The law of unintended consequences

[AgentJean]

Originally posted by: XMan
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/11/bloomberg/bxcorn.php

Ethanol makes sense, but perhaps not so much from corn. In the end I don't know that "bio-fuels" will be the answer, unless we are willing to absorb it in increased food costs. Americans can probably afford to do so, but I don't know about the third world.

We could invest in Brazil's model if we could end the tariffs on imported ethanol, but eventually I think it's going to come down between a balancing act of farmland for fuel or food.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/10/world...3adc82c67600388&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt

My take? Bring on the nuke plants and electric cars!

There was a thing on the history channel a few weeks ago about enviromental tech.
What this one company was doing to counter the CO2 pumped out by buring coal was to divert the flume gas into containers filled with algae which eat CO2, mutiply and give off o2.

The algae that grows can then be turned into bio-diesel, ethanol, and food grade protein.

What this means is, we can burn even more coal, counter CO2 production and create bio-fuels.

What more can you ask for?

 

[OFFascist]

Makes sense to me, corn is more in demand and the prices rise. Maybe now the farmers will actually make some profit. We already produce more food than we use so its not like anyone here is going to starve because of this. Besides dont 3rd world farmers complain that we flood the market with low cost food so they can no longer compete, this should help them out too.

 

[sdifox]

Corn doesn't make sense for biofuel anyway. Switchgrass is the ideal one but there is no switchgrass lobby...

 

[Phil21]

Sounds good to me. People forget we're in a self-correcting system, money being the all-powerful catalyst for change.

Farmers start all growing corn because prices skyrocket? Guess what?

Prices for soy, wheat, etc. skyrocket due to limited supply. Couple that with more "hard" limits such as crop rotation (not like I have a CLUE what crops compliment corn) and you get a self-balancing system.

Granted, there may be pain in places.. But in the large scope, it will be relatively painless. I also more or less think the same regarding oil, barring any "jolt" type effects from large-scale terrorist acts, wars, etc. As oil gradually runs out, it will gradually rise in price thus making other means of energy production all of a sudden viable.

While the system isn't "perfect" I certainly do not begrudge farmers actually making a dang profit for once. The erosion of our agrarian culture in the midwest/south/etc. is one of the saddest parts of modern American history to me.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: Phil21
Sounds good to me. People forget we're in a self-correcting system, money being the all-powerful catalyst for change.

Farmers start all growing corn because prices skyrocket? Guess what?

Prices for soy, wheat, etc. skyrocket due to limited supply. Couple that with more "hard" limits such as crop rotation (not like I have a CLUE what crops compliment corn) and you get a self-balancing system.

Granted, there may be pain in places.. But in the large scope, it will be relatively painless. I also more or less think the same regarding oil, barring any "jolt" type effects from large-scale terrorist acts, wars, etc. As oil gradually runs out, it will gradually rise in price thus making other means of energy production all of a sudden viable.

While the system isn't "perfect" I certainly do not begrudge farmers actually making a dang profit for once. The erosion of our agrarian culture in the midwest/south/etc. is one of the saddest parts of modern American history to me.

Too bad the government interferes and won't let the free market do what it does best: choose the most efficient use of scarce resources. No, nanny government steps in and tells us that corn is what we should grow; the US is no different than the Soviet Union. The only difference is that the Soviet Union ordered production through force, we do it through subsidies.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: techs
Another unintended consequence is farmers in the midwest actually increasing corn planting over other crops such as wheat. Corn requires lots of water and the engine for corn in the midwest is the Ogalla reservoir which is already going dry in some places. In less than 20 years large areas will no longer be able to support large scale agriculture.
So our kids will be eating food imported from other countries. Which will mean the U.S. will need "hard" currency to buy it. Just about the time the U.S. will be enormously overburdened with the massive debt by the baby boomers.
So the end result will be starving Americans.

I don't think so. We grow so much food it's absolutely silly, even a drastic reduction would not require us to import staple foods. And in any case, I suspect this corn obsession will be self-correcting before too long. It's a stupid way to get ethanol, and while the corn lobby is allowed to get away with it now, they won't once people start noticing that the government is spending vast amounts of money to support an inefficient farming system run mostly by huge businesses.

 

[Phil21]

I completely agree Boberfett - obviously government interference with the market is (by and large) a bad thing. While I believe a lot of it is initially well-intended (holy crap! farmers are losing money!) no one actually looks at it from a "game" perspective. As soon as people figure out the most financially beneficial way to play the system, they will, and then the well-intended subsidy is nothing more than a form of welfare.

Go figure.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime
Right now, this problem isn't very severe yet. We can alleviate it pretty easily by simply allowing sugar imports from sugar cane. However, if ethanol takes off in a big way, this will become a huge problem. There simply isn't enough land on earth to convert everyone to ethanol usage. The US cannot grow a lot of sugarcane because we lack a tropical climate. And cellusic ethanol isn't fully developed yet.

Annex Cuba