DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum No, no, no, Mr. President!

This is for all you geniuses who claim that I've said that President Bush is a genius and that he can do no wrong......even though I have said otherwise many, many time. (Ignoring facts that don't support their agenda......imagine that)

Anyway, I DO NOT agree with the future of our energy depending on ethanol. Already, the Rainforest is being chopped down for farmers of corn to make ethanol. The future is hydrogen!

This is the direction that we need to stear our country in.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17799263/

Bush praises automakers for flex-fuel vehicles

President attempts to rev up support for his energy plan

WASHINGTON - President Bush, seeking to rev up support for his energy plan, praised domestic automakers Monday for building more “flexible fuel” vehicles capable of running on ethanol and biodiesel blends.

“That’s a major technological breakthrough for the country,” Bush said. “If you want to reduce gasoline usage like I believe we need to do so for national security reasons as well as for environmental concerns, the consumer has got to be in a position to make a rational choice.”

Bush said he appreciated “that American automobile manufacturers recognize the reality of the world in which we live in and are using new technologies to use the consumers different options.”

Bush met with General Motors Corp. chairman and chief executive Rick Wagoner, Ford Motor Co. chief executive Alan Mulally and DaimlerChrysler AG’s Chrysler Group chief executive Tom LaSorda. They discussed Bush’s support for flex-fuel vehicles and his administration’s proposal to reduce gas consumption by 20 percent in 10 years.

The three auto executives reiterated their commitment to double their production of flexible fuel vehicles to about 2 million a year by 2010.

Automakers said they could make half of their cars and trucks capable of running on alternative fuels by 2012 if there is enough availability and distribution of E85, an ethanol blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline.

“This makes a big difference,” Wagoner said. “There’s nothing that can be done that can reduce the curb of growth of imported oil, and actually turn it down, like using E85.”

LaSorda said, “We think this is the answer for America to lower our dependence on foreign oil.”

Environmental groups said the focus on ethanol blends would undermine attempts to push automakers to make more fuel efficient cars.

“Making our cars and light trucks go farther on a gallon of gas is the single biggest step we can take toward saving American families money at the pump, ending our dangerous addiction to oil, and curbing global warming,” said Dan Becker, the Sierra Club’s director of the global warming and energy program.

Only about 1,100 of the nation’s 170,000 fueling stations offer E85. The auto leaders said the distribution system is critical to getting more vehicles running on alternatives.

Bush checked out some flex-fuel vehicles on the South Lawn following the meeting: GM’s flex-fuel Chevrolet Impala running on E85; Ford’s Edge HySeries with a plug-in hydrogen fuel cell; and DaimlerChrysler’s Jeep Grand Cherokee diesel filled with B5, a biodiesel blend.

During one of the demonstrations, Bush stuck a yellow plug into a jack positioned near the front door of the Ford Edge. Mulally said a mix of alternative vehicles — hybrids, hydrogen fuel cells and plug-ins — “give us some great options to satisfy our need for flexibility as well as being good stewards of the environment.”

Bush has sought higher fuel efficiency standards for cars; Wagoner said they spent “very little time” talking about gas mileage standards beyond the president’s support for reforming the way standards are applied for passenger cars.

Rainforests are being chopped down in 3rd world countries (Brazil) to produce ethanol ... and that's only because the farmers there slash, burn, and grow whatever cash crop they can, and move on to the next peice of rain forest.

Ethanol is the way to go, it's renewable and cheap to produce. We can also genetically engineer the corn, and use farming practices that would otherwise be unsafe for human consumption to produce top quality crops.

If we could figure out how to grow Sugar Cane like we do corn, and in the same regions, Ethanol would already be here

Actually, it can be made from corn. Just like moonshine.

How about we walk more? Less fuels used, less obese people.

Just a thought.

Yes, I know... but Sugar Cane is far more efficient and has MUCH higher quality and yields much more Ethanol per acre vs. Corn .... thus making it FAR cheaper to produce if the Sugar Cane is domestically grown and not imported.

He's dead.

Why can't we just (1) grow corn on all the farms that are subsidised to not grow anything ?,....(2) not worry about the rain forests, and (3) put our own land and people to good use ???? (That is, if ethanol is such a valid solution.)

Personally, I'm all about nuclear, electric or solar powered vehicles and a return to mass transit (i.e. trains) as other viable alternatives.

Ease up on the hate there, man. It gets you nowhere.

We can't ease up on the "paying farmers for not growing crops on their land" thing, cause it brings in votes for the politicians.

As for your other 2 suggestions - how dare you? How dare the u.s. worry about rain forest deforestation when no one else worries about it? And how dare you insinuate that the u.s. doesn't care about worker productivity?

The u.s. does more to preserve the environment than just about all the rest of the world combined, yet we are expected to do more? While other countries do less?

(not attacking you at all, if that makes it any better)

Didn't take it as an attack,...all I'm saying is, let's grow our own corn,...IF this is such a big deal.

Just like the Kyoto treaty/agreement?

Why is everything the fault of the u.s.?

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The future is hydrogen!

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How about we walk more? Less fuels used, less obese people.

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Mass transit is a very viable alternative

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Holy #$%&, Phil...........we agree.

However, why not a combo of all three?

The panecea of energy is to create energy using fusion rather than fission, but that has not been done as of yet.

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(far, far more destruction than preservation).

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Actually there was a thread here not long ago,,, talking about how we are now actually adding forested areas every year by about 10% in America.
Although what they didnt specify was wether an acre of new growth counted the same as an acre of old. Or wether we have simply switched our consumption to wood thats imported.

No,, it was my fault. I copied from the first post and replied on yours.

Market forces will ultimately determine the value of ethanol as a fuel. Corn, a cool weather crop has less production per acre, but can be grown domestically. Sugar cane may be a better alternative that corn, even with the transportation cost.

The US government is funding ethanol research and production as well.

Eventually we will run out of fuel and have to produce our own. Ethanol is probably the cheapest of the renewable forms to produce and sustain our economy / lifestyle in the way we know it as of now.

as for source of ethanol.. here's a list from wikipedia...I love how there is a big misconception that ethanol comes from corn.. though atleast I have seen some people here that do know that it can also be made more efficiently using sugar cane.. but here are some more sources of ethanol.

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Bioethanol is obtained from the conversion of carbon based feedstock. Agricultural feedstocks are considered renewable because they get energy from the sun using photosynthesis. Ethanol can be produced from a variety of feedstocks such as sugar cane, bagasse, miscanthus, sugar beet, sorghum, grain sorghum, switchgrass, barley, hemp, kenaf, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava, sunflower, fruit, molasses, whey or skim milk, corn, stover, grain, wheat, wood, paper, straw, cotton, other biomass, as well as many types of cellulose waste. As of 2006, production is primarily from sugarcane, maize (corn) and sugar beets - and also as of 2006, technology does not exist that makes it economically competitive to produce ethanol from cellulosic feedstock.[5]

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It can also be produced from the waste of cheese manufacturing and a cheese plant near where I live actually does produce ethanol to generate electricity for its plant;.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17870172/

Ethanol fuels largest corn sowing since 1944
U.S. government estimates a 90.5 million acres of corn this year

DES MOINES, Iowa - An ethanol-fueled boom in prices will prompt American farmers to plant the most corn since the year the Allies invaded Normandy, but surging demand could mean consumers still may pay more for everything from chicken to cough syrup.

Farmers are expected to plant 90.5 million acres of corn, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s annual prospective plantings report released Friday. That would be a 15 percent increase over 2006 and the most corn planted since 1944.

Mother Nature will play a large part in the actual acreage planted. Muddy fields are already slowing plantings in some states.

“We’re awfully wet out here,” said John Scott, a grain farmer in west central Iowa. “Normally by this time of year we’re doing quite a bit of field work. There just isn’t a wheel turning out here. Illinois is in the same boat.”

The move to plant corn is in large part due to a rush to produce corn-based ethanol, which is blended with gasoline. There are now 114 ethanol refineries nationwide and another 80 under construction.

The corn rush was sparked by President Bush’s initiative supporting flexible-fuel vehicles, which are capable of using gasoline and ethanol blends, and his administration’s plan to cut gas consumption by 20 percent in 10 years.

Corn prices were already rising when Bush announced the initiative in Washington on Jan. 23 and there has been growing concern that the corn rush could hurt the poor in less-developed nations such as Mexico, where the crop is a staple used in tortillas.

On Thursday, Cuban leader Fidel Castro wrote in an editorial for the Communist Party daily newspaper that President Bush’s ethanol plan could deplete corn and other food stocks in developing nations, putting the lives of 3 billion people at risk worldwide.

“You’re in the middle of an emergence of a food versus fuel debate,” said Lincoln Ellis, director of asset management for the Linn Group, a Chicago-based privately held financial trading business focusing on commodities and futures. “This is the pregame show. We haven’t even hit the first quarter.”

Corn is a key ingredient in many foods, from corn syrup found in candies and cough syrup to feed used in meat production.

Chicken producers welcomed the planting report, hoping that an increased corn supply would reduce feed costs that have led to a 40 percent rise in chicken prices. But they noted that the bigger corn harvest would come at the expense of soybean acres, expected to drop by 11 percent.

“This is definitely a mixed report,” Bill Roenigk, senior vice president and chief economist at the National Chicken Council, said in a statement.

Livestock and dairy producers also were optimistic that increased corn production could lead to a decline in feed prices. That presumption showed up in the stock prices for chicken producers on Friday. The shares of Pilgrim’s Pride Corp., Tyson Foods Inc. and Sanderson Farms Inc. all rose after the news.

A bushel of corn for May delivery was trading at $3.74 a bushel Friday on the Chicago Board of Trade, down 20 cents from Thursday.

Agriculture industry analyst David Driscoll, of Citigroup Research, said in a report to investors Friday that he expects the increased corn acres to cause the price of corn to fall to about $3 a bushel by December.

Corn had been stuck at around $2 a bushel for years before the ethanol boom lifted prices.

Bob Ray, a senior vice president at the Chicago Board of Trade, said predictions that corn prices will continue to decline because of plentiful supply from a huge harvest must be balanced with increasing demand from the export market.

Both China and India have sent signals recently that they’ll import significant amounts of U.S. corn. The Chinese can’t raise enough corn to feed their rapidly growing livestock market and India has recently lowered tariffs, indicating plans to import grains from the United States.

A wild card also could be the European Union, which also has to meet required renewable fuel mandates and doesn’t have enough land available to set aside for grains to make into ethanol.

John M.A. Roy, an ethanol analyst for WR Hambrecht and Co., predicts that ethanol demand will grow by at least 32 percent in 2007.

“Overall this was a good report for ethanol producers and could help their stocks short-term, but the issue of high priced corn is not over,” Roy said in a research note.

The USDA based the planting report on surveys of more than 86,000 farmers across the country.

Increased corn planting also could mean a large drop in cotton pro

duction, expected to be down 20 percent from last year.

In Arkansas, for example, farmers intend to plant 66 percent more acres in corn. Cotton acres are expected to drop from 1.2 million acres last year to 740,000 acres this year. A similar drop in cotton acreage is expected in Mississippi.

In its report, the USDA said Iowa remains on top with the most corn acres to be planted at 13.9 million — a 10.3 percent increase from last year.

Besides a drop in soybean and cotton plantings, rice was expected to decline 7 percent to 2.64 million acres.

Some grains are expected to rise. Wheat is expected to rise 5 percent with 60.3 million acres. Other increases include: sorghum, up 9 percent; canola, up 12 percent; and barley, up 7 percent.

Figures of actual acres planted for the year will be released on June 29.

h