Will ethanol cause starvation around the world?

Question

With roits in Mexico over the price of corn tortillas and the price of corn up 50%!! this year, will the ethanol inflated price of corn starve people. We give away corn as aid all over the world, will we be able to still do this or are we going to need this corn to run or cars.

Keep those oil rigs runnin, open up alaska for drillin, build refineries. Ethanol is political, recognize.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=the_many_myths_of_ethanol&ns=JohnStossel&dt=05/23/2007&page=full&comments=true

Answer 1

Unlike petroleum ... corn is not a finite commodity. The market will quickly make up the shortages.

Answer 2

Ethanol is a poor source of energy.
It takes almost as mush energy to produce a gallon of ethanol as you get out of it when you burn it.
It produces much lower miles per gallon as gasoline.
It is NOT cheaper than gasoline. At this time, no taxes are being charged of ethanol, but your tax dollars are subsidizing its production. The federal tax on gasoline is about 18%, which well exceeds the profit margin made by the oil companies producing it.
The environmental benefits of burning ethanol are questionable. It may even prove to be an environmental negative.
Bio-diesel on the other hand, has none of those negatives, but it will take longer to get it up into production and cannot be used in gasoline powered cars.
If Mexico is complaining about the cost of corn, they should up production from their abundant petroleum supplies. They are a foolish bunch. Always complaining when a little initiative from the Mexican government could handle most of their problems, on MANY issues. They could start by getting the criminals out of their police and military.

Answer 3

I recall the doomsayers predicting that when the worlds population reached 2 Billion there would be people starving in the streets. The truth is that modern industrial farming is sooo efficient that farmland is being retired.

I recall Gasahol in the early 80s, that was 15% Grain Alchohol, it worked fine.

Answer 4

We just need to kick corn production into gear to meet demand. This country is blessed with the gift of being able to crank out ungodly amounts of food if we need to. But yes we also need to vote out people that dont have a good energy policy that oppose new drilling, new refineries, and nuclear power. (democrats)

Answer 5

N O!! It will definitely cause more pollution and
other problems such as too much fertilizer and
too much water being used to grow the corn and
the costs in engine repairs in order to run cars, trucks and other machinery on the mixture. Plus
ethanol will be more expensive than using straight gas!! Do more drilling for oil in Anwar!!

Answer 6

I believe we have better things to do with our corn than dilute our gasoline! (MMM! corn on the cob, Corn bread, lest we not forget the tortillas too!) Basically it has been proven that Ethanol costs more and makes our fuel efficiency go down.

Answer 7

No. We should not feel guilty over our decision to find alternative fuel sources. We do not want to be dependent on oil rich middle eastern countries any more. We should continue to explore all of our fuel options including sugar and solar energy. We should no longer fund Muslim Extremists and Islamic Fanatics through our oil purchases.

Answer 8

Come on.. we have millions of acres that could be planted in corn, even in mexico... Id rather pay the farmers instead of the arabs.

Answer 9

The U.S. grows less than a third of the corn it is capable of. If there's a demand for it, it will be grown.

Answer 10

We also pay farmers to let fields sit empty. This could be stopped and more corn planted.