More than 1.2 million acres of grassland have been lost since the federal government required that gasoline be blended with increasing amounts of ethanol, an Associated Press analysis of satellite data found. Plots that were wild grass or pastureland seven years ago are now corn and soybean fields.
That’s in addition to the 5 million acres of farmland that had been aside for conservation — more than Yellowstone, Everglades and Yosemite National Parks combined — that have vanished since Obama took office.
The truth is that this is really about corrupt government at work.
When the scam started they also banned imports of ethanol. Areas
where it was already economically feasible to produce it like Brazil
and other tropical areas need not apply. That tells you what was going on.
The corngrowers have an impressive lobby group in Washington. Investing a small amount in senator’s and representative’s PACs to get them (re)elected is rewarded with taxpayer subsidized mandatory ethanol fuel use which drives demand and prices upwards, resulting in high profits for farmers.
Until the citizens of the USA destroy the campaign funding mechanism by taking the money out of it the system will become more and more corrupt.
My Denali claims that it runs 420 miles on a tank of gas, as long as it is not ethanol, e85? 350 miles. It is like putting water in your gas.
Tim Ball deconstructs the Warmonger’s theocratic beliefs.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/13/why-and-how-the-ipcc-demonized-co2-with-manufactured-information/
Imbecility in not restricted to the USA. In the People’s Republic of Ontario well functioning coal fueled electricity plants are shuttered. Notions of replacing BTU dense coal with ‘biomass’ are floated as the ‘green’ alternative. Does anyone in our government have any inkling how many pounds of corn or wheat stover are required to replace the BTU equivalent of coal. How much diesel fuel will be required to collect the ‘biomass’, process it for efficient handling, transport it, build containment buildings as it cannot take the rains of southern Ontario such as coal can and then finally burn it? Does anyone have any clue what will happen to the humus of the soil ‘strip mining’ it for this lunacy? All my questions are semi rhetorical.
“My Denali claims that it runs 420 miles on a tank of gas, as long as it is not ethanol, e85? 350 miles.”
Considering that while you get 12% less mileage on that E85, at the wholesale level that E85 costs 30% less than gasoline. Seems like E85 is a win.
There is currently a problem with availability of E85 at competitive prices, but the market should solve this soon enough.
“More than 1.2 million acres of grassland have been lost…”
Lost? They mean turned into more productive ground, growing corn rather than forage grass. Once upon a time this was considered a good thing.
Monopolys in the packing industry have driven good men away from unprofitable cow/calf endevours! The result, grass land not put to use.
Is the consumer culpable…me thinks so. I have never had a consumer come into my yard and tell me they will pay a premium for what I produce. They are quite happy to buy cheap imports…and then tell us what to do on our land.
I do not believe that “production” of all grains is any where near what it could be. Pay the farmer well…and he will ramp up production.
Whats new?
Kleptocracy is here to help… you.
Into poverty and subservience as they enrich each other with your produce.
The Australian government quote;” Socialism masquerading as environmentalism”, says it all.
Socialism works by spending other peoples money, when the productive ,voluntarily stop producing beyond subsistence, the game is over.
Today it is better to subsist, than to fund the enslavement of your grandchildren.
Ethanol mandates are just another example of government bureaucrats know best.
See the voluntarily nonproductive apparently know better than any producer how to produce wealth.
ethanol is not made from french fry grease
do you even have a clue?
“…Does anyone in our government have any inkling how many pounds of corn or wheat stover are required to replace the BTU equivalent of coal. How much diesel fuel will be required to collect the ‘biomass’, process it for efficient handling, transport it, build containment buildings as it cannot take the rains of southern Ontario such as coal can and then finally burn it? ”
Hey! If it will result in votes from an unthinking, uncaring, unbelievably dense population, they…just…don’t…care!
Every time a lefty decries the destruction of old fields and forests for cornfields, I never miss an opportunity to point out that it’s all about ethanol, and, he/she likely voted for it. In most cases, judging by the stunned look on their faces, it’s a revelation.
Without government interference that land would probably still be used for grazing.
All of the mismanagement and waste … ALL of it … is due to regulation and meddling going back 100 years. Add on the USDA and the EPA and the toxic clusterfork is beyond belief.
The ONLY solution is to crush ans starve the bureaucracies and end the careers of politicians who fight against that.
The first sizeable biodiesel operation in Western Canada is up and running.
Kyoto Fuels Corp. has successfully commissioned its 66 million litre multi-feedstock plant in Lethbridge.
The facility will initially use canola oil as its primary feedstock, but it is also equipped to process animal tallow into biodiesel. The plan is to eventually incorporate alternative crops such as camelina and carinata.
Rick White, general manager of the Canadian Canola Growers Association, welcomed the addition of another big canola buyer, especially one that is located close to where the crop is grown.
“We don’t have to export it. We don’t have to get it into other countries and face tariff and transportation costs to get that stuff overseas,” he said.
“It’s nice to have a domestic market here that we can serve.”
It will source its super degummed canola oil from major crush facilities in Western Canada. The plant would require canola seed from 163,000 acres of farmland if it relied totally on canola oil.
Canada’s two percent biodiesel mandate requires 330 million litres of the fuel to be used in Western Canada. Nearly all of that demand was previously being met by U.S. biodiesel.
The imbalance will be addressed by the Kyoto plant as well as the 265 million litre Archer Daniels Midland plant in Lloydminster, Alta., which is expected to open soon.
http://www.producer.com/2013/11/biodiesel-plant-pumps-first-fuel/
For those people who don’t understand the difference between biodiesel and ethanol, integer percents of biodiesel added to all diesel fuel significantly reduces harmful pollution without decreasing MPG. As well, for every unit of petro energy used to produce biodiesel feedstock, 3 to 4 energy units of fuel are produced. Think of it as an energy multiplier. Canola is a very efficient solar collector.
An energy multiplier – that is why it has never needed a mandate. That is why we have been filling up at the ‘canola pump’ for fifty years now. That is why we burn it in our cars and do not make margarine with it, too valuable. It is such an energy multiplier that farmers power their whole farm operation with canola oil and have been selling the excess to an energy hungry world since it was first grown fifty years ago. That is why farmers stopped buying fossil fuel diesel fifty years ago !!
Ignorant reductio absurdum arguments are logically invalid, regardless of how amusingly entertaining that the hyperbole might be.
North of 60 said: “…for every unit of petro energy used to produce biodiesel feedstock, 3 to 4 energy units of fuel are produced.”
Yeah, that’s what everybody said about ethanol until some guys crunched the numbers and turned up a negative energy balance. I don’t believe those canola numbers even a tiny bit.
Besides which, its a pointless exercise. The only reason not to burn hydrocarbon fuel is global warming because it releases fossil carbon. Being that global warming is a -myth-, biodiesel that uses FOOD as a feedstock is a corrupt political scam AND a sin against humanity.
These greenie jerk0ffs are doing nothing but driving up the price of canola by burning it. Its insane and needs to stop soonest.
. I don’t believe those canola numbers even a tiny bit.
Your beliefs are immaterial. People much smarter than you know better. Do some homework and learn for yourself.
The only reason not to burn hydrocarbon fuel is global warming
Don’t jump to unfounded conclusions, that’s foolish.
I didn’t say anything about using biodiesel as a substitute of petro diesel, anyone who has actually studied the subject knows it’s not feasible.
What part of using biodiesel as an additive to reduce hydrocarbon pollution was so difficult for your mind to grasp?
Global warming is real, the earth is still slowly ‘climbing’ out of the last ice age. Intelligent earth scientists know it’s natural and not caused by human activities.
Your perception of sins against humanity are amusing but not to be taken seriously.
I have no problem with using biodiesel to reduce pollution where I live, even if it means that people in the overpopulated third world might not get as much cooking oil.
You have a nice day now…..
You bucking for the Nobel Prize for ignorance?
Naw, go right ahead, it’s all yours; you’re much better qualified.
Taking pasture land and turning it into parkland seems an integral part of Obozo et al campaign to destroy the US economically. Attempts to suppress fraking for gas and oil, Keystone, etc….are all part. Obamicare is Cloward Piven writ large…..in many facets.
Historically the US has been a giant industrially, fuelled by it’s ability to produce agricultural surplus….ethanol etc is designed to deal with that.
It’s not incompetence, it’s malice.
I made a mistake above, the actual figures are 450 and 320, making the ethanol about 30% less efficient than gasoline, and I can find 100% gasoline on the market for about 50 cents a gallon more than ethanol, that is about 385 a gallon rather than 3.35 a gallon or about 15% more, making the pure gas, even though it is premium, which my car doesn’t require, a no brainer.
I wonder how long it will take before people realize that burning food in our cars is a bad idea?
You might have also have noticed that while converting ‘grassland’ to ‘farmland’ (1.2 million acres) is a BAD thing, according to TFA, so also is ‘setting aside 5 million acres of farmland for conservation’. So, if you take land that was doing nothing, and farm on it, that’s bad. And if you take land that was being farmed, and set it aside to do nothing on, that’s bad too.
Is there any pleasing these people?
Also, removing a net of 3.8 million acres of farmland WHILE the price of food is going up?
As the late Hunter S. Thompson used to say, “Bad craziness!”.