Couple of new articles: even more impact on barley prices could be coming

"As Ethanol Takes Its First Steps, Congress Proposes a Giant Leap"

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Some excerpts from the article: "Producing about seven billion gallons of ethanol a year from corn has reshaped agricultural markets and sent corn prices soaring. Congress wants to double that level of production, to 15 billion gallons." ... "The new legislation would OBLIGE farmers to grow NEW crops in new ways, ...". (CAPS are my emphasis)

I haven't read the bill, but that last sentence sounds like farmers who grow barley, for instance, could be OBLIGED to grow corn as a NEW crop. Sounds completely un-American to me and I don't see how the government can do such a thing, but then maybe they're referring to a little arm twisting -- e.g., 'if you want your farm subsidy over here ... or your tax credit over there ... then you will grow corn for ethanol'.

And then this second article ... "Food and Fuel Compete for Land"

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Excerpts: "In Oregon, Jack Joyce, the owner of Rogue Ales, said the cost of barley malt has soared 88 percent this year." ... "Last week, the Senate voted 86 to 8 for a new energy bill containing expanded ethanol mandates, and the House is expected to follow suit this week."

So, it looks to me like our higher barley prices are probably here to stay. I don't know whether ethanol production is a good idea or not, but I also worry about the impact on our land and water resources. I was watching a TV show just last week that was speaking about our water crisis, our diminishing aquafers, the possibility of a long-term drought, and that corn needs heavy irrigation compared to other grains like wheat (didn't menton barley). I'm no farmer, so I don't know how they compare. I'd just hate to wake up ten years from now in the midst of another dust bowl where we can't irrigate and produce even enough food to eat, let alone to make ethanol.

My son insists that if we would grow hemp (NOT the kind with THC), that we could produce FAR more energy than with corn, but the U.S. bans the growth of hemp, unlike Canada (supposedly) and other nations. It just seems that our legislators in Washington always have their heads up their asses.

Cheers ... but not much to be cheerful about with that news.

Bill Velek - PERSONAL sites =

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Bill Velek
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IMO - Hemp w/o THC, is like Coffee w/o Caffeine, is like Homebrew w/o alcohol; none of which make any sense to me. :) j/k just couldn't resist !

Reply to
Duke

Reply to
Brian Bartz

==============Indeed, from a strictly "up front" or current effeciency/economic standpoint it does not, however not everything is [or should be] evaluated on the factors of current "efficiency" and "economics."

First: from a national defense perspective, ethanol production is domestic under US control, and establishes a secure fuel supply.

Second: the money generated stays and circulates in the US economy rather than contributing to the current account trade deficit/debt.

Third: much of the apparent cost is simply the transfer of existing support payments for not growing corn to subsidy payments for growing corn, and the production of alcohol.

Fourth: more of the apparent additional cost is simply the transfer of rural economic development funding and other costs to a productive activity such as corn [and other crop production] and fermentation.

FWIW -- the reason we are not seeing *BIG* reductions in the agricultural support payments is political, not market. Most of the people receiving the bulk of the funds are absentee owners, have never and never intend to produce a single ear of corn, but are experts in "milking the system" [but not the cows].

Fifth: the fermentation infrastructure is basic to the bio-generation of other commodities such as plastics and other precursors currently produced from petroleum from renewable resources such as corn and soya.

Sixth: the implementation of the current single stage process establishes the first part of the more efficient two step process, and avoids the indefinite delay of attempting to find the "perfect" solution. As noted in many engineering courses "the better is the enemy of the good." conversion of the single state fermentation process can be greatly improved by implementation of a two stage process which uses a fungus to decompose the cellulose and starches to sugars, and yeast to convert the sugars to alcohol. This will allow the use of high cellulose crops and agricultural wastes, with much higher efficiencies and lower costs.

Seventh: extensive ethanol fermentation and other bio-generation provides a very significant "vent for value" of currently grossly undervalued US assets such as farmland, agricultural equipment, and possibly most critical the agricultural expertise of our farmers.

Eighth: extensive energy and precursor feed stock production by fermentation of renewable resources can reverse the depopulation of the countryside with the concurrent [cancerous] growth of the large metro areas with excessive operating costs/cost-of living and [highly] toxic life styles/environments [e.g. drug culture]. Much of small-town and rural America still has very affordable housing and under-utilized infrastructure such as schools, as well as a much healthier social environment and higher "quality of life" factors.

Ninth: Yeast fermentation provides an area where your home brewing skills and knowledge [e.g. the importance of sanitation, yeast culture, temperature control] can be applied if you wish to do so. Saki fermenters are already familiar with the two stage fungus/yeast process.

There are a number of other good reasons but this is an excessively long response already. What do the other posters suggest?

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

Interesting -- but aren't there crops significantly 'denser' in energy than corn? I'm thinking specifically of sugar cane here. Or is corn king because we have more suitable land for growing corn than cane?

Reply to
The Artist Formerly Known as K

They're also talking about using garbage, straw, and rice/wheat stubble, etc. As a gardener, turning stuff like that back into the soil helps it; if it's all harvested and broken down for energy, I can't imagine that any residue is going to be quite as helpful to the soil. And I can only imagine what sort of erosion problems we will likely have from it.

Isn't there a spokesman to info legislators of the negative aspects? I don't think the brewing industry by itself is going to be able to help much; there is a segment of our society which couldn't care less about beer.

Cheers.

Bill Velek - PERSONAL sites =

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Bill Velek

F George McDuffee :

If a limited, temporary fuel supply can be considered "secure". Ethanol cannot begin to meet current oil consumption standards, and is not a renewable resource under current industrial farming practices, where the destructive costs to the very soil are externalized for short-term profit.

Scott S

Reply to
Scott Sellers

=============Indeed there are, but again "the better is the enemy of the good."

There are several potential high cellulose crops that should/would be better for two stage fermentation process [e.g fungus for cellulose/starch => sugar and yeast for sugar =>

alcohol] in that these will grow on marginal land where corn will not.

Other improvements are the use of solar power to distill the alcohol.

Alcohol will not fully substituent for the existing gasoline supplies, but in an embargo situation will allow critical services such as the emergency services [police/fire/medical], armed forces, and essential transportation of items such as medical supplies and food to be maintained.

Another point is that the CO2 generated by alcohol combustion [if any] has been captured in large part from the atmosphere, and should not increase the greenhouse gasses (if this is really a factor).

We can wait and wait and wait some more for a perfect solution with no downside [which will never arrive], or we can go with what we know works, and improve it as we go along. Waiting for the perfect solution, which will never arrive, will result in the emergency imposition of some form of syn-fuels, with minimal opportunity for planning, review/evaluation and cost containment.

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

It does if you are a corn farmer due to all the subsidies it comes with. Ditto the downstream processors. Fuel from corn is not about being carbon neutral, it is about being seen to be doing something without disturbing the usual big money interests who bankroll the politics.

There is not enough agricultural land in the world, even if we chop down ALL the forests to grow both enough food and enough fuel to power our current transport requirements. We need other answers than biofuels, at least from crops.

There are other possibilities, usually involving algae. You can get biodiesel from algae and the leftovers can be a feedstock for ethanol production. Algae have little cellulose which makes them much easier than less energy intensive to process with less waste. There is at least one pilot program in the US using algae to capture the CO2 from a coal fired power station and a company in New Zealand has a process for biodiesel from algae grown on sewerage ponds, fuel and water treatment in one. That's good news for dairy farmers facing effluent problems but you won't hear about it while the corn industry is so heavily subsidised and in turn buys the politicians.

Peter

Reply to
Peter Ashby

The bill passed by Congress specifically states that there be a "sixfold increase in the use of ethanol as a motor fuel to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022, with 21 billion gallons to be cellulosic ethanol from prairie grass and wood chips". So the bulk of the increase in ethanol production as mandated by this bill will not come from corn, but instead will come from non-food products.

I have read that, pound for pound, 10 times more ethanol can be produced from wood chips than from corn. Also, prarie grass grows quickly, can be harvested twice a season and the whole plant can be used (unlike corn).

It's high time the government did something. Think of where we would be today if efforts were made to produce alternative fuels back during the Arab oil embargo of 1973.

Reply to
Brew Man

While I love aphorisms as much as the next guy, yours doesn't really apply in the case of sugar cane; no new technology or infrastructure (relative to what would be required for the exploitation of corn) would be required for cane. So why corn?

Reply to
The Artist Formerly Known as K

Yeah. There are moral issues here too. Like: By what right does the government take my money to fund their utopian energy schemes?

More offshore and Alaska drilling would do better. But the enviro- zealots won't let that happen.

So if government thugs break my window, and then I have to go buy a new one, that helps the economy too? If you break my window to help funnel money into your window-making business, you very well did help

*your* "economy", but you hurt me and the overall economy. The case is no different when you steal my money to fund your little corn fermenting business.

Subsidies that should not exist in the first place are not a reason for assigning them to some other nonsense task. And when some farmers think that growing corn is more lucrative than hops or barley, we all pay more for beer and bread and other things. It creates a pocket of distortion in the market. It'd be better if the government just kept paying them to do nothing. But the best thing would be to stop the subsidies, which are patent nonsense.

"Simply the transfer" is a euphemism for stealing.

That nonsense should be eliminated not exploited further.

More utopian nonsense. If someone really thought that there was value in that, then you wouldn't need the government to fund it.

I'm an engineer and I have to say that that statement is nonsense. If something is better then *that's* the real good. But "better" means "better when all things are considered", not your context-dropping misuse of the term "better" by which you mean "better, but it costs

10000000 times more". That is not "better".

More utopianism. If people really believed in it, no government interference would be needed. People would invest. But they haven't, precisely because the idea is stupid at this time. Clearly biologists working for *legitimate* profit-seeking companies (as opposed to illegitimate government-money-seeking parasitical ones) might eventually work this out, at which time investors will exploit it, but that they aren't exploiting it now proves it isn't ready.

"Undervalued" according to whom? You and your utopian dreamers? Are your windows undervalued too, and that's why you seek to break mine? So I'll have to go pay you for them?

Again, your goal is clear: To ram your utopian nonsense values down everyone else's throats using the government. That's the only way you could do it because arguments don't work, because your views are nonsense no one would care to hear them. So you resort to force.

And if you hire a bunch of people to go break windows, then everyone who knows how to make them should be happy? Your argument is pure thuggery.

You do not know the meaning of the word "reason".

Reply to
sjw

That is correct -- the BULK of the increase would be from other than corn -- but that still doesn't negate that we have seen price increases from current corn useage for ethanol and the bill does still call for a doubling of what is currently produced from CORN. Regardless of other sources of ethanol, that tells me that MORE corn is going to be planted for ethanoil than has been so far, and that leads me to conclude that the availability of barley (and maybe hops, too) will probably be even tighter in the future because of corn grown for ethanol.

I'm still very concerned about the impact that this is going to have on our aquifers and fresh water supplies, and on the erosion and depletion of our soil.

Cheers.

Bill Velek

Reply to
Bill Velek

F George McDuffee : [...]

[...]

Two possibilities:

We maintain our current consumption patterns (or anything close), and our current economic/political value system, and reduced consumption is forced on us in an apocalyptic framework. (In this case, who cares, 'cause the righteous will be raptured up shortly, and the rest can f--k off. That's the plan, anyways.)

Or, we can examine our pathological value system, reduce consumption drastically but rationally, on our own schedule, conserve the oil we do have (hopefully not for some fascist apocalyptic blowout) along with conserving less immediately available energy alternates from day one.

We're burning oil like there's no tomorrow, for the shorterm gain of the few. Under our current corporate value system, we'll do the same thing to the soil in short order. Then we'll really be screwed.

cheers, Scott S

Reply to
Scott Sellers

============It applies exactly.

Listen to the arguments: -- cane would be better -- lets wait. No- prairie grass would be better lets wait. No bio-engineered/GM plants would be better -- lets wait. And the favorite excuse by the oil companies "we haven't pumped all the oil out of the ground -- lets wait." These may indeed be "better" but are preventing the implementation of the good.

There is not now, never has been, nor ever will be a perfect "magic" solution that would supply an limitless supply of free non-poluting fuel/energy, i.e. perpetual motion, with no undesirable effects. The trick is to maximize the benefits for the majority while minimizing the liabilities/drawbacks. To mix the metaphors -- some one's ox is bound to get gored.

What is important is to get infrastructure in place and large scale pilot bio- and syn- projects running to provide expertise for full scale implementation as required, and some minimal level of emergency fuel supplies for critical transportation needs such as emergency services and food.

While these programs/projects may indeed be expensive, it will be orders of magnitude less expensive that paying extortionate prices (which may involve far more than money such as blackmail over American foreign policy) for imported oil, and/or fighting WW-III over "energy."

The US federal government has a long history of financing and promoting advancements in technology such as the canals, railroads, aircraft, and atomic/nuclear energy. In the process of doing so, they have made selected individuals rich, but in the aggregate have also "promoted the general welfare."

==============#1 The US raises a lot of corn and the price has been depressed, in many cases below the fully expensed "cost of production," which includes depreciation, opportunity cost of capital, and the value of the farmers' labor, even at minimum wage.

#2 There is much more land suitable for raising corn than raising sugar cane.

#3 Many more people know how to raise corn [and have the equipment] than sugar cane.

#4. We can shift the price support and other programs for not growing corn to growing corn and get something for that money.

#5. Although it may require expansion, we have an existing system for handling/transporting large volumes of corn in most areas of the US. Systems for transporting/handling sugar cane [and beets] are much more limited, more than likely required special rail cars.

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

There are other inputs than in North America. Farmers here in Scotland got out of Barley since they couldn't get decent prices from the brewers and especially the distillers. Now it, along with international prices has pushed the price up to the point where the farmers are going back into Barley. If you don't pay your suppliers a living price they will have no choice but to find something else to produce or go out of business. Why is that so hard for business to learn?

Peter

Reply to
Peter Ashby

Except to the corn lobby, and in America that's all that matters.

As I understand it, they are actually banning the importation of ethanol from Brazilian sugar cane, which does make energetic sense.

Reply to
John Krehbiel

I realize this thread is really more about the environmental impact of ethanol production, but I wanted to clarify something about barley. First, barley prices have not and will not rise due to the US mandate of more ethanol production from corn. Corn is planted in different soil and different climate. In other words, barley fields are not being replaced with corn. Second, the US only produces about 5% of the world's barley for malting. Canada, Europe, and Australia produce most of it.

So what is driving up the price:

1) Bad crops the last two years. For example in 2006, Germany lost 75% of its barley crop. 2) Asia loves beer, but can't grow barley. As a result, they are importing more and more, driving up prices. 3) The dollar sucks against the euro and canadian dollar. This makes it more expensive to buy barley. 4) Bio-diesel. Europe has a big push for bio-diesel. And it makes sense given most cars there run on diesel. The problem is canola beans can be used for bio-diesel, and these beans can be grown in place of barley. So some acreage is getting replaced.

So you are right that prices will probably remain high, but for reasons that have little to do with US policy.

John

Reply to
John M

Green house, blah, blah, Al Gore, blah, blah, Majestic 12, blah, blah, one world government, blah, blah, global population 500 million, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

This has gone a little too far so until such time as the total collapse of everything as we know it I would like to be able to log on to rec.crafts.BREWING and discuss...... brewing!

Mark R

Reply to
Mark R

No page down key on your computer??? ;)

-------->Denny

Reply to
Denny Conn

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