Story on DR1 - Milk prices skyrocket

bhale

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Mar 1, 2004
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If anyone wonders about the price of milk, corn, etc. skyrocketing in the commodities market, the reason is congress pandered to Archer Danials Midland and mandated ethanol added to gas in the US. It doesn't matter that you get worse gas mileage, or that it actually pollutes more, they just don't give a damn. And, oh yeah, they were warned that this could create higher food prices and hurt poor people in other countries, and cause disruptions all around, but thay can't be bothered with facts. Stupid fools.
 

drtampa

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Oct 1, 2004
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Per the DOE ethanol is added to less than one 1/3 of the gasoline in the US. However,this is still an amount that increases the demand for and the price of corn.
 

sjh

aka - shadley
Jan 1, 2002
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Ethanol production from corn is an ignorant and foolish waste. The energy in vs the energy out is 1.3. Growing corn requires tremendous energy inputs in fertilizer, diesel for tractors and processing. This all means you get the equivilent of 130 gallons of oil out for every 100 gallons of oil put in this is a very small gain for the amount of work and farmland dedicated to it.

The increase in demand for corn is causeing prices to rise sharply and causing farmers to shift from growing soybeans to corn. The result is all food products produced from animals, corn or soy will rise sharply. This includes, pork, beef, chicken, eggs, milk, soy oil, corn oil, etc.

The best use for corn is as food. Unless someone comes with an effective way to turn the biproduct (corn stalk) into ethanol we are just wasteing resources.

To Relate this to the DR, Sugercane to Ethanol has a gain factor of 7 and is a good way to go as demonstrated by Brazil (100 gallon oil produces 700 gallons oil equivalent). Ethanol production may actually bring sugarcane back onto the world market and cause a major economic turnaround in the Islands.

-- A dairy farmer....
**all numbers are from memory so you might want to double check them
 

Chip

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Jul 25, 2007
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How long ago was it the so called "greenies" were knocking and protesting nuclear energy as a fuel source? It's starting to not look so "ungreen" anymore. The tragedy at Chernoybol didn't help but like anything, this resource must be managed properly. If done right greenhouse gas emissions in the large developed countries could be reduced to a trickle. Will it happen? Who knows? I honestly think the environmentalists don't want us to find a green alternative, only that we should return to live like we were in stone age times, and better yet, quit eating meat - then we can really be just like them with their pseudo religion and pseudo respect of their fellow man. :)
 

pelaut

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Aug 5, 2007
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100:130 gallons in to gallons out has a long way to go to match oil at 100:1600, no?
Why dig that black goop out of the bowels of the earth where it's useless when you can burn our food supply, exhaust our topsoil and contaminate our water supplies with potash and nitro runoff?

Eco-freaks unite! There's yet much more damage you can do before you grow up!
 

Chris

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Oct 21, 2002
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The last two posts both demonstrate a misunderstanding and complete ignorance of where ecologists stand on the issues of food security and biofuels.

Biofuels at best is a solution on a small sustainable community level where the community makes it such a manner that their inputs and outputs are balanced. It is not a solution to keep our cars, busses, airplanes, trains, heating houses and buildings, or space ships running.

Let me say it clearly ... There is no technical solution currently to keep all of this infrastructure running. There may be solutions utilizing sustainable materials but we are so far away from solving this problem, that we all probably should not have cars. Yes, I'm sure if we run the numbers, that will make an enormous impact.

Before y'all start running at the mouth about environmentalists, please do a few things ....

1. Take a look at our own environment forum where the ecology minded amongst us has long said that biofuel is most probably the most idiotic thing that mankind can do to itself at this stage. Food riots in Mexico and Italy for starters is but the tip of what Monbiot calls "a formula for environmental and humanitarian disaster".

2. Take a look at some of my posts where I talk about food security for the DR in the light of the DR-Cafta. Simple, if the DR loses their own mind-share as to how to produce their own food sustainably, they must please not think that DR-Cafta bring any kind of food security to the country.

3. Then, you could read what the ecology minded are looking at today. Here is one example from the US, and another from the UK, chosen because they're both in English.

The first is from Jim Kunstler, who makes this comment: "the idea that we can simply shift millions of acres from food crops to ethanol or biodiesel crops to make fuels for cars represents a staggering misunderstanding of reality".
Making Other Arrangements | James Howard Kunstler | Orion magazine

And the 2nd from George Monbiot, whose polemic is more targeted to governmental actions. Monbiot.com ? A Lethal Solution

There are two words being used a lot among the real environmentalist circles these days.
The 1st is 'greenwash'. By this we mean pretending that you're doing good things whereas your actions are not consistent with your words.
The 2nd is 'ecocide', which speaks for itself.
The idea of biofuels being mankind's saviour, has become both greenwash and ecocide.

How long ago was it the so called "greenies" were knocking and protesting nuclear energy as a fuel source? It's starting to not look so "ungreen" anymore.

Unless solutions can be found to solve the two problems remaining in the use of Nuclear Energy it is not a technical solution. You know of course the problem with waste and the second problem with weapons. It is not a sound ecological and sustainable method of generating power, propulsion, heat and cooling.

.....quit eating meat - then we can really be just like them with their pseudo religion and pseudo respect of their fellow man.

Quitting eating meat surprisingly will help a tremendous amount. Please go and have a good look at the numbers.

I agree with you that there are many environmentalists that are perhaps not admirable people. You will also agree that this is equally true of other professions. Following old earth religions is probably very prevalent amongst people that try to live an environmentally sustainable and sound life. The earth religions are the oldest in the world you know, and very attuned to the earth and its cycles. In my experience, if one respects the religious beliefs of others, you may just find that they respect yours in turn. So, I prefer to not ridicule the religious beliefs of others, even if it looks really kookoo to me. I do find it really difficult to understand your comment. It is clear that you have a fascination for all things Taino and that you do active research, reading and education which is admirable. But have you ever thought that they most probably followed one of the old earth religions? Why the ridicule?

Why dig that black goop out of the bowels of the earth where it's useless ...
Did you not get what the issue is pelaut. There is not much more of the black goop left. Besides the point that the black goop is killing the planet where we live on, the issue that worries most people is that it is almost finished - se fue.

.... when you can burn our food supply, exhaust our topsoil and contaminate our water supplies with potash and nitro runoff?
I have a problem in understanding your comment here. I think you're accusing the wrong people. Ecologists or 'greenies' are not in the business of burning food supplies. Securing healthy and non-contaminated food supplies is one of the burning issues on the table. Ecologists don't use chemical fertilizers. They use sustainable composting methods to enrich the topsoil or they make sustainable non-chemical fertilizers.
 
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sjh

aka - shadley
Jan 1, 2002
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All power sources cause pollution of one type or another. CO2, nuclear waste, heat, other chemicals, etc.... The question is how much of each can we produce and still have a planet that can metabolize the waste products.

With CO2 becoming our foremost problem, the problem with nuclear waste suddenly looks more attractive...

When cars were first invented they were advertised as a solution to the biggest pollution problem in cities at the time. The polution problem was horse manure.....
 

Chris

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Oct 21, 2002
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With CO2 becoming our foremost problem, the problem with nuclear waste suddenly looks more attractive...

Kinda like a catch-22, or working with the horse pucky idea lol .. Hobson's choice (from the Wiki) "a free choice in which only one option is offered. The choice is therefore between taking the option or not taking it. The phrase is said to originate from Thomas Hobson (15441630), a livery stable owner at Cambridge, England who, in order to rotate the use of his horses, offered customers the choice of either taking the horse in the stall nearest the door—or taking none at all."

More seriously .. I've read recently (and cannot remember where to cite it), that food prices across the world has increased between an average of 10 to 15 percent over the past year.