Here's where American corn goes to...
Source: USDA, industry statistics.

2005-2006 U.S. Corn Use By Segment
(bushels)
Feed/Residual 6.1 billion (54.5%)
Exports 2.1 billion (18.8%)
Ethanol (fuel) 1.6 billion (14.3%)
High Fructose Corn Syrup 530 million (4.7%)
Corn Starch 275 million (2.5%)
Corn Sweeteners 225 million (2.0%)
Cereal/Other 190 million (1.7%)
Beverage Alcohol 135 million (1.2%)

Total 11.2 billion bushels

for more info of this kind, check the link...http://www.iowacorn.org/cornuse/cornuse_3.html

 

Unless there's a great over supply (product need to be destroyed or dumped) or a lot greater demand then supply, the market is at an equilibrium -- export is just one part of the equation. Normally, most of the corn is sold to whoever pays more for it. One important variable is price, and that went up quite a bit lately, probably because of a greater demand.

The price increase over the last 5 years doesn't seem to indicate a big surplus, but I'm not too familiar with the corn market. I don't know how much is given away as aid, but I tend to think that's a very small amount percentage wise.

 

Well, as for the surplus, if it was going out as fast as we could raise it, then there would be no need for all of it still being stored on the farms and at the elevators and such. The federal reserve program is set up such that we get a loan for such a price, and the corn can't be moved until then. There isn't necessarily a big bin farm or such that the gov't has, but out on the farms this way. New trade deals have been struck with China and Russia, so apparently there still was some available somewhere.

 

Well, there are big ginormous piles of corn near most grain elevators around here. One I saw off Highway 14 was almost as tall as the elevator itself. And this was only last Sunday that I saw this.

No, we're really hurting for corn...

 

And one of those ginormous piles would supply enough ethanol to drive our nations cars for what? About 0.6 minutes?

 

You have no idea...

There's a lot of grain elevators, and lots of piles.

 

Ok, a little math then.

From http://www.iowacorn.org/cornuse/cornuse_20.html

"Many ethanol plants now produce 2.7 gallons of ethanol and about 18 pounds of animal feed from each bushel of corn. "

From http://www.gravmag.com/oil.html

"U.S. gasoline consumption of 320,500,000 gallons per day (March 2005) works out to about 3700 gallons per second."

From http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/PDF/Haysville.PDF

"The grain elevator was one of the largest in the world. The facility contained 246 concrete silos, each measuring 30 feet (9.1 m) in diameter and over 120 feet (36.6 m) in height. Each silo could hold approximately 70,000 bushels (2,464 m3) of grain, making the total capacity of the facility nearly 21 million bushels (739,200 m3), including the 7 million bushels (246,400 m3) contained in the headhouse bins."

Assuming the facility is holding only corn that comes to:

21 million bushels of corn yeilding 56.7 million gallons of ethanol.
At a consumption rate of 320 million gallons a day, the 56.7 million gallons of ethanol would last 4.25 hours.

And of course, once it's burnt, that's it for the rest of the year.
Also remember, this facility used as an exaple is one of the larger ones. Meaning most other storage facilties will be smaller.

Now, from another perspective, Total US corn production was 11.8 billion bushels in 2004.

http://www.corn.org/web/uscprod.htm

That's a big number. Right? Do the math.

11.8 billion bushels = 31.86 billion gallons of ethaol.
31.86 billion gallons of ethanol will run the country's cars for 99.5 days. Just a bit short of the 365 days we'd need.

So, increase production. Right? Just have to triple production (actually 3.6 times) to make the year's worth of fuel. But wait, remember, that 11.8 billion is already all used up. So you'd need to quadruple the total (still need to meet current needs for food and other products). So now we just have to find space to grow 43 billion bushels of corn.

Looking at the chart, 2004 had 73.632 million acres in corn production. So we need 338.707 million acres. Or in other words, an area 4 times the size of Montana.

 

There still is much ground in the CRP program, which pays farmers to NOT grow anything on it. Some of that land needed to be retired, as it was either too steep or was wetlands, but much of it is also perfectly good farm land. I will freely admit that corn isn't the only good source. Consider something else as well, we import much of our oil, why should it be any different for ethanol? Once again, the government interferes, and blocks ethanol shipments from Brazil. As cellulistic ethanol becomes more efficient and cost effective, it has the potential to be a viable alternative.
One last point I want to touch on, is what else is a recommended way to go then, if not at least reduce the amount of petro we use? People are quick to discount even partial ethanol usage, but yet have no ideas for alternatives. It is easy to say it won't work, but much harder to find replacements that will. This is at least reducing tha mount of petro fuels being used, even if it isn't a big number, it is a reduction all the same. And also, ethanol does not only have to come from corn, but can be made from potatoes, sugar beets, cane, and other sugar/starch items. Cuba has plenty of cane, but our borders are closed to using it with a policy that has essentially had no effect but to make the average citizen poor. There are alternatives to be explored, but the it won't work attitude holds them back. Even if it isn't a permanent solution, it at least is an actual attempt that does make a little bit of a difference.

 

If ethanol was a GOOD idea instead of just a DIFFERENT idea, I'd support it. Today's closing prices for gas and ethanol were within 10 cents of each other (gas being higher). By the time you count in the lost efficiency, ethanol loses.

The ideas I support are more exploration for domestic sources and building more refineries. How about we persue avenues that actually have a chance of working?

 

For how long? If petroleum is a finite resource, something HAS to take it's place.

 

And how many months left until the next 'harvest'?

 

I can safely say that ethanol from corn has no future beyond the time of government subsidies. When those end, production will plummet. The current subsidies are mostly just a form of corporate welfare, though on the plus side, we will get some experience with alternative fuels out of that.

There are actually known alternatives that are better. For one thing, solar cells can harness more energy than plants, and they do not require fertilizer and water. They do require a very steep initial investment; however, and electric cars are slow in coming.

I'm sure I stated it before, but to be commercially viable without subsidies, ethanol has to be produced from something that has a better energy balance, and potentially cheaper, too, such as cellulosic waste material. But I think the ultimate solution will involve someting radically different such as genetically engineered microbes that generate something (i.e. methane, ethane, propane, etc.) that allows us to skip the distillation phase.

Anyhow, I'm not even sure that ethanol has a long term future (as a car fuel) since even butanol is better in many respects.

 

heres alink if it works to the ethanol plant i haul into every day check it out.if it dont work google utica energy www.ethanolrfa.org/obects/documents/187/rfa_pr041207.pdf

 

You dont need to displace each and every gallon of gasoline used. If we tried to displace every single gallon of gasoline with ethanol from corn grown in the United States, then yes, it would not work very well. Fellro86 makes some good points though. There are other ways of producing ethanol out there now.

I do think it would be interesting to find out what would happen if we eliminated all subsidies (corn, ethanol, and oil) and let the market proceed naturally.

Now this is not fair. I would have to wait until about that time to see how much was left of those piles. However, I'm sure they dont use it all up...

OBTW, http://www.ethanolrfa.org/resource/facts/energy/

Lots more good stuff on that site, thanks for the tip wizzard, however your link didn't work for me.

 

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