Ags "friend" John

[Dusty]

the most unique advance i've seen for ethanol is mobile processors so you don't have to ship the entire product, only the end product and the farmer can utilize the residual.  so simple it's ridiculous.  they could be like milk trucks used to be, except for ethanol.

Not sure I understand knabe....

 

[knabe]

here's a link to the patent.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2008/0020437.html

these things could potentially be used like custom cutting combine services.

 

[oakbar]

Crop prices are up becuase of a government program that not only subsidized ethanol but mandated its use, put tariffs on any competition, and use tax payer dollars to help build the infrastructure.  No wonder there were so many plants built.    Corn went to 7.00 and took all the other commodities with it.  Then the land values skyrocketed beyond belief and the inputs followed them.    When corn price hit 5.00 going up, I told my wife that its only a matter of time until the bubble bursts and some of our good farmer friends will be bankrupt.    The margins are the same or less than they were before the ethanol plants were all built and the total expenses are triple or quadrupled.    Just what agriculture needed-- tremendous risk, even lower profit margins.

The sad thing is that the government built this problem with their short sighted policies and unintended results.  Its exactly the same thing they did with the housing industry--except we have spent so much money bailing every bank and homeowner out that we won't have any left for the people who raise our food.    Can you say "HUGE CORPORATE FARMS"  owned by multinational companies--many of whom don't like us very much-and an even harder time for the small to medium size farmer.
Say what you want, but oil is pretty much used for one thing---energy.  By creating this false economy for corn, we have affected dozens of industries that use it as their main input as well as affected everyone's food costs and possibly driven an even large portion of our food to be imported.  What would we rather have --imported energy or imported food.    Think of the National Security ramifications of most of our food coming from foreign countries.

And now we'll probably get the same treatment with a National Health Care plan.    Socialism here we come!!

 

[knabe]

pickens is trying to do the same thing with wind at your expense.  look closely.  why can't he just do it himself with his own money?  why does he need a mandate from the government?  i thought subsidies were supposed to help the little guy, you know, like the small farmer, yet time after time, the vast majority goes to the big players.

 

[vet tech]

Ethonal takes more gas to make then its worth.

 

[CAB]

Lynn, I've been telling my wife for a long while now that there are going to be a lot of farmers caught in a squeeze again here shortly. It seems like everytime the gov't gets involved with subsidies that a portion of some industry pays. I wish they'd get the heck out of as much stuff as they could as fast as they could. There's so much you scratch my back I'll scratch your's BS going on to get anything done that along the way good ideas get lost. 
  Heck Knade, I find it fascinating that we're not smart enough or too lazy in this country to produce the items that we need to built the wind generators here, but I guess if we did it'd be screwed up.

 

[knabe]

tesla's research with electricity has foundations with water and stored energy.  windmills in america 150 years ago suited the problem then.  nowadays, i don't see many interesting savings devices during static use.  water vapor and it's changes also an undertapped resource.

did anyone see the pbs story on the hindenburg fire the other night about aluminum coating and it's explosive nature when charged?

i used to do stupid stuff with all kinds of shavings and oxidizers when i was a kid.  now you get screened by homeland security.

the aluminum coating things, which can be a sort of rocket fuel, and it's charge nature seems an interesting storage and release device for heating, since aluminum is i think the most abundant metal on earth.

hm, maybe i should get out of molbio.

 

[Dusty]

the aluminum coating things, which can be a sort of rocket fuel, and it's charge nature seems an interesting storage and release device for heating, since aluminum is i think the most abundant metal on earth.

For what a damn trailer costs you wouldn't think so.....

 

[Rocky Hill Simmental]

Sweet sorgum is better to use than corn. The reason they don't use it is because people already know how to grow corn. If they started to use sweet sorgum then more people would have to learn something new and they just want to stick to what they already know.

 

[harley]

I buy all my feed.....I wish corn would drop to $2. Heck, if the crop farmer "loses" money they get LDP's.

The pres only has the power the congress let them have.
Ethanol in its popular form (10-15%) does not harm vehicles, nor is there any drop in MPG. Yes, the E85 has some seious issues, but if I am measuring MPG vs. dead service men, well, that is a pretty eay trade for me.
Corn prices go nuts because people in town that have never seen a corn field are buying and selling it. If you chart it over the last 10 years, corn prices have little to do with yields, environment etc, and has everything to do with that the city traders THINK the weather, yields are.

I have never figured out why people in America think it is there right to spend over their heads. They then whine until someone bails them out. Why buy a $500,000 house when you can only afford a $300,000? SImple, the gov't will come and not only offer you a better mortgage, but will LOWER YOUR PRINCIPLE making it affordable to you. This burns my butt big time. I think if we bail out those people (I don't think farmers are included in buying big fancy equipment, but if there were) I think as a taxpayer, I should have the right to meddle in the house and make sure those people are being responsible with the money I (I as a taxpayer) gave them.  I think I should be able to use the big fancy combine my nieghbor bought and then went bankrupt too. He got to keep everything he had, and literally signed the bankruptcy papers going to the airport to fly to Hawaii. WOW, what kahunas he has.

Soap box caved in and I have a sale to attend.

showheifer, gotta agree with just about everything you said.  Gonna have to disagree on the ethanal not harming your vehicles.  Didn't make it 10 miles down the road after putting some in my pick up for the first time.  It burned up the fuel pump in nothing flat.  The local mechanic said he can't keep up replacing fuel pumps.  He said the older vehicles just weren't made to burn that hot.  We also checked our fuel milage in our newer truck and it cost us 5 mpg.,  just not worth  it to me.

 

[knabe]

(I don't think farmers are included in buying big fancy equipment, but if there were)

actually, farmers are in the bill by being able to depreciate machinery quicker if they live in a recent disaster area.

amazing how much stuff is in there other than requiring responsible lending habits, oops, there's very little in there about that as well as captial on hand percentages, which didn't change really due to increase in FDIC amount from 100 to 250k.

meet the new boss, same as the old boss.