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Author Topic: Ethanol back in news as movie-goers feel crunch
bliter
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posted 22 October 2007 01:18 PM      Profile for bliter   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
http://www.thestar.com/living/article/268992

Cinema management are complaining also, but I suspect those copious tears falling into the beer are of the crocodile variety.

With or without the ethanol drive, I've felt that movie popcorn was wildly overpriced.

[ 22 October 2007: Message edited by: bliter ]


From: delta | Registered: Sep 2007  |  IP: Logged
scooter
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posted 22 October 2007 07:20 PM      Profile for scooter     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Everyone should be complaining about turning food into fuel. Its insane. Its stupid. Its bad policy.
From: High River | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Dana Larsen
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posted 22 October 2007 07:45 PM      Profile for Dana Larsen   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
We should be growing more hemp, not corn.

A single hemp crop can be used for biomass fuel, oil fuel, food and fibre.

A corn crop can be used for food or for fuel, and that's it.

Also, if we used hemp hurd cement for a building material, we could be removing CO2 from the atmosphere and locking it into building materials.

Hemp for victory!


From: Vancouver | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Bubbles
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posted 22 October 2007 08:12 PM      Profile for Bubbles        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
scooter, we have been turning food into fuel for a very long time. Oils and fats have been used for heating and lighting purposes by your ancesters. As we have grown crops, on croplands, to grow fibre for textiles. Used hay and grains to fuel our draft animals.

Try to be a bit nuanced about what you want to complain about.


From: somewhere | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
Gir Draxon
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posted 22 October 2007 10:40 PM      Profile for Gir Draxon     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Dana Larsen:

A single hemp crop can be used for biomass fuel, oil fuel, food and fibre.


Really? Isn't there some conflict between fibre vs. biomass usage? Between food and fuel usage?

I know it's a versatile and very useful plant, but I'm always skeptical when anything sounds too good to be true because it almost always is.


From: Arkham Asylum | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 22 October 2007 10:42 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Anybody know when Pirates of the Caribbean III is coming out on DVD? Don't ask why i wants ta know, or you'll be keel-hauled and made to swim to Tortuga Arrrrr!!!1
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Dana Larsen
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posted 23 October 2007 01:39 AM      Profile for Dana Larsen   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Really? Isn't there some conflict between fibre vs. biomass usage? Between food and fuel usage?

I know it's a versatile and very useful plant, but I'm always skeptical when anything sounds too good to be true because it almost always is.


The outer part of the stalk is made up of long, strong fibres which can be used to make clothing, fabrics, ropes and so on.

The inner part of the stalk is a pulpy substance called "hurd". This is 75% of the stalk mass and can be used to make paper, or as a biomass fuel source, or also to make an amazing substance like concrete but better in every way, called Isochanvre.

The seeds of the female or hermaphrodite plants can be pressed to extract their plentiful oil. This oil is amazingly healthy to eat (better than flax oil), but can also be used as an oil fuel source. Traditionally hemp oil was the main fuel source before whale oil.

The pressed seed cake is very high in protein and is a great source of food for humans and animals.

Currently most of the hemp grown in Canada is used for seed production only, because harvesting and producing seed oil is easy and lucrative as hemp oil sells for a high price in retail stores. There is no infrastructure (yet) to use the hurd for fuel via biomass or pyrolitic conversion. Some hemp is also being grown for fibre in Canada, but that is a distant second right now. Manitoba is growing a lot more hemp each year and using it for food-grade seed oil.


Historically the inner pulpy hurd part of the stalk was removed manually and discarded, or allowed to rot away. This was a very labor intensive process and required cheap labour - serfs in medieval times, or slave labor in most early American hemp farms.

The invention of the Cotton Ginny allowed cotton to become more popular as it became less labor intensive. But in the 1930s a machine called a "decorticator" was invented which allowed the inner core to be sucked out and used. Magazine articles of the time said that this machine would make cannabis hemp into a "Billion Dollar Crop" (in 1930 dollars!) that could produce thousands of products, from dynamite to plastics. Around this time the marijuana scare began and cannabis in all its forms was outlawed.

I don't know whether growing more hemp would meet all the world's current energy needs, but it would sure help, and it is a better and more versatile crop than anything else out there, especially corn.

Check this out:

quote:
NEW BILLION-DOLLAR CROP

Popular Mechanics

February, 1938

Note: There was so little public attention and notice to the need for a ban on marijuana, or the resulting legislation (Marihuana Tax Act of 1937), that the editors apparently did not realize that it had already been outlawed when they published this article.

AMERICAN farmers are promised a new cash crop with an annual value of several hundred million dollars, all because a machine has been invented which solves a problem more than 6,000 years old. It is hemp, a crop that will not compete with other American products.

Instead, it will displace imports of raw material and manufactured products produced by underpaid coolie and peasant labor and it will provide thousands of jobs for American workers throughout the land.

The machine which makes this possible is designed for removing the fiber-bearing cortex from the rest of the stalk, making hemp fiber available for use without a prohibitive amount of human labor. Hemp is the standard fiber of the world. It has great tensile strength and durability. It is used to produce more than 5,000 textile products, ranging from rope to fine laces, and the woody "hurds" remaining after the fiber has been removed contain more than seventy-seven per cent cellulose, and can be used to produce more than 25,000 products, ranging from dynamite to Cellophane.

Machines now in service in Texas, Illinois, Minnesota and other states are producing fiber at a manufacturing cost of half a cent a pound, and are finding a profitable market for the rest of the stalk. Machine operators are making a good profit in competition with coolie-produced foreign fiber while paying farmers fifteen dollars a ton for hemp as it comes from the field.

From the farmers' point of view, hemp is an easy crop to grow and will yield from three to six tons per acre on any land that will grow corn, wheat, or oats. It has a short growing season, so that it can be planted after other crops are in. It can be grown in any state of the union. The long roots penetrate and break the soil to leave it in perfect condition for the next year's crop. The dense shock of leaves, eight to twelve feet above the ground, chokes out weeds. Two successive crops are enough to reclaim land that has been abandoned because of Canadian thistles or quack grass.

Under old methods, hemp was cut and allowed to lie in the fields for weeks until it "retted" enough so the fibers could be pulled off by hand. Retting is simply rotting as a result of dew, rain and bacterial action. Machines were developed to separate the fibers mechanically after retting was complete, but the cost was high, the loss of fiber great, and the quality of fiber comparatively low.

With the new machine, known as a decorticator, hemp is cut with a slightly modified grain binder. It is delivered to the machine where an automatic chain conveyor feeds it to the breaking arms at the rate of two or three tons per hour. The hurds are broken into fine pieces which drop into the hopper, from where they are delivered by blower to a baler or to truck or freight car for loose shipment. The fiber comes from the other end of the machine, ready for baling.

From this point on almost anything can happen. The raw fiber can be used to produce strong twine or rope, woven into burlap, used for carpet warp or linoleum backing or it may be bleached and refined, with resinous by-products of high commercial value. It can, in fact, be used to replace the foreign fibers which now flood our markets.

Thousands of tons of hemp hurds are used every year by one large powder company for the manufacture of dynamite and TNT. A large paper company, which has been paying more than a million dollars a year in duties on foreign-made cigarette papers, now is manufacturing these papers from American hemp grown in Minnesota. A new factory in Illinois is producing fine bond papers from hemp. The natural materials in hemp make it an economical source of pulp for any grade of paper manufactured, and the high percentage of alpha cellulose promises an unlimited supply of raw material for the thousands of cellulose products our chemists have developed.

It is generally believed that all linen is produced from flax. Actually, the majority comes from hemp--authorities estimate that more than half of our imported linen fabrics are manufactured from hemp fiber. Another misconception is that burlap is made from hemp. Actually, its source is usually jute, and practically all of the burlap we use is woven by laborers in India who receive only four cents a day. Binder twine is usually made from sisal which comes from Yucatan and East Africa.

All of these products, now imported, can be produced from home- grown hemp. Fish nets, bow strings, canvas, strong rope, overalls, damask tablecloths, fine linen garments, towels, bed linen and thousands of other everyday items can be grown on American farms.

Our imports of foreign fabrics and fibers average about $200,000,000 per year; in raw fibers alone we imported over $50,000,000 in the first six months of 1937. All of this income can be made available for Americans.

The paper industry offers even greater possibilities. As an industry it amounts to over $1,000,000,000 a year, and of that eighty per cent is imported. But hemp will produce every grade of paper, and government figures estimate that 10,000 acres devoted to hemp will produce as much paper as 40,000 acres of average pulp land.

One obstacle in the onward march of hemp is the reluctance of farmers to try new crops. The problem is complicated by the need for proper equipment a reasonable distance from the farm. The machine cannot be operated profitably unless there is enough acreage within driving range and farmers cannot find a profitable market unless there is machinery to handle the crop.

Another obstacle is that the blossom of the female hemp plant contains marijuana, a narcotic, and it is impossible to grow hemp without producing the blossom. Federal regulations now being drawn up require registration of hemp growers, and tentative proposals for preventing narcotic production are rather stringent.

However, the connection of hemp as a crop and marijuana seems to be exaggerated. The drug is usually produced from wild hemp or locoweed which can be found on vacant lots and along railroad tracks in every state. If federal regulations can be drawn to protect the public without preventing the legitimate culture of hemp, this new crop can add immeasurably to American agriculture and industry.

"Popular Mechanics Magazine" can furnish the name and address of the maker of, or dealer in, any article described in its pages. If you wish this information, write to the Bureau of Information, enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope.



From: Vancouver | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Dana Larsen
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posted 23 October 2007 01:45 AM      Profile for Dana Larsen   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Isn't there some conflict between fibre vs. biomass usage? Between food and fuel usage?

I should add that you can indeed harvest all three items (seeds, fibre and hurds) from a single crop.

However, the seed production will be much lower on a crop grown mainly for fibre, and the fibre/hurd production will be lower on a crop grown mainly for seeds.

Usually the hemp strains grown mainly for seed are shorter (4-6 feet) and stockier, with the plants being dioecious (some male and others female). Those grown for fibre are usually much taller (up to 20 feet) and are usually hermaphrodite varieties (so that they are more uniform in size for harvesting and processing).


From: Vancouver | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Bubbles
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posted 23 October 2007 06:26 AM      Profile for Bubbles        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Good posts, Dana Larsen.

Is Hemp a heavy feeder on the soil?


From: somewhere | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
Dana Larsen
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posted 26 October 2007 12:52 PM      Profile for Dana Larsen   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Good posts, Dana Larsen.

Is Hemp a heavy feeder on the soil?


Do you mean in terms of fertilizer use? I have read things that say that hemp uses little fertilizer, but I don't have any solid sources on this.

A good place for info is the Health Canada website which has a lot of hemp information.

Here's the Health Canada hemp factsheet

Here's the Health Canada search engine. You can type in "hemp" and get lists of every Canadian hemp permit holder, and other factsheets and info.


From: Vancouver | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
bliter
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posted 26 October 2007 01:10 PM      Profile for bliter   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
While most, if not all, I've read on hemp have been puff pieces, (Wow! delicious pun there. Honestly, just noticed it,) I seem to recall reading that hemp was very kind to the soil, particularly where erosion was a problem and that, being a weed, needed little, if any, extra feeding.
From: delta | Registered: Sep 2007  |  IP: Logged
Bubbles
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posted 26 October 2007 06:43 PM      Profile for Bubbles        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Some weeks ago I passed a hemp field, and the plants were very uneven, which seemed to suggest that soil conditions played a big role. Mind you we had a very dry summer here, that could have been a factor too. Next time I am at the local agriculture office I will look into this. It would be nice to test the different varieties here on the farm. A while ago a police helicopter landed not far from our home, when I went over to see what the problem was they told me that they were harvesting someone's pot path. Curious to know if they can see the difference between hemp and pot from 300 feet up.
From: somewhere | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 22 November 2007 11:21 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The conservative agro-biz think tank, the George Morris Centre, says Canada should not follow the U.S. rush into ethanol production.
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
bliter
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posted 22 November 2007 05:37 PM      Profile for bliter   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by M. Spector:
The conservative agro-biz think tank, the George Morris Centre, says Canada should not follow the U.S. rush into ethanol production.

It's a "locked" article. Perhaps you can give us some salient points.

I'll take a guess that there is greater concern in food not getting to cattle than people.


From: delta | Registered: Sep 2007  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 22 November 2007 05:51 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
What's a "locked" article? I had no trouble seeing it, and I have no special privileges.

It's in .pdf format and readable with the Adobe Reader plugin.


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
saskganesh
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posted 26 November 2007 04:40 PM      Profile for saskganesh     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Bubbles:
Some weeks ago I passed a hemp field, and the plants were very uneven, which seemed to suggest that soil conditions played a big role. Mind you we had a very dry summer here, that could have been a factor too. Next time I am at the local agriculture office I will look into this. It would be nice to test the different varieties here on the farm.

in a field, plants can grow unevenly, sometimes very unevenly depending on soil conditions and toppgraphy. hemp likes a good bioavailable N supply and well drained soil.

[quote] A while ago a police helicopter landed not far from our home, when I went over to see what the problem was they told me that they were harvesting someone's pot path. Curious to know if they can see the difference between hemp and pot from 300 feet up[/quotes]

as part of the hemp licensing requirements, you have to supply GPS coordinates of your hemp field. so the poliza know the location of every single field in the country.

anyhow, an educated eye can easily see the difference between a grow op and a hemp field. plant height/branching, planting density, and sexual characteristics/maturity are what you look for.

nice essay on this here: http://www.votehemp.com/different_varieties.html


From: regina | Registered: Jun 2003  |  IP: Logged
kingblake
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posted 26 November 2007 04:57 PM      Profile for kingblake     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
There are some valid critiques of corn-based ethanol, but to my mind this doesn't rank among them.

From the article:

quote:
Craig Floss [of the Iowa Corn Board] points out there's only about two cents worth of corn in a tub of popcorn that sells at the cinema for $5. So even the increase in the price paid to farmers over the last year – from 9 cents to 13 cents per pound, or about 40 per cent – doesn't amount to all that much for each tub sold at the cinema.

From: In Regina, the land of Exotica | Registered: Dec 2002  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 18 December 2007 04:40 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Because of rising demand for ethanol, American farmers are growing more corn than at any time since World War II. And sea life in the Gulf of Mexico is paying the price.

The nation's corn crop is fertilized with millions of pounds of nitrogen-based fertilizer. And when that nitrogen runs off fields in Corn Belt states, it makes its way to the Mississippi River and eventually pours into the Gulf, where it contributes to a growing "dead zone" — a 7,900-square-mile patch so depleted of oxygen that fish, crabs and shrimp suffocate.

The dead zone was discovered in 1985 and has grown fairly steadily since then, forcing fishermen to venture farther and farther out to sea to find their catch. For decades, fertilizer has been considered the prime cause of the lifeless spot.

With demand for corn booming, some researchers fear the dead zone will expand rapidly, with devastating consequences.

"We might be coming close to a tipping point," said Matt Rota, director of the water resources program for the New Orleans-based Gulf Restoration Network, an environmental group. "The ecosystem might change or collapse as opposed to being just impacted."

Environmentalists had hoped to cut nitrogen runoff by encouraging farmers to apply less fertilizer and establish buffers along waterways. But the demand for the corn-based fuel additive ethanol has driven up the price for the crop, which is selling for about $4 per bushel, up from a little more than $2 in 2002.


AP

From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 17 April 2008 01:20 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Last week, a study funded by American beef, pork and chicken producers estimated that the total cost to taxpayers of the corn ethanol mandates now exceeds $33 billion per year. That's equal to about $106 per American citizen.

While the soaring cost of the ethanol [subsidies] are maddening, even more galling are the continuing claims by a group of ethanol apologists who insist that the ethanol industry is having no effect on food prices. Those spurious claims are being made at the same time that the World Bank is warning of a global food crisis and unrest is increasing in several countries due to soaring food prices. - Robert Bryce



From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Doug
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posted 17 April 2008 01:47 PM      Profile for Doug   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Craig Floss points out there's only about two cents worth of corn in a tub of popcorn that sells at the cinema for $5. So even the increase in the price paid to farmers over the last year – from 9 cents to 13 cents per pound, or about 40 per cent – doesn't amount to all that much for each tub sold at the cinema.

So suck it, Cineplex!


From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 13 July 2008 09:26 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Biofuels - especially, in the U.S., corn-derived ethanol - are being promoted as the savior of both the planet and humankind.

Think that's an exaggeration? Check out the National Corn Growers Association's online comic book adventures of "Captain Cornelius," who uses his corn superpowers to "protect the environment." Or the association's online promotional video, a Star Wars parody in which "ethanol" is depicted as a wise Yoda-like figure, and "gasoline" is Darth Vader.

Rolling Stone quoted Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa - "the king of ethanol hype," the magazine pointed out - as saying "Everything about ethanol is good, good, good." But if you scratch a bit beneath the surface, ethanol stops looking quite so "good, good, good."


The Ethanol Scam

From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 07 November 2008 11:45 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Cheer up. The market crunch has produced some good news too. Here's one: The ethanol producers' lush, green fields are turning into Death Valley. An industry that should never have thrived is getting its comeuppance.

The scientific, environmental and fuel-security arguments made by the ethanol industry were always, at best, dubious, at worst, wildly and dangerously exaggerated.

But Big Ethanol had one thing going for it - a torrent of cash from taxpayers and investors that proved irresistible to Bill Gates and other high-profile investors and funds.

The economics were simple. As long as fuel prices were high and corn prices low, ethanol at least made financial sense (for the investors, if not the taxpayer).

Initial public offerings abounded. The government loot kept coming. Detroit rolled out cars that could run on ethanol-gasoline blends. Far cheaper Brazilian sugarcane ethanol was shut out of the import market. Corn farmers beamed, which helped to capture the rural vote in the United States, Canada and parts of Europe.

Inevitably ethanol went from fringe employer to mainstream corn-belt industry to bubble.

That bubble has burst. The share prices tell the story.

In mid-2006 (in retrospect, the peak of the ethanol market) VeraSun Energy listed in New York at $23 (U.S.) a share. The shares this year have gone from a high of $17.75 a share to 40 cents and last traded at about 50 cents.


Eric Reguly

From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Left J.A.B.
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posted 07 November 2008 12:46 PM      Profile for Left J.A.B.     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
And farmers that never had anything to do with ethanol and warned against it are still taking a shit kicking on corn prices fob the farmgate.
From: 4th and Main | Registered: Apr 2005  |  IP: Logged

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