Quote:
Originally Posted by leahbeatle
Planting and growing that corn is not costless and it isn't particularly 'green.'
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I think it's important to keep things in perspective, though don't you think? I hate mono-crop industrial agriculture, but compared to drilling in ANWR or in the Gulf of Mexico? OR shipping crude from the middle east?
Quote:
Originally Posted by leahbeatle
If Michael Pollan's figures are right, (that's a half gallon of gas used to produce each bushel), those 900 million extra bushels cost us 450 million gallons of gas. Can you think of a way in which turning 900 million bushels of corn into ethanol can save us more gas than we would save by simply NOT growing that extra corn? Though I haven't run the numbers, it sounds darn unlikely to me. If this explanation is too vitriolic for you, stevejust, then sorry, but the only agenda I have over here is trying to argue for policies and priorities that make the most sense.
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This isn't vitriolic, but it does beg the question how corn can cost $2.35 a bushel when one of the primary input Pollan's claiming amounts to half the sale price. I don't know, I'm just asking.
I find that whenever these anlyses are done, if you want to make them come out terribly, all you have to do is start factoring in the cost of building tractors, grain silos, fertilizer, shipping fertizlier, corn, the end product, etc.,. into the equation. It's never an apples to apples comparison, it all depends on where you start in the product cycle.