As grim as all this sounds, I have to wonder if the increase in crop value might actually help third world farmers who currently suffer from low priced caused by European and US export subsidies.

"....Ethanol production will cause long-term rise in Crop prices".

Really??? Do you think??? I guess while we are reporting the obvious, I'll add that studies show that the sky is blue, and also smoking can be bad for you.

This might be "obvious" and it may help third world poor farmers, but what about third world non-farmers?

Managing it is not so simple in a complex world of competing interest and warring factions. I'd like to see third world farmers get a boost. But rapid increase in cost might harm third world countries. Much of Africa is fed off of cheap subsidies by charity orgs purchased for areas of famine and war in corrupt countries. Either way, subsidies will be made up front, or at the end. Charity orgs often are more efficient in getting aid to such regions. Higher cost limit their purchase power which means less are fed in the end.

OT: New process generates hydrogen from aluminum alloy to run engines, fuel cells

http://www.physorg.com/news98556080.html

Interesting research out of Purdue. Curious what engineers think about the technicals on this approach, how feasible it is and problems.

I think we all knew that and that is why we are trying to get to cellulosic ethanol. Straw grass, switch grass, forest waste and on and on.

For now, put the farmers back to work and stop the subsidies.

What about Manure? It seems like the big efficiency of making ethanol at feedlots and dairies is that each cow is an enzyme factory breaking down the cellulose into methane and fermentable manure. The project in Arizona estimates it can make 54 Million gallons of ethanol per year. Are there enough feedlots and dairies that we could get a significant fraction of our alternative fuels from them?

The Simplot company (www.simplot.com) headquartered in Boise, ID is a livestock and agricultural empire that no doubt will become a player in this somehow. I've seen some of their cattle operations - massive amounts of manure!

The govenrment should focus on perfecting the electric vehicle! We have the technology. "We the people" of the USA should be outraged with our government for allowing big oil to have their way. If you are an electric vehicle junky, you know that people are making electric vehicles in their garages. You know of the EV1 program. If people are making functional plugin electric motorcyles/cars in their garages just imagine what a vehicle manufacturers can do.

What we really need, is a group of wealthy individuals to create a new motor company. This motor company must be formed by a group whose primary focus is not to give in to "Big oil", and government incentives to "play ball". Secondly this new company should produce one or two or three reliable, economical & most importantly affordable plug-in long range electric vehicles. Like the model T Ford, it should be marketed to the average middle income family. Not only would these vehicles be great for our country, but the owners of this company would MAKE HISTORY!!!! Think about it.

Over here our meat producers are mostly immune from yjis because shock of shocks.. the grow thier own feed and sell thr excess.

As for corn what EVERYONE is forgetting is that thy have yet to change corn to extract more ethanol per acre. As they do ALOT more ethanol will result.

I read a study that said men and women are different.

Again, this rather obvious report proves we may have sufficient fuel to drive anywhere we want, but have nothing to eat once we get there. Feeding our fuel tanks instead of our bellies is, in my mind, the absolute most stupid approach ever envisioned.

What happens when all these ethanol powered cars are replaced with electric/hydrogen/fuel cell powered vehicles, which are soon to come? You will have all these corn farmers, of these 110 million acres, bankrupting themselves because their "corn ethanol sacred cow" demand is now gone, and their previous buyers for corn chips and cattle feed have either completely evaporated or have been replaced by some other alternative. Then the government will have to bail out all these farmers who invested so heavily in corn producing equipment who will now have no ready market to sell to. Never ever is this going to work out. Dont mess around with our food supply by using our ever decreasing-available productive cropland growing gasohol instead of vegetables and food products!

Ethanol and fermentation products have places other then fuel that needed them, like industrail solvents, plastics and pharmaceuticals, which make up ~30% of the oil use, so their will not be a major loss in demand if EV take most of the gasoline market: you can't make plastics out of electicity!

Let me get this straight. If you take our ever decreasing valuable productive prime farm acreage, and plant more corn on it for ethanol, whether is is for gasohol or industrial solvents etc, and decrease production of food, you guys see NO PROBLEM?? Throw in a Katrina style flood event, or a major drought into our already fragile farm produced food supply, and you still see NO PROBLEM??

Much of our most productive croplands are being paved over to create strip malls and convenience stores, while much less desireable borderline hilly, erosion-suspect lands are being figured in for these high corn acreages. Sane farming practices would never chance using these type of lands, for most crops. Especially tilled crops requiring minimal weed competition with the main crop. And remember corn uses a tremendous amount of water to produce an acceptable crop. Where will this water come from?

The point I am making is that our most productive, easily harvested prime farmlands are being paved over, and/or planted into the most profitable crop, ethanol. Other food crop supplies will invariably be reduced, threatening our relatively cheap food supply. A drought, flood, insect invasion at the wrong time in any single crop's growing cycle ends that years crop. Cant just give it a do over. Corn does not grow under snow. The "growing season" is less than half a year in most areas of the country. So many hazards to create a successful crop.

The ethanol cynics (W's word for critics) are using all their standard canards. It's probably the only time they practice recycling. The funniest thing about this story is the number of ditto-heads saying "Well, duh. We all knew that." Sorry, this is one more thing you know that just ain't so. Check out the "Note on the 'Food vs. Fuel' Debate" in the following link: http://www.ncga.com/ethanol/pdfs/2007/HowMuchEthanolCanComeFromCorn0207.pdf . It explains why these arguments are patently false and cynical ploys.
Most of the so-called studies criticizing ethanol assume that corn must be used either for ethanol or food. Actually, ethanol plants product both at the same time. About 40% or more of the nutritional content in a bushel of corn comes back out of the ethanol process and is used for cattle feed. You never see that reflected in all these hysterical claims about increasing food prices. It is also, funny that the doomsday scenario in this story is that the average price of food would rise 1% in the HIGH SCENARIO! In addition, the corn used in ethanol and that which is fed to cattle is field corn, not sweet corn, which is the type typically eaten by humans. So the idea that it is displacing food is ridiculous. While ethanol does displace some amount of cattle feed, this can be made up for with many substitutes, such as alfalfa, sorghum, etc., which is better anyway, because it is incredibile unsustainable to raise corn-fed cattle. It takes over 20 pounds of grain to create 1 pound of beef. So, you should be demanding more grass-fed cattle (which are healthier and leaner), or just not eating beef at all. Chicken, turkey, fish, etc. are all way more efficient and healthier for you. The above link also estimates that the projected increase in corn yields in the next few years is likely to generate enough additional corn to make 16 to 18 billion gallons of ethanol without increasing the price of corn. And, despite the talk of ethanol increasing corn prices, we continue to produce record corn surpluses, losing massive amounts to waste. Ultimately, though, we could settle all of this nonsensical debate about food vs. fuel by simply using cheap imported grain from the world market to make ethanol. This would benefit both rich and poor nations.