It's also quite a lot of BS.

A McDonald's meal has 2 bushels of corn?? Not. From that, he divines that
it takes 2 gallons of fossil fuel to make a McDonald's meal. More crap.
He's not taking anything into account for the use of the by-products in the
manufacture of things like corn syrup or ethanol.

He also goes on about how evil corn is because it's ruining our eating
habits. That's like blaming the gun for shooting someone instead of the
person pulling the trigger.

He talks about "cheap" fertilizer. In the last two years my anhydrous
ammonia has gone from $170 per ton to $500 per ton. That's not cheap, I'm
sorry to say, and the idea that farmers just dump the fertilizer on willy
nilly is ludicrous, it's simply not cost effective. I pay almost $1,000/
year for nothing other than soil sampling and fertilizer recommendations.

Then he talks about getting off fossil fuels and solar energy. What a
moron. What does he think actually grows the crops? It's all solar
powered. This idiot hasn't spent 30 minutes on a farm in his life.

Not surprising that he's a university researcher. Those that can, do, those
the can't, teach and write scare tactic books.

John Stricker

PS: The most efficient thing to make ethanol from is the crop with the
highest sugar content so that's sugar beets and sugar cane. It CAN be made
from corn and within 10 miles of me there is an Ethanol plant that uses
strictly grain sorghum. His calculations of what the energy return of
Ethanol is completely disregards the value of things like distiller's grain
and other by-products which are high value, high use items.

".Blueskies." wrote in message
. net...

"Si" wrote in message
oups.com...


Corn is not the most efficient source for ethanol. If I am wearing a
cynical hat I am prone to think that it is just an agri-business
wheeze. They are all set up for handling corn, they have squeezed the
cost end of the business to the bone, the only way left is the old
fashioned grow the demand end. They have practically maxed out the corn
syrup side of things (try finding any food stuff out there that doesn't
have added corn syrup). So what's left? Fuel. Elephant grass yields
more ethanol than corn by some margin and yet 'go green, go yellow' is
the refrain. Not very joined up thinking. IMHO biodiesel is a better
option for a home brewer.



Si

"Bog snorkler extraordinaire"


Here is a link to a very interesting story about American agricultu
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=5342514
(I wish there was a transcript available)