switchgrass there would be minimal erosion at all. They simply cut the grass and leave the rootsystem to firmly hold the soil in place. It's not like they would have to break ground every year to replant, yet another advantage over corn. Less fuel used to produce. It's not the save-all, cure-all. But there are so many overwhelming reasons to change to switchgrass if you are serious about making ethanol it's just plain stupid not to do it.
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88, back to your topsoil erosion from farming... If they changed to switchgrass there would be minimal erosion at all. They simply cut the grass and leave the rootsystem to firmly hold the soil in place. It's not like they would have to break ground every year to replant, yet another advantage over corn. Less fuel used to produce. It's not the save-all, cure-all. But there are so many overwhelming reasons to change to switchgrass if you are serious about making ethanol it's just plain stupid not to do it.
Given enough time I would eventually agree with you on something, rpm. And this is one of those somethings. :D
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88, back to your topsoil erosion from farming... If they changed to switchgrass there would be minimal erosion at all. They simply cut the grass and leave the rootsystem to firmly hold the soil in place. It's not like they would have to break ground every year to replant, yet another advantage over corn. Less fuel used to produce. It's not the save-all, cure-all. But there are so many overwhelming reasons to change to switchgrass if you are serious about making ethanol it's just plain stupid not to do it.
Actually it would be alot better for the area as corn depletes the soil. Sugar Cane is better than corn and more efficient too.