Don’t you just love it when the folks who know how to work the earth (farmers, others in agriscience) trump the supposed know-it-alls whose knowledge and experience is limited to the lab?

As a side note, making genetic changes to existing species has been going on for many centuries. That is what animal husbandry and breeding of various critters and bugs is all about. The ability to do it via the lab rather than the barnyard is just a different way to same results.

Being an old SOWEGA boy whose first jobs were working in the fields, I just love seeing Georgia farmers coming up with good ideas, though the claim that 1 acre of sorghum cane stalks can generate 10 MW of electrical power is a bit of a stretch (to be kind).

However, ethanol is not and will not be the answer to the problem. It is too expensive to produce, and tends to pollute more and reduce mileage in the vehicles that use it. Ethanol, like so many other biomass solutions, electric cars, and hydrogen/fuel cell technology, takes more energy to produce it than it gives back.

That is why the Bell Bio-Energy approach is much better. It uses far less energy to directly create gasoline and diesel, with little or no refining necessary. It uses existing supplies of waste biomass, so it doesn’t require the use of existing farmland.

IMHO, we need government out of the way, with no subsidizing, and let the market sort it out. I suspect gas and diesel from Bell’s process that costs less than gas and diesel do now will be what the market chooses over higher priced ethanol that is more polluting and reduces mileage.

A much better approach, which takes no food grains, no government subsidies, and can make fuel (gasoline, diesel, etc.) cheaper is what Bell Bio-Energy (http://bellbioenergy.com) in Tifton is doing. Their process works now, and if used across the US can meet about 40-50% of the gasoline and diesel fuel requirements, and doesn’t require any of the food supply.

Don’t you know taking the politicians out of the formula would deny them the ability to make speeches and issue press releases? All these poor politicians want to do is issue worthless press releases and bloviate in front of TV camera while getting fat at the public’s teat and you advocate denying them that?

Lose the hate man, lose the hate.

Also, if you ask me, corn syrup is one of the reasons Americans are so fat so maybe we should have less corn for consumption. And if you want to eat the healthy corn and the price is so inflated that you simply cannot afford it, you could always plant it yourself.

So maybe it would be better to use corn for ethanol instead of force feeding cows and getting fat.

What will the corn cost to get to plant from where? And the 5 gallons of water consumed per gallon of ethanol produce is always a drought concern.

http://www.dtnethanolcenter.com/index.cfm?show=10&mid=32

If your only experience with corn as a food product is that over-boiled 1/2 cobb they have as a side at KFC, then I would have to agree with you.

However, if you’ve had properly prepared southern creamed corn, there is no better side dish as a human food product.

I used to work for the third largest chicken processor, and the most expensive single item for raising chickens is feed. Feed is made out of several things, some being ground up animal parts, but the majority is made out of corn. It is such a large portion of the cost, there is a measure of efficiency called “feed conversion”. Or how many pounds of meat is produced per pound of feed.

Cows and pigs are also raised on corn.

No matter what kind of corn it is, if it is used in ethanol production, it will drive up demand and increase the price. Also, with high profits converting farm land from human food to ethanol, there will be less supply of other crops, also raising prices.

Ethanol is a horrible product for so many reasons. Remove the subsidies and see how long it lasts.

Kudzu emerging as unlikely ethanol source

http://griftdrift.blogspot.com/2006/05/fuel.html