I don’t know that the world faces an economic crisis like some are saying but I will say this. If the United States does spiral into a major recession or depression it now appears that our decision to use one of our major food sources — corn — as a a major part of our fuel supply will be regarded as an historical blunder with blame to share by both political parties. I’ll be looking into this a little more deeply in the next week.
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Aaron, surely as someone who grew up in Cherry you must know that the kind of corn used to create ethanol has pretty much nothing to do with the food on your table. Even cornflakes uses so little actual corn as to be laughable.
The corn most people visualize on their table is sweet corn, grown in vast quantities in central Minnesota. The kind of corn used to make ethanol is often referred to by farm industry types as “field corn” or “yellow #2.” This latter is unpalatable to human beings, unless it is made into cornmeal or some other kind of food you probably don’t eat very often. Corn flour from yellow #2 would also be the corn ingredient in corn flakes.
The vast, VAST, majority of field corn is used for animal feed stuffs or corn fructose sweetner. It is this corn that feeds cattle, hogs, chickens, etc. to put meat on our table. So, in a sense, it is indeed food for us, but not until it is converted into meat.
What the ethanol debaters usually leave out of the corn into alcohol debate is that coming out the other end of the pipeline is not just alcohol, but a highly improved feedstuff for the animals. That’s right! The so-called “by-product” of ethanol production is a very powerful creator of meat on the table. I haven’t seen the actual figures, but my brother who is active with an ethanol plant tells me the feed value of the processed “by-product” is so superior to what went into the making of the ethanol as to be worthy of running through the process just for that.
We do lose the fructose part of the corn, however, so you aren’t totally off the mark. I for one, however, could live without the sodas, candy bars, and other poisons disguised as treats, so I don’t consider this a great loss. I mean, isn’t it apparent that we as a nation could do with a little less sweet treats?
So, our ethanol plant is also providing us the same amount of food out the other end, (less the fructose), as it would have if we hadn’t produced the ethanol.
When I see one of these “corn is food” types actually try to live off yellow #2 (because most of these types would tell you meat production is a blight on the planet as well, you know) I’ll laugh while I’m eating all the meat I want, and driving my alcohol powered car to the bank.