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WSQT Guerrilla Radio 1700 AM in DC
Already the world price of sugar has DOUBLED due to Brazil's diversion of their sugar cane crop to ethanol production. While doubling the price of soda and candy is a cheap price to get off fossil fuels, douubling the price of torillas due to the use of corn in the US would NOT be!
In the global commodities markets, anytime the price offered for a crop by ethanol producers exceeds the price offered by food producers, the crop is used for fuel.
If the US was to produce E-85(85% ethanol) from corn on a massive scale, it would force someon buying tortillas made with US corn in Mexico to bid against people filling up their SUV's in Mclean! It takes enough corn to feed a person for a year to make enough ethanol to fill up an SUV's 25 gallon tank just once.
Corn is one of the worst choices in terms of yield of ethanol per acre and in terms of diversion of food to fuel. If someone ever finds a way to make ethanol form corn COBS, that would be a miracle but intil then ethanol production should be limited to crop wastes, spoild crops, and other crops that would not otherwise be used for food. An example would be corn farmers would otherwise be paid NOT to grow.
Ethanol can play a part dealing with global warmin(and smog), but cannot replace gasoline in the US at current consumption rates. If ALL US corn were diverted to ethanol production, it would satisfy only `16% of the demand for motor fuel. Of course, if ethanol from better choices than corn, gas from sewage digestion, and biodiesel wer combined with a 50% cut in miles driven and a mileage equivalent to about 90MPG. then we'd have a solution.
Acceptability would be contingent on an economy that grows these crops only as an addition to food crops, never, ever in place of them! Otherwise your SUV is in competition with my dinner, and that's just not right.
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