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Posted by iranch(DennisSD) on Friday, February 22, 2008 at 21:48:37 :
In Reply to: Re: Tripled??? posted by MoparNorm on Friday, February 22, 2008 at 16:07:40 :
Norm, forgive me, I had a bad day. The start of calving season is always a bitch. It takes longer every year to adjust the sleep schedule.
I think we agree more than we disagree, that's part of what I was getting at. Yes, when this whole thing started ethanol was not cost evective. Now 22 of Poet's 27 plants are using chemical reduction instead of heat, in the near future the plants will be switching over to use more crop residues instead of pure grain. The cost of a gallon has dropped a lot. If the research had been done up front and the change over handled better, the outdated numbers you use would have never been an issue.
Another perspective on parts of your post, while $270,000 sounds like a lot of money, remember, it won't buy a new combine or a new upper end 4X4 tractor. Do you know how little of the North American corn crop makes it to "food" chain. I think you would be surprised, exclude the use corn sugar as a sweetener in soda pop (manufactured the same way as the sugars for ethanol), then exports, chemical uses (again petroleum substitutes) ect. ect. eat more corn than you do. Drought, frost and other countries poor crop had more to do with wheat's price run than the shift to corn, again it's too early to judge that one; a lot of the wheat production areas don't grow good corn. Risky business changing over; requires some different machinery, knowledge some don't have, we'll wait and see on that one.
The "hands off" on our petroleum reserves, the "no refineries in my back yard", the "pipelines are too dangerous", all the things we are going thru right here in SD are the issues. To me ethanol is almost a none issue, a good alternative that will eventually prove itself. But it shouldn't have been pushed down our throats
A lot of rhetoric on both sides of these issues. I'm just trying show a little of the other side and how I see it. Like I said before, I doubt that I'll change your mind or that you will change mine. Besides, we agree more than we disagree.
Dennis
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