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Can bio-diesel be made from corn? Diesel engines are more thermally efficient than gas engines, and having run two diesel Volkswagens to death I know the diesel engine gets better mileage and lasts a long, long time compared to my gas engined cars. The problem with feeding people in countries that can't feed their own, they get enough energy to procreate, a natural thing people do in desperation, and this complicates the matter, and our obligation to them, for many years to come. I limited my family size to how many I could successfully feed and educate. I expect the same from others, as good clean citizens of this planet. If they can't do this, it is a misery they bring upon themselves but not at my expense.

"If you want 100 Million people to starve, keep putting corn in your gas tank." This kind of overstatement is completely unproductive.

Most scientists agree that making ethanol from corn is not the best strategy. Making fuel from cellulosic biomass from a perennial grass like miscanthus is a much better idea.

However, I recently attended a speech by Dr. Stephen Long, deputy director of the Energy Biosciences Institute at the University of Illinois. He said that over the last several years, the price of corn has risen less than the prices of wheat and soy. The percent of corn used to produce ethanol is also quite small (about 9%).

The sharply rising cost of food cannot be attributed to the use of ethanol for fuel. The food crisis is very real, and corn ethanol does play a part in determining food prices, but it is a much smaller part than many people think. Ridiculous statements such as the title of Mercyphotography's blog post only exacerbate the problem. We have to make our decisions about such important matters based on real facts, not sensationalized headlines.

"...one of the most difficult professions where even those with Ph.D's make enormous mistakes..."

So Mercyphotography's opinion is no less valuable than an economist with a PHD.

That's what this site is for. A place to express and discuss opinions.

Personally I had no idea that a background in "Anonymous" qualifies one as an expert in opinion critique.

But that might just be me.

This article is entirely idiotic.

There are 3 types of corn farmed. Sweet corn, grain/field corn, and popcorn. Sweet corn and popcorn account for only 2% of corn production, and those are the types of corn used to eat.

Field corn is the stuff we all see out in the middle of nowhere in the Midwest. People do NOT eat this corn, which is 98% of the corn grown worldwide. This corn is used for livestock, chickens, ethanol, etc.

Ethanol production has increased the demand for field corn, and thus, the price, but out of all the field corn produced, only 5% of that is used for ethanol production. Ethanol is the entirely wrong way to go, but that is a different topic.

The reason that corn prices have gone up as much as they have is NOT because of the minimal increase in demand for ethanol, but rather the decreasing purchasing power of the dollar a.k.a. INFLATION (caused by our wonderful government).

Corn isn't the only thing that is expensive. Gold, wheat, rice, soybeans, cattle, pork bellies, and all other commodities are hitting all-time highs.

This is a problem with inflation, not ethanol production. If the price of corn was increasing only because of ethanol demand, then all other commodity prices would be at normal levels.

mountains, molehills, its all the same thing.
panic is all we're led to feel.

The only way ethanol produced from corn or other organic material can possibly be practical is if it is refined and used in the same country that produced the organic material in the first place. Ethanol production has essentially no bearing whatsoever on world hunger since the starving nations have no viable surplus cropland to convert to ethanol production anyway, and the well-fed nations have no intention of sending additional surpluses to the starving. The only real solution to world hunger, given current technology and initiatives, is birth control. However, significantly increased corn-based ethanol production could conceivably result in higher food prices in developed nations and this must be weighed against the cost of petroleum in blood and dollars.

Read Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. Follow it up with The Story of B (same author)
Then post again about the so called food crisis.

Dear Kansas Girl,

I am not talking about some endemic food shortage.
The concern, here, is a food crisis, it is not following the usual pattern of endemic hunger.

The major problem is a quick price rise of food commodities ( world wide), of crops such as corn, rice, soy and wheat. We created a domino effect, of some sort, starting with corn, quickly followed by rice and other key crops.

Another factor in the global food crisis is speculators on commodities, as soon as the ethanol production became " on line" investors started injecting massive amounts of money into the crop. Creating a snow ball effect on other crops.

Why should Congress give tax payers money(in the form of farm subsidies) to the corn agro-industry while they are making record profits?

It doesn't make any sense, except in the context of special interest politics in the current election cycle.

The reason why neither Democrats nor Republicans will ever cut farming tax subsidies is just one word.....Iowa.

There was a global food shortage long before ethanol was even a thought in people's heads, so I wonder how much of the blame can really be put there. The fact is the US has never spent enough of our GDP on foreign aid - I believe that, although we have contributed the highest dollar amount since 2000, we have only recently moved out of last place among industrialized nations in the percentage of our GDP sent overseas. That's called being the wealthiest nation on the planet and not really caring about anyone else, and it's something activists have been trying to combat for a long time.

We know that we desperately need alternative fuels in this country, and that fact isn't going away, so I think we're "robbing Peter to pay Paul" if we give up on ethanol. What we need are dedicated aid programs that grow and donate food never destined for the commercial market. These programs are going to have to be subsidized just like ethanol production for them to work, but there are options that solve hunger without bankrupting American farmers.

At the other end of the spectrum are NGOs which have been combatting this problem for years. I had the opportunity to visit home base of Heifer International last week, an organization that provides cows and goats to families in the third world. Unlike corn, which only feeds a family once, animals like these provide food and income for their owners year after year. HI's programs have been among the most successful at feeding whole villages and raising their people out of poverty, as well. At a certain point we may have to admit that NGOs do it better than USAID, and put our money there. Lord knows this administration isn't going to commit our tax dollars overseas - unless you're talking about funding the military, that is.