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Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: energyplay who wrote (81957)	3/27/2007 9:55:35 AM
From: Elroy Jetson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 206181

The octane level for straight Ethanol is 113, so there is some merit there. And the economics would be different once ethanol is made from cellulose converted into sugars, instead of starch or sugar. That way an entire plant can be used instead of just a small part. But you still face the problem of fertilizers, crop rotation or yield decline. It will take a lot of plant to supply our energy needs. But I'd also like to comment about farmers. The problem with their economics is competition, what economists call atomistic competition. No matter what bonanza comes there way, there are so many farmers, they compete with each other until there is barely enough profit left to survive. The reason food processors make so much more is that there are very few of them, oligopolies or monopolies. This is why businesses in every industry always want to consolidate. Yes, it sometimes also lowers their costs. But the important part is they can charge more because they have fewer competitors. Throwing an uneconomic ethanol industry the farmer's way will not change this. Ethanol producers, say Cargill, will make a lot of money over the entire program life. But farmers will experience a windfall for only a short period of time until their competition with each other drives the profit out of corn again. Businessmen know that competition is not their friend. This is why there are so few integrated oil companies, and becoming fewer as time goes on. .

To: energyplay who wrote (81957)	3/28/2007 1:01:14 PM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 206181

Brazil Can Show You Its Numbers After more than 30 years of investment in ethanol technology, Brazil can produce sugar-cane ethanol at a cost of $0.83 per gallon, one third lower than the cost of the U.S. corn-based ethanol, at $1.14 per gallon (ICONE). For a given amount of input, the Brazilian sugar-based ethanol technology can return four times more energy per unit as is the case of U.S. corn-based technology (World Watch Institute). There are also three times more ethanol plants in operation in Brazil, 335, than in the U.S., 114. Moreover, using sugar-cane as raw material to produce ethanol will have a minimal impact on Brazil’s existing agricultural sector. On the other hand, the U.S.’s National Chicken Council reports that the ethanol’s demand for corn (around 14 percent of the country’s corn production) has inflated corn prices in such a way that the wholesale price of chicken increased by six percent per pound in January. The National Cattlemen’s Association similarly reported that the cattle industry expects to be less profitable in 2007 for the same reason (DOE EERE). As a result, in 2006, Brazil had a 20 percent ethanol surplus, while the U.S. still needed to import ethanol; actually, two-thirds of the U.S. ethanol imports came from Brazil (ICONE and RFA). As Lula declared in April 2006: “to be self-sufficient [with respect to energy] is a formidable triumph of stability and economic security that political lucidity has added to our beloved Brazil” (Folha On-Line April 21, 2006). Brazil’s energy-independence has been possible because it has replaced 40 percent of its oil-consumption with ethanol. On the other hand, the U.S., with all of its renewable fuels accounting for just 3.4 percent of its fuel consumption, is still cripplingly dependent on oil (ICONE and Green Car Congress). In short, these figures mean that after years of being projected as a future superpower—the B in Goldman Sachs’ BRIC 2003 thesis—Brazil finally is clawing its way to that status. scoop.co.nz