KitchenKitten99
05-16-2007, 08:23 PM
http://indeespages.blogspot.com/
This is a bit long, but it does raise some good points and questions about the whole ethanol replacing fuel idea. Some parts of it may even go to the extreme, but a good portion of it sounds pretty logical.
Is Ethanol a Bigger Threat to the Planet Than Global Warming?
With the explosion of ethanol into the main stream and all of the positive things being said about it, one has to wonder, “Is there any downside?”
Well, there is, and the downside is that ethanol is destroying the planet.
How can this be, with ethanol being the answer all to every energy problem the U.S. has ever had? There are several reasons, all of which scream the fact that we need to change our thinking on ethanol before it is too late.
The first fact of ethanol is that it is made from corn. Corn is grown by farmers across the country. With the increase in demand for ethanol, there has been an increased demand for corn. Increase demand has caused higher corn prices. With corn prices being so high, it has caused more farmer’s to plant more corn.
Let’s take a quick time out to give a little farmer’s education. On a plot of land, usually a farmer will rotate his crop, meaning planting a different plant every spring, i.e. corn one year, wheat the next, beans the next, and then back to corn. This is done to help preserve the nutrients in the soil. Each type of plant consumes different amounts of nutrients. Rotation helps keep the soil balanced and give the land time to regenerate naturally as much as possible. Of the three crops mentioned earlier, wheat is the most land friendly, beans second, and corn the hardest on the land. With the price of corn up so high, there is great potential for farmers to cash in on it and plant more corn. In order to do this, they will skip a cycle or two in the crop rotation. Instead of planting corn, beans, wheat, corn, they will just go corn, corn, corn, corn.
Some people still won’t see the problem in this, so here it is: There is no way the soil can support this. Corn drains soil of way too much nutrient for farmers to do this and not start having their harvest suffer.
This leaves two situations: either farmers continue crop rotation and there is never enough corn to support a large enough supply of ethanol to support us, or, farmers will use more fertilizers in order to pump the earth up enough to support a solid corn-corn-corn non-rotation.
Taking into consideration how huge the green movement is, it is doubtful that the call for ethanol will not drop off. That means the farmers will have no choice but to increase fertilizer use to meet corn demand. This is the beginning of the end.
Fertilizers are made up of some pretty nasty things. There are natural gasses and coal consumed in the manufacturing process, so we would be increasing our dependency on non-renewable resources. The worst part of this is the run off. Let’s shoot low and say over the next 3 years, corn production doubles. That will mean fertilizer’s spread will increase by four to six time what it currently is. ...
This is a bit long, but it does raise some good points and questions about the whole ethanol replacing fuel idea. Some parts of it may even go to the extreme, but a good portion of it sounds pretty logical.
Is Ethanol a Bigger Threat to the Planet Than Global Warming?
With the explosion of ethanol into the main stream and all of the positive things being said about it, one has to wonder, “Is there any downside?”
Well, there is, and the downside is that ethanol is destroying the planet.
How can this be, with ethanol being the answer all to every energy problem the U.S. has ever had? There are several reasons, all of which scream the fact that we need to change our thinking on ethanol before it is too late.
The first fact of ethanol is that it is made from corn. Corn is grown by farmers across the country. With the increase in demand for ethanol, there has been an increased demand for corn. Increase demand has caused higher corn prices. With corn prices being so high, it has caused more farmer’s to plant more corn.
Let’s take a quick time out to give a little farmer’s education. On a plot of land, usually a farmer will rotate his crop, meaning planting a different plant every spring, i.e. corn one year, wheat the next, beans the next, and then back to corn. This is done to help preserve the nutrients in the soil. Each type of plant consumes different amounts of nutrients. Rotation helps keep the soil balanced and give the land time to regenerate naturally as much as possible. Of the three crops mentioned earlier, wheat is the most land friendly, beans second, and corn the hardest on the land. With the price of corn up so high, there is great potential for farmers to cash in on it and plant more corn. In order to do this, they will skip a cycle or two in the crop rotation. Instead of planting corn, beans, wheat, corn, they will just go corn, corn, corn, corn.
Some people still won’t see the problem in this, so here it is: There is no way the soil can support this. Corn drains soil of way too much nutrient for farmers to do this and not start having their harvest suffer.
This leaves two situations: either farmers continue crop rotation and there is never enough corn to support a large enough supply of ethanol to support us, or, farmers will use more fertilizers in order to pump the earth up enough to support a solid corn-corn-corn non-rotation.
Taking into consideration how huge the green movement is, it is doubtful that the call for ethanol will not drop off. That means the farmers will have no choice but to increase fertilizer use to meet corn demand. This is the beginning of the end.
Fertilizers are made up of some pretty nasty things. There are natural gasses and coal consumed in the manufacturing process, so we would be increasing our dependency on non-renewable resources. The worst part of this is the run off. Let’s shoot low and say over the next 3 years, corn production doubles. That will mean fertilizer’s spread will increase by four to six time what it currently is. ...