Ethanol and Corn Prices

Kristof: Hidden Hunger - NY Times.

The general rise in food prices (in part because of American use of corn for ethanol) is leading to more micronutrient deficiencies.

I am not sure of this, increases in corn prices mean more corn will be planted that makes for an oversupply of corn, plus the decrease in gas has led to big financial challenges for ethanol firms.

Good article to read for the other 99% of it. Sad article.

Ethanol is Struggling

Ethanol, Just Recently a Savior, Is Struggling - NY Times.

Interesting comment about advanced bio fuels always being 5 years away. Sounds like what is talked about with Fusion always being 20 years away.

Ethanol producer

America's second largest ethanol producer goes titsup - The Register.

I like the quirky humor of The Register, and the stories are usually pretty good.

VeraSun Energy, the second-largest producer of corn-based ethanol did some future trading/betting that the price of corn would keep on going up, but they lost the bet resulting in losing the company. Why did they lose the bet? Larger harvests of corn, decrease price of oil, and decrease demand for gas resulting in less demand for Ethanol increasing the supply of corn.

I wonder if this will change the requirement at all for adding more Ethanol to the gas supply.

Garbage to Ethanol

IHT article about work being done to convert garbage to Ethanol. Another article I had read mentioned how solid waste could be used in growing algae that is converted to Ethanol, solving two issues at the same time. I hope this is cost effective and can be scaled up to a commercial size soon.

Brazil's Ethanol - Green or not?

Lean, green and not mean from the Economist about Brazilian Ethanol.

Keep on going down, there is a table there and I am not sure what is going on with the formatting...

Claim Against Brazilian Ethanol	Reality
Workers are exploited cutting sugar cane.	Industry is moving to mechanical harvesting. 60%is already mechanized and by 2012 the rest should be.
There is a high death rate for harvesters	It’s 1 in 24,000 and it’s actually higher for regular farm workers 91 in 16,000). With increased usage of mechanical harvesters this should be lowered.
Energy gained does not make sense from Brazilian Ethanol	Brazilian Ethanol produces 8.2 X energy input, compared to 1.5 for US corn based ethanol.
It’s causing deforestation of the Amazon	The area mostly used for sugar cane is near San Paulo and in the North East, thousands of miles away from the forest (17M acres). Research may increase the energy gained from sugar cane with new varieties. Cattle ranching (485m Acres) causes a lot more deforestation.
Food prices are increasing due to Brazilian Ethanol	Only a small part of Brazilian agriculture land is being used for sugar cane, and it lowers the cost of energy. The high cost of energy contributes to higher food prices.

Ethanol and Solar

AHEAD OF THE TAPE from the WSJ. The article compares Ethanol which had sky high stock for a while, with Solar which has sky high stock right now. One Ethanol stock that was at $40, is now at $5.53.

Great quote:

Ethanol stocks, once Wall Street's green giants, have been squashed into wasabi paste. That could be a cautionary tale for today's alternative-energy darling, solar.

Home brewed Ethanol?

NY Times article - PROTOTYPE; Home Brew for the Car, Not the Beer Cup
They key is getting cheap sugar from Mexico. My guess is if this spreads, there will be tarrifs all of sudden on the cheap, inedible sugar.