It seems to me

[kraft-t]

That it makes more sense to ship the corn directly to africa rather than running it through a hog, cow or a chicken. Surely those christian conservative types would sacrifice livestock profits to feed the hungry.

As long as Budweiser and Jack Daniels shut down to feed the super hungry, I don't mind giving up ethanol in the slightest.

[bruce MN]

Haven't seen it but I'm sure we're under by at least 3 td's. And as it's been for the last 40 years if you listen to the coaches we are just a year away from being competitive.

New coach (Jerry Kill) is very popular with the fans. Hasn't lost to a 1AA or MAC school yet either.

[schnurrbart]

Didn't he used to coach at Southern Illinois?

[dagwud]

Thanks for the chuckle Bruce.

It would be interesting to see how much of an acre or bushel of corn is still available for other uses after being used to make ethanol.  It would also be interesting to see how that figure has changed as ethanol production improves with new science and technologies.  Hard to put much faith in reports put out by big oil or big ag companies that have a dog in this fight. 

[r3020]

From a bushel of corn you get 3 gallons of ethanol and 18lbs of DG.

[r3020]

Forgot to mention, ethanol also produces 1,000s of high paying union jobs.

[Mike M2692830]

As long as that food gets to where we think it is going to go. Take a look at where all the starving is taking place and the governments in charge. Foods rotting in ports destined for those in need, etc. Take a look at Libya. Keep your people depressed and you can control them for sometime. I don't know if I am willing to give up a market that finally found a use for  an overproduced product 10 years ago for a controlling gov that won't feed their own people....MikeM

[Samnospam]

Remove the mandates and subsidies and let the most cost effective solutions rise to the top.

[schnurrbart]

Those DGs feed millions of hogs, cattle and chickens and those feed millions of people.  It isn't a total loss as you guys make it sound.  Grain farmers make a pretty good living off of ethanol

[hardnox604008]

The "ironclad" argument on behalf of ethanol is as an oxygenating agent, for environmental purposes.

Given the failure of NG based MTBE, it appears that it is the only decent alternative.

Of course you can argue about how much is enough, is more better, etc. But by the standards of the CEA it would have taken about 9-10 bg/yr.

I'll admit to being like a dog with a bone but it just kills me that there was a 6 inch putt, virtually unassailable, but for some reason needed to push on to the 15 bg/yr mandated level.

We could have done 9 fairly easily and it would have been a very big deal for agriculture. 15 by next year was too much too fast, just introduced a whole lot more instability into the whole global agricultural system than was necessary.

It isn't that ethanol is bad or not but the last 6 billion gallons tips decidedly to the negative, which is too bad. Really too bad.