Drought = Less Ethanol?

[beckgr]

Those Agribusiness monsters help provide the cheapest and the safest food in the world. There's a reason, and I feel that our increasing age in America bears this out, that other countries in the world want what we have. Cheap, safe food and an abundance of it too. We also have a regualatory system in the US, the FDA. Our export grading system from the USDA is best in the world for consistent monitoring of what leaves the country. This is a compettive advantage as importing countries can trust what they buy. Sure, neither is perfect, both are beaurocratic, but they function well. Anyone who wants more expensive food like organic can buy it and for those of us that like cheap food we can buy that. We have personal preferences as to which is better, but there's no proof you'll live longer if you eat only local or only organic food. It's a feeling we have. My personal preference is locally grown, but I believe the all food is the same. Even GMO.

It's our dietary and sedentary habits that cause us to over eat certain foods and they big agriculture with cheap food is to blame?

Our gov't estabished Ag policy in the 30s. To a certain degree those policys were food security for the US. The same body imposed an energy policy requiring ethanol to be blended at rates far too high. They never thought that high fuel prices would reduce gas comsumption, which it did by about 6-7%. So they wanted more ethanol to be blended into less gas being consumed!

Also, oil companies were in favor, maybe supported??? ethanol growth because they were worried over lawsuits with MTBE. I believe ethanol at about 6% of fuel consumption is a good idea to replace MTBE as it's much safer and has similar atributes as a fuel additive for octane/knock. (I'm getting out of my league here now real fast...)

What is FOL?

[36654]

I thought the discussion was more than F-O-L's best hope for oil. It is part of a national discussion of many topics. But I guess we will leave it at cheap food, no ethanol, bad wages making us undesirable neighbors while being greedy money grubbing agribusiness monsters.

Knew their was a reason I considered that ethanol thread 12 step program.

I was just pointing out that we in PA have ridden the NG wave only to find that ........ with the drop in NG prices due to excess capacity and poor distribution, the wave is moving to the mid-west and upper mid-west due to potential for higher profit oil. There is still drilling activity in PA, but paraphrasing T. Boone Pickens, .........these guys are drilling themselves to bankruptcy due to lease exit clauses which will cost more than the gas they extract.

Now, let me offer this............Would BMW be in business if they tried to sell the lowest priced product? Not in my opinion. BMW AG is playing the luxury brand and technical feature game at the moment to show value. In a prior day it was reliability. In any case, it was more than just $ per hp.

In my opinion, that is the same issue facing F-O-L and the rest of the nation........solely focusing on the cost of production only reduces the employees living standard and their environment to that of the lowest cost competitor. Old technology and products will always be captured by the competitor, so new products and manufacturing methods are the only hope of moving forward. Otherwise, the other guy, will easily "go to school" on what you did and make it cheaper or better.

[kantuckid]

In my locality they came in and "leased the oil shale"- maybe it was the 1980's? & dug a bunch of pit type holes and then moved on when the money wasn't there to make it work.

[beckgr]

Intersting about BMW. And a very good point. BMW does a great job marketing and branding. One we can identify with, at least many of us.

You are correct about the competitor taking technology and then tweaking it for a cheaper production result. That's the nature of commodities, whether crude oil, nat gas, or corn and I think ethanol fits in there too. The basic law of economics at work - Marginal Revenue will always be driven down to Marginal Cost - in the commodity world. When the commodity guys for nat gas in PA, or crude oil in the Bakken reserve make a margin, and good margin, it brings in the competition and new technology until the fun is gone and then they move on.

And that doesn't do much for local jobs or wages when that happens. I don't think any amount of regulation will stop this commodity game, but frustrating it is for those that labor and don't participate in the high margin "good years."

Way off topic, but I'm sure some of you have read "Shop Class". He makes a good arugment for american workers and lost talents, thus wages fall because the raw talent is no longer needed or desired. That is a poor synopsis, but the value an excellent BMW mechanic, or self mechanic and what they yield is huge. I'm thinking with fewer of us that can fix our own plumbing any more, won't wages once again have to increase to pay professional trades for work most people won't do any more?

[arthurdent]

What is FOL?

Fly-Over-Land. All that flat, green stuff when folks get on an airplane in NYC and land at LAX. You know, all that wasteland between the left and right coasts (where 65% of what the world eats gets produced).

[beckgr]

Ah, thank you.

[mika]

Fly-Over-Land. All that flat, green stuff when folks get on an airplane in NYC and land at LAX. You know, all that wasteland between the left and right coasts (where 65% of what the world eats gets produced).

That area and people living in it, held in the same high regard by those high flying people as they hold third world countries: a source of raw materials and population to be accepted as the R&L coasts burden. Lets not get bothered by details like agriculture playing major rolls in balance of trade, FOL universities doing R&D of everything from soybean based inks to cutting edge development of civilian applications of GPS they are so enamored with to get them around because they are lost and that the average FOL farmer and the communities (large or small) participate in an economic system as heavily regulated, convoluted, complex and on an international basis as a R or L bank LIBOR derivative scheme etc they are fond of, that while many of our jobs are low paying they are so because they send high paying industrial jobs offshore etc.

I gotta find a ethanol thread 12 step meeting quick. Think I'll head out to the tractor and see if I can Google the map directions to the nearest one. Quick!

[36654]

I'm thinking with fewer of us that can fix our own plumbing any more, won't wages once again have to increase to pay professional trades for work most people won't do any more?

Ask the folks at Apple which produce hardware.

[36654]

In my locality they came in and "leased the oil shale"- maybe it was the 1980's? & dug a bunch of pit type holes and then moved on when the money wasn't there to make it work.

You should have seen Oklahoma in 1981........folks tenting on every inch of public land and site bosses recruiting roughneck crews at the convenience stores. In a year or two, the NG market crashed and all that activity was gone.

The next time you are near Knoxville, TN, check-out the site of the "Energy World's Fair". The NG market collapsed before the fair closed.........

If leases were signed in your area, do you you know whether, or not, if you own the mineral rights to your property?

[sloride]

"Those Agribusiness monsters help provide the cheapest and the safest food in the world"

Propaganda cool aid

But a topic for another forum

[arthurdent]

That area and people living in it, held in the same high regard by those high flying people as they hold third world countries: a source of raw materials and population to be accepted as the R&L coasts burden. Lets not get bothered by details like agriculture playing major rolls in balance of trade, FOL universities doing R&D of everything from soybean based inks to cutting edge development of civilian applications of GPS they are so enamored with to get them around because they are lost and that the average FOL farmer and the communities (large or small) participate in an economic system as heavily regulated, convoluted, complex and on an international basis as a R or L bank LIBOR derivative scheme etc they are fond of, that while many of our jobs are low paying they are so because they send high paying industrial jobs offshore etc.

I gotta find a ethanol thread 12 step meeting quick. Think I'll head out to the tractor and see if I can Google the map directions to the nearest one. Quick!

Yeah , I didn't want to go there but thanks, Mika for saying exactly what most of us here feel about the coasts and national policy. Sigh

[martyhill]

So, is the problem solved?

[kantuckid]

You should have seen Oklahoma in 1981........folks tenting on every inch of public land and site bosses recruiting roughneck crews at the convenience stores. In a year or two, the NG market crashed and all that activity was gone.

The next time you are near Knoxville, TN, check-out the site of the "Energy World's Fair". The NG market collapsed before the fair closed.........
Problems not solved but getting close to the source!

If leases were signed in your area, do you you know whether, or not, if you own the mineral rights to your property?

Our 75 acres -we have all the mineral rights. FWIW, my FIL, was a driller & so were each of his brothers except one that trucked & another that was a oil promoter-i.e., "oil lease shopper". My FIL got his tool dressers(e.g.-roughnecks) by cruising downtown Paintsville,KY courthouse Sq. for help as no convienience stores. The "creek" I live on has gas wells capped & out of production for its 10-12 mile length but none on us. We bought this place as mostly raw forest land(takes ~2 hrs to walk around the boundary) in 1978 & the plan was to build a house, drill a gas well & stay & raise our 3 sons. My FIL died in 1980 the month we moved in & I contacted Delta Gas Co. & was turned down as they said they didn't have enough gas to go around to new customers. After 20+ yrs of burning wood exclusively I put in a geothermal system using my farm pond located about 150yds from house, next to my shop. About that same time Delta Gas came around trying for new customers but as I had to pay for the line from my property edge-like several thousand feet it was impractical. Interesting to get turned down for gas in a house that had a gas compressor station ~ 7-8k down the road. I honestly don't know if the oil shale lease activity was long term or not-was the counties adjoining ours to the west. In places like Johnson Co,KY(home of my wife, Loretta Lynn & others like Mr. Mayo who leased coal "in perpetuity" yrs ago) the mineral rights have been gone on any land that is privately owned by a non mineral or timber company for a long time. My county has no coal so this place was of no interest to the outsiders except the timber guys who logged it out same time as the rest of E KY.
I know about K,TN & one son lives there too.
I know we can't " go political" here but I listened to T. Boone Pickens a few yrs ago in a long radio interview & he makes more energy sense than anyone I've listened too-period.
I wonder how my Bultaco project is going to like this crap we are calling fuel when I finally fire it up soon? I may have to mail order some real gas?