<Will biofuels always be hopeless? The Oil Drum DrumBeat: May 27, 2006>

97 comments on More on biofuels

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twicker on May 27, 2006 - 10:03am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Quick thing to note with our amazing amount of corn:

We make so much because we subsidize it heavily. Back in 2002, I remember hearing on NPR that you could buy a boxcar full of corn for less than the cost of transporting that boxcar full of corn (this is why our beef is almost completely "grain-fed" -- read "corn-fed").

If we did away with the subsidies, corn would suddenly become substantially more expensive -- and supplies would, accordingly, drop.

Thus, corn's not the most efficient source; it's just the most heavily subsidized. I'd personally rather go for efficiency, but that requires changing some very fundamental politics (and, at the end of the day, the politics do matter).

Yours,
Thomas Wicker

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Magnus Redin on May 27, 2006 - 12:30pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Thus, corn's not the most efficient source; it's just the most heavily subsidized. I'd personally rather go for efficiency, but that requires changing some very fundamental politics (and, at the end of the day, the politics do matter).

Have you thought about changing from command to market economy in the USA? (Only half joking...)

Seriously, it makes stupid inefficiencies obvious.
I have an understandig for short term subsidies to develop a technology or industrial base that can be expected to be needed in a few years but running a market manipulation for years on end probably creates enourmous inefficiencies.

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97 comments on More on biofuels

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