It's already happening. Due to the high demand for corn, farmers are switching to corn production instead of grains and straw. The prices of wheat and straw have doubled (so said my newspaper) making straw bales scarce here this year.

I'm only guessing but I think another plant will take over ethanol production. You can make ethanol from weeds, so why not do that?

Apparently, hemp makes good ethanol. Maybe THAT will change the politicians' minds. Or have them changed for them ($$$).

If you think the fecophobes are bad about manure, you should hear the drugophobes about hemp. And I mean the industrial hemp, not the "recreational" one.

Reason. Common sense. Justice. This is America, where those things are not politically correct.

Sue

Making Ethanol from corn is really not cost effective since it takes more energy to get the Ethanol than we get from it. There are some "weeds", switch grass is one, that are more cost effective.

Here at home we're in a race year after year to keep the soil in our organic market gardens stable and productive by using green manures, compost, cover crops, mulches, etc. Imagine the soil loss where land is farmed with conventional methods. Global food production is increasingly endangered. The logic of squandering energy the way we do, on the one hand, and using soil to grow fuel instead of food on the other, escapes me - it's like stealing grandma's jewels to buy crack.

Here is a link that might be useful: soil erosion

This is so sad. I was watching a show that said that they only get 1.3 points of fuel for every 1 fuel they use to make ethonal out of corn. Even extracting it out of husk and other parts of the corn only ups it to 3points per 1 point of fuel cost. There are other none food sources that can contribute way more than 3. Even the other day I heard on the radio about how they want to start using soy and wheat with the corn. Experts keep saying that they need to do something besides food sources, otherwise food will be too expensive for more people than it already is.

The more I read about this, the madder I get about it. And just think, today President Bush will sign a bill telling companies that there needs better gas milage and to up the ethonal.

below is an article that came out yesterday about how the corn industry is posioning the gulf coast.

Here is a link that might be useful: corn farmers killing the gulf coast

"It occurred to me that if that works out there will be a big demand by ethanol producers for all that stuff that composters are scrounging. Any thoughts?"

Interesting question. I would tend to think that the ethanol producer would first off want a clean product. Contaminated yard waste (bottles, cans, cups etc) might be doable but would add to the cost. A clean, stable and inexpensive source of grain, straw, wood etc would most likely be the first option. The ability to store the raw material is also important, the maker of the ethanol would in all likelihood not want to store vast quantities of materials on site. They would rather have the supplier store it and deliver as required, tough (but not impossible) to do with yard waste.

Having said all that, when a government gets involved, all bets are off. (read corruption and graft). But I am not going to worry about losing my sources in the near future.

Lloyd

I'll get real excited about the rising price of food when a small farmer can actually make a living at it. Our food prices are still laughably low, 1950's levels even BEFORE adjusting for inflation.
When somebody comes to rent my farmland I'll know things have swung. So much farmland has gone out of production because of low food prices.

Of course even more has gone out of production so people can move out into the country into a McMansion wasting energy on a house bigger than they need that they can't afford to put furnishings in that they never see anyway because they have to work so much to keep...

The good thing about this year's energy bill is that its largely conservation based. We don't need more energy we need to squander less of what we have. A family of 4 in a 3,000 square foot house (or worse a family of 2 in a 3,000 square foot house) is squandering energy, theres no other way to describe it.

Yes belgian, I've read where hemp makes much more ethanol than corn. I thought some places were growing the industrial type of hemp now in America?

I mean, there's a cereal sold in grocery stores that has hemp seeds in it. I've bought it and it has alot of fiber and Omega 3 oil.

It's called Nature's Path Hemp and Granola cereal. It's pretty common nowadays at least where I live.

As a daily reader of the NY Times, I find that they often "do not let the facts get in the way of a good story". This is almost always true when writing about agriculture. They just don't get it.

Today the Hawkeye Renewables Ethanol Plant in my home town (50126) will use 100,000 bu of corn to make 275,000 gallons of ethanol. They do this same thing 366 days in 2008.

The "myth" about it taking more energy to produce ethanol than is received has been false for many years. Improvements in the distilling technology and the improvement in corn yields have made ethanol from corn viable.

Current research prepared by Argonne National Laboratory (a U.S. Department of Energy Laboratory), indicates a 38% gain in the overall energy input/output equation for the corn-to-ethanol process. That is, if 100 BTUs of energy is used to plant corn, harvest the crop, transport it, etc., 138 BTUs of energy is available in the fuel ethanol. Corn yields and processing technologies have improved significantly over the past 20 years and they continue to do so, making ethanol production less and less energy intensive.

Every gallon of ethanol we make means we import less oil from foreign suppliers.

What about a shortage of corn?

Did you also know that we grow so much corn in the US that... we export an amount of corn almost equal to that which is Iowa grown?

The USDA's most recent crop production report, released Nov. 9, said Iowa farmers harvested a record 2.44 billion bushels of corn from 13.95 million acres, also a record. Average corn production was 175 bushels an acre, the USDA said, compared with 166 bushels an acre a year ago.

Total U.S. corn exports for 2006/07 were well above 2.1 billion bushels, and there are signs that export demand will be strong again in the new market year.

In addition to supplying food, feed, and fuel for Americans, a significant amount of U.S. corn  almost one out of every five bushels in the 2007 market year  went to overseas markets, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Now what about using those weeds for making ethanol.

Many Iowa ethanol plants are planning to use the crop waste from corn as an additional bio-mass input into ethanol production. However, most of that so called crop waste is now mechanically bailed and used as livestock feed over the winter. It's not going to waste.

One of the problems with switch grass and other bio-mass inputs is...Where are you going to grow it? Is there fallow land available for this crop?

As gardeners and home composters I do not think there will be a shortage of organic material in the future for our use.

Lawns will be mowed and bagged, leaves will fall, frost will kill flowers, Starbucks will brew coffee, kitchens will still produce scraps and horses will continue to poop...

Fear not! My fellow composters...ethanol will not rob you of your pile.

You're right, as a gardener and composter I'm not worried about my own stashes of composting material, but as a gardener and composter I'm worried about the big picture. Iowa, you haven't explained where the soil that grows the corn, a heavy feeder, will keep getting its fertility from, especially if the stover is used for ethanol as well. And your tone of voice has the same convert's zeal that we hear from Albertans who are proud of their province's oil production from the tar sands (most of which is heading to the USA; but Canada doesn't count as a foreign country, eh?), while turning a blind eye to the resulting irreversible destruction of a piece of virgin territory, last I heard, the size of Florida.

Ethanol is a big mess. It will not help us in the long run, in my opinion. When people see what will happen with this, maybe then we can put some serious reseach in a better solution. Maybe hydrogen fuel or electric cars. Anything but oil but grain is not the best solution for the energy crunch.

If you count only the energy input used to convert the corn into Ethanol at the plant, then it is somewhat energy efficient, but if you count in the energy needed to grow and harvest as well as manufacture the Ethanol then there is more energy used then we get back, and you cannot say that the energy used to prepare the soil, plant, fertilize, harvest, dry, and transport that corn should not be counted because it is an important part of what it takes to make Ethanol. Even that there is some food value in the waste does not make up for the amount of energy used.

As to energy, I think we need to do a lot more with solar, hydrogen, and conservation, especially in homes and transportation.
But the question is about compost. I'm wondering what happens to the bulk material after they get the ethanol? It seems to me that would still be good for compost.

The residue, of corn, that is left after extracting the Ethanol is used as animal feed, what the corn mostly was going for anyway.

According to this report that was generated for the US Department of Transportation, Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) is potential source of biofuels that is well adapted to grow in North America;

"Switchgrass is big and it's toughÂafter a good growing season, it can stand 10 feet high, with stems as thick and strong as hardwood pencils...it grows fast, capturing lots of solar energy and turning it into lots of chemical energy celluloseÂthat can be liquified, gasified, or burned directly. It also reaches deep into the soil for water, and uses the water it finds very efficiently."

It also states that while you need to invest almost as much energy into extracting biofuels from corn as you get out, with Switchgrass you get FIVE times as much energy back.

McLaughlin believes switchgrass offers important advantages as an energy crop. "Producing ethanol from corn requires almost as much energy to produce as it yields," he explains, "while ethanol from switchgrass can produce about five times more energy than you put in. When you factor in the energy required to make tractors, transport farm equipment, plant and harvest, and so on, the net energy output of switchgrass is about 20 times better than corn's."

I have several cultivars of Switchgrass in the gardens and plan to wintersow it from seed this winter, as I love mixing grasses with flowers and they attract lots of wildlife. And when you cut large grasses down, you get lots of stalks to put on the compost pile or lasagne bed.

Iowa50126, couldn't farmers grow Switchgrass (a low-maintenance perennial) where they are now growing corn (a high-maintenance annual) or other crops? Switchgrass can be used as forage for livestock too.

Here is a link that might be useful: Biofuels from Switchgrass

Changing from corn to switch grass sounds easy. But, it's really a very complicated problem involving billions of dollars of government subsidies and millions of agri-business jobs. Not to mention the politics of it all.

One of the (many) problems of getting farmers to switch crops is the way the USDA subsidizes crops.

Corn is used in many foods that humans eat. It is also served by thousands of related agricultural businesses. Companies that sell fertilizer, seed, provide trucking, produce meat-milk-eggs, employ UAW union farm equipment workers like John Deere...millions of US jobs depend on growing corn. So, it's an important product for the US economy.

Corn, is subsidized by the government in a big way. Ethanol is also subsidized in a big way by Congress. That money makes change difficult ... if not impossible.

The corn farmers would want the cotton farmers to switch. The cotton farmers would want the peanut farmers to switch. The Peanut farmers would want the soybean farmers to switch. The soybean farmers would want the rice farmers to switch. The rice farmers would want the wheat farmers to switch. And on and on...

Now maybe, if the tobacco farmers were to change...???

When you start to dig into the subject of corn, ethanol, oil, farm subsidies and the farm lobby in Congress...you'll find that to understand it even half way...you have to "follow the money"

Common sense and logic have little to do with the situation. (sigh)