Millions of people around the world are sick and dying due to starvation and malnourishment. Americans are partly to blame as we use millions of bushels of corn to make ethanol gasoline. That makes corn and other foods more expensive and scarce. That is wrong. We should stop doing that and just use gasoline for awhile or import ethanol from South America or start using sugar cane grown in America to make ethanol. We subsidize ethanol heavily, making farmers wealthy, so the lobbyists will probably prevail and people will continue to starve to death. Sad!
Harold Dripps, Mesa
sockratties posted at 10:15 am on Sun, Aug 14, 2011.
Harold: While I don’t commiserate with your ethics judgment I do agree with you about the folly of promoting corn as a bio-fuel. Sugar beets and sugar cane are good candidates for ethanol production if ethanol is a preferred fuel.
There is such a high demand for corn as a foodstuff that the world can consume all we can grow. Unfortunately those that need the food don’t have anything to trade. The price of corn, to get it to the starving millions, would have to be so low American farmers wouldn’t be able to afford to grow it. The third element in “supply and demand” marketing is the ability to pay.
Should a population that spends billions each year fighting obesity be trying to help eliminate famine? Of course, but let’s point our fingers at the real culprits. Take Somalia, for example. There is no real government, the normal social structure is tribes, rebel militias rule most of the country and more than 80% of aid is absconded by bandits before it reaches the starving millions. How do you fix that by blaming lobbyists? We may not be able to fix that problem, and it may not be ours to fix.
Right and wrong falls on the shoulders of people, not on the farmer trying to make a living. I know a lot of farmers in the mid-west who grow mostly corn and soy beans. To survive they have to run their farms like businesses, not charities. The only assistance they get is availability of crop insurance, which they pay for.
Many companies are competing to get into the ethanol business. The government has been providing a 45 cent per gallon subsidy to oil companies to blend ethanol into gasoline as an additive and as gasohol. This subsidy is being eliminated as part of the current deficit spending battle being fought in D.C. which amounts to $5 billion.
samkat posted at 1:17 pm on Sun, Aug 14, 2011.
We have a double headed dilemma. The liberals also oppose using coal as a fuel when we have it in abundance. Since the Germans used coal in WWII to make gasoline and diesel and other countries do it even today, what is wrong with using our assets to supplement oil as a fuel? Both the liberals and the conservatives ought to be behind this effort. We create jobs in the mining and production sectors as well as reducing our dependence on oil. The oil giants should be behind this effort as well since they have significant cash reserves to tap into this power source.
Cerulean posted at 2:56 pm on Sun, Aug 14, 2011.
The better option, in my opinion, is to eliminate subsidies for corn, coal and sugar cane, and instead subsidize cellulosic ethanol, made from switch grass ( a native of north America)and other plant wastes.
According to Scientific American: “switchgrass ethanol delivers 540 percent of the energy used to produce it, compared with just roughly 25 percent more energy returned by corn-based ethanol according to the most optimistic studies.”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=grass-makes-better-ethanol-than-corn
And from Science Daily: The ”Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources study also found greenhouse gas emissions from cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass were 94 percent lower than estimated greenhouse gas emissions from gasoline production.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080109110629.htm
I know, the coal, gas and corn industries have too much influence on Congress to end the sweet subsidies for those antiquated energy groups.
Accuracy posted at 3:26 pm on Sun, Aug 14, 2011.
Under the 2007 mandate, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) required oil refiners and gasoline makers to use a certain amount of renewable fuel each year. This spurred a large increase in the amount of corn used for ethanol production.
Corn has become the United States' largest and most subsidized crop, pulling in $77 billion in taxpayer dollars since 1995.
But, the EPA announced last month that for the second year in a row it was cutting the amount of cellulosic ethanol that must be mixed into motor fuel, because there is not enough ethanol available. And ethanol subsidies are set to expire at the end of 2011.
Dale Whiting posted at 8:18 am on Mon, Aug 15, 2011.
Our subsidizing corn has lowered the price of it in Mexico City to the point where thousands of Mexican corn growers in an effort to support their families are having to illegally migrate north to pick strawberrys and do other menial agricultural work. As one small element in comprehensive immigration reform, let's end corn subsidies now.
Dale Whiting posted at 8:45 am on Mon, Aug 15, 2011.
Harrold,
Excuse this interruption, please. I have spoken my piece on your letter. And I agree whole heartedly. I have a follow up on one of Accuracy's inaccurate comments on another letter.
Accuracy,
So you finally admit that the ARM was involved with Mesa in relocating 2355 and starting its restoration. Had Mesa not called off Plan B, Plan A-2, the moving of 2355 to ARM, half of the moving costs to be provided by Mesa, half by ARM, would have been completed now and 2355 would have been restored and on desplay today! I know percisely where the restoration funds would have come from and I suggested to the community of Mesa RxR enthusiasts where in Mesa they might be able to find similar funding for Plan C. Guess Mesa was too tight!
The original Plan, Plan A-1, was to have 2355 hauled off for scrap!
Bottom line. If 2355 were at ARM today, it would be fully restored and on desplay, just like the several other restored locomotives at ARM have been and are on desplay.
Accuracy, you need to improve your accuracy!!!!!
ARM would be the best location to restore 2355 and place it on desplay. And those Mesa RxR enthusiasts would be welcomed into ARM. ARM is the premere Arizona Railroad restoration group.
sockratties posted at 9:17 am on Mon, Aug 15, 2011.
Dale... please think about the following you posted:
[ Rodini,
In case you did not notice, this letter to the editor was written by Larry and addressed the topic of retail gas pricing. Lecturing us on Republicans is not appropriate. I can sympathize with what you say, but not were you say it.
What ideas do you have on retail gas pricing trends? None! Then shut up! ]
What's good for the goose...
Dale Whiting posted at 1:56 pm on Wed, Aug 17, 2011.
socratties,
Read more carefully. Accuracy has stopped reading his posts and mine to the Pioneer Park locomotive restoration project letter. So I asked permission of Harrold, or at least begged his pardon for changing the subject. I was not rude. Addressing Harrold, I said
"Harrold,
Excuse this interruption, please. I have spoken my piece on your letter. And I agree whole heartedly. I have a follow up on one of Accuracy's inaccurate comments on another letter."
Then I went on to address Accuracy, calling him out for being inaccurate and incomplete. That is quite different from what Rodini did. He posted two comments to just about every open letter and did not explain a thing. Apparently he cannot get printed in a letter to the editor, so he forces himself on us all.
Socratties, can you get printed? I expect not!