Jenaicklefritz’s Weblog

In my last post, I received a comment that I had to blog a response to. Here it is:

Hello Gary Bridge/G. Armstrong,

First of all, it’s Ms. J. to you, not Miss. Thanks. Out of curiosity, what exactly do you assume I’m “trying real hard to do,” here? This is my personal blog. As far as I can tell, all I’m doing is writing my opinion about whatever topic I feel like—from politics to family issues, to what I’m cooking for dinner. That’s not exactly trying to make a worldwide statement and call for a revolution, mind you, but since you seem to believe my blog is important enough to critic on a greater level, I’ll meet you half way and answer your challenge.

So, Gary (or is it just “G?”), I don’t know who you think you are (and by that I mean: are you Gary Bridge of Cisco, or G. Armstrong of… I couldn’t begin to guess), but I don’t get the feeling that you are anyone qualified enough to “educate” Anne Korin, but for humor’s sake, I’ll just pretend that you are a person of some rank in the Ag world. But being somewhat of a headstrong woman, you’ll have to forgive me if I seem to lack respect for your high position. Now then, shall we begin?

First of all, you claim that growing any agri-crop for flex-fuel ethanol is “outdated.” Where do you get your information from, G.?  And what is this miracle replacement liquid fuel that will replace it? Specifically what is this “something far more efficient, profitable and biodegraeable?” By the way, you spelled biodegradable wrong. Spell Check is our friend.

Let’s look at your statement from a timeline perspective. You are making the statement that agri-crop converted ethanol is outdated, yet there is nothing to replace it YET. You claim there is a greater cost-effective, bio-degradable liquid fuel in the works, but by definition: “in the works” does not equal “available now.” Thus, agri-crop converted ethanol flex-fuels can’t possibly be outdated. I don’t believe in sitting around and waiting for the next great miracle fuel to be available to everyone. The current (or as you say, “outdated”) flex-fuel technology we have can help out now. Not tomorrow, not a few years down the road—but today. Even yesterday. So why are we not jumping on this strategy like white on rice to rip the power of oil out of the Middle East’s and OAPEC’s greedy little hands? Oh, right. Because you want to wait for something better, that could take years to develop fully. I say “years,” because you’ve not given me a solid example of a replacement liquid fuel, and I gotta tell ya G., America can not push forward in the way we have been without liquid fuels. So humor me. Let me know of this great liquid fuel replacement that is biodegradable and more cost effective. And just so you know, you have to put money into something to get money out—so the miracle you are waiting for, could be a fantasy.

I don’t even know HOW to comment on how your miracle replacement fuel is going to be scarily “decentralized in ownership.” For one, that statement doesn’t make sense to me, and I’m betting to my other readers—I mean, doesn’t a replacement fuel have to exist before it can be “owned,” and coincidentally decentralized in ownership? For two, decentralized ownership of anything in today’s day in age might not be such a bad thing. This is America after all—governed for the people, by the people is just like saying, “decentralizing the ownership of the country,” is it not?

Your second paragraph, I’ll just post it here for your own luxury: “What would you think if ethanol plus other alcohols were produced for 15¢ per gallon from tires, or sewer sludge, or garbage or even coal or CO2 greenhouse gas? And I’m speaking of NOT growing any agri-product for low value carbon content and using diesel tractors, petrochemical-derived fertilizers and copious amounts of fresh water for just ONE annual harvest. Farmers will need to re-concentrate on growing food not fuel crops. Perhaps you have not understood the food vs: fuel issues surrounding corn ethanol and soy grown for biodiesel, etc. ???”

Okay, let me get this straight, are you telling me that other alcohols can be made from things such as coal—because honey, if you watched the videos I posted, you would know that I already know these things, but chose to focus on agri-crop for liquid fuels, mostly because I live in a rural area that grows a lot of corn, so it holds a special interest for me. But since you bring up coal among other things, let me lay this out for you: you are suggesting that you need more fossil energy to produce the energy we’d get out of coal, for example. That’s not a rational argument. Wrong even. First of all, it’s a law of nature—you have to put more energy in than you can get out, whether is converting coal to electricity, a barrel of oil to gasoline, or corncob or sugarcane to ethanol—it’s all basically the same law of nature. You must put energy in to get energy out. Simple.  There’s energy inherent in the matter, and energy of conversion—we all learned this pretty early on in science. So arguing the difference in energy expenditure and energy profit is ridiculous. By the way, we get 1.3 times the amount of energy from ethanol than we put in to make it. That’s a profit, if you are not quite sure of the math.

But personally, and I agree with Ms. Korin, none of that should matter, if the overall goal is to take the power of oil away from the enemy and make it so that Americans are not paying for both sides of the war—i.e. paying for oil that funds radical Islam’s attempt to wipe out America. Right? So why even argue that ethanol is a bad idea when all it does is give Americans alternative choices to oil? I’m not saying it’s the only way—au contraire. I’m saying it’s a one way—it’s technology that’s available today, and it should not be ignored or passed off as “outdated,” while people wait around for a miracle that will take time to save us. One of the beautiful things about being human is being resourceful. If we have technology to use, no matter how outdated, we need to use it. Watch MacGyver… he does amazing things with simple “outdated” technology. And by the way, nobody cares about the energy balance for gasoline or electricity—what people care about is the cost. What people care about is if the usable unit of energy is economic.

Now, I believe that the second part of your concern in that paragraph is asking me what I think about sacrificing food crops for fuel crops? Well, let me tackle the food vs. fuel issue, since you obviously do not understand crop ratios grown in the US. You’re trying to ask a question that has been asked too many times to people who don’t do the research. That question is: if we start using our crops for fuel instead of for food, are we causing more poverty and hunger around the world. I understand the concern, but it’s just not going to happen that way, and here’s why:

People are flat out lying about the conversion of corn into ethanol is going to create hunger or starvation around the world. That’s almost a joke. Except I’m not laughing at those lies, and here’s why. OAPEC has been campaigning that very idea into the public, in order to stir up unreasonable fears. It’s an oil interest that is trying to derail its possible competition. Feeding into it is only damaging our situation more. The president of OAPEC himself said that “the 40% rise in oil prices is due to the intrusion of ethanol into the global market.” What does that tell you? It tells you that he doesn’t like his competition.  Stupid.

Just think: Net US corn food and feed product, AFTER removing the corn converted to ethanol, has increased 23% on the year. And after you convert corn to ethanol, you have a leftover product called distiller’s grain—which is concentrated protein for animal feed. Maybe you didn’t realize this, but most of the produced corn in the US is used to feed animals, not humans. Besides the corn products that are used to feed us humans is horrible for us. Corn syrup is a horrible substitute for sugar that is converted into fat immediately and is probably the reason why America struggles with obesity.  And another bit of info you should remember: we’ve artificially kept the price of corn low through agricultural subsidies, and the price of sugar high (the US sugar price is twice that of the world sugar price…) There are all kinds of artificial price controls out there that are a problem, and they need to be rethought out. None of that would be possible in a truly free market. And the food companies that are complaining the most about a rise in corn product are processed candies that are complaining because the corn used for making corn syrup is higher now that people are using it to convert to ethanol. And do American’s need anymore candy bars? Too bad for Russell Stover’s. That’s the market. They shouldn’t have had to go through the subsidies in the first place—and paid a real market price for their ingredients. But I digress. This is all neither here nor there when it comes to using corn for ethanol, so let’s move on.

The real question is, does this affect global hunger in some way? No. End of story. Net US food exports have increased, so the argument falls flat right there. And it has increased over the last five years. I don’t know why people are so nervous about corn to ethanol starving the world. It’s ridiculous. Truly ridiculous. And remember, there is a lot of land in our country that farmers are paid not to farm. So if the price of crop goes up, the farmers are allowed to use the reserve land to produce more. It’s quite simple. There is really no reduction in world food exports that is due to any corn to ethanol production. Have I made myself clear?

Let’s jump back a bit to the question of poverty. The opposite of poverty and hunger will come about from converting Agri-crops to fuel. There are around one hundred some countries around the world with a suitable climate for growing sugarcane. Sugarcane is by far the best crop to convert into ethanol, by the way. Okay, and many of these countries are poor and on the receiving end of US aid and support. So what does this tell us? We should encourage them to grow sugarcane, (which is way better than manufacturing tennis shoes or answering telephones.) The people in these countries began as subsistent farmers. They don’t want to work at Nike or Dell. They are better qualified to farm a crop that will benefit both our countries. Most people in these countries only have one good tool to lift them out of poverty—and that is industrial agriculture. They could sell their agri-crop into the global market and give options to everyone, thus stripping power away from OAPEC, as I mentioned earlier and in my initial blog on the topic.

Ms. Korin also mentioned that the US would have to lift tariffs and trade barriers to make this possible, but in doing so we could only better the economy from that point, so there’s no reason not too. And on that note, it’s true that in doing so, this idea might not look so great for the middle class. But you know what, this is a miracle for the poorest of the poor all over the world—because suddenly, the agri-crop they are selling has a higher value. Everyone would benefit if poverty were to gradually disappear. There’s no denying that.

I hope that I’ve stood up to your outlandish rebuttal against using ethanol. Again and as I said, it’s not the only option we could use, but a damned good one. Trying to convince people not to use the technology that is available and wait around for some other miracle is a waste of time and a poor decision on anyone’s part. But thanks for your opinion.