Originally Posted By: 4WD
My area once grew food/feed corn - counted on rain - it was just one of many crops. Now, tied to fuel supply chain ? Miles and miles of corn all irrigated with river water we all compete for. And the chemical companies compete for the farmers business.
Have had no car/truck issues - boat is another story.
Boat motor companies/dealers are getting there - for example our Yamaha dealer rigs boats with Evinrude hoses - says they handle the fuel best.
Quite reasonable that there would be more irrigation in your area, but only 15% of the nation's cropland is irrigated, and then, most of that is for vegetable type of farming like it done in the San Joaquin and Imperial valley areas of California. There tends to be more irrigation used for corn where the crop is actually being grown for seed as opposed to ethanol or some feed use, and many sweet corn varieties. And that is the problem with the average person, they have no clue that there are different grades and types of corn. They would confuse a sweet corn field used for canned corn at the grocery store with #2 yellow dent field corn that is used for ethanol production, and even then, couldn't tell a seed corn production field from that either. It is easy for magazine articles and such to persuade folks that have no real perspective on such things.
Along with the naive concept by many that corn going into an ethanol plant is forever lost to feed use and other uses. 17-18 lb of feed stocks come out of every bushel of corn that goes into an ethanol plant. Along with by products used to make spark plug insulators, baby diapers, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, etc. And most of the CO2 that is generated at ethanol plants is the primary source for the beverage industry. Nothing is wasted. And because of the ancillary products alone that come out of ethanol production, the production of ethanol will continue. it is the best way to obtain these other byproducts. And many don't realize that these corn ethanol plants are the primary source of ethanol for the beverage industry also.
And the big misconception about water.... ethanol production has gotten water use down to almost the same level of water to produce a gallon of ethanol as it does a gallon of gasoline.
