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| If not for ethanol.. If the high energy prices wouldn't have tanked us in 2008.. then the Economy would have finished us off last year.
Has it been painless? No.. as you know some enterprises built around cheap subsidized grain got burnt bad.. But still as a whole the system has survived... changed... but survived.
Ethanol is a piece to the energy security puzzle.. it doesn't solve it by itself.. but it helps and corn based ethanol has a role to play.. We have the land... We have the know how..the Technology.. and the good Lord blesses the land with Sunlight, Nutrients and Rainfall that is going to produce Something... why not energy and feedstuffs for a growing economy and a growing world population?
If our forefathers can bust their a** busting out the sod with the sweat on their brows and a couple of mules pulling a single plow... then surely we can carry on the determination and ingenuity to see it through. Corn ethanol isn't much different than the 40 acres devoted to feeding the horses 135 years ago... only today the horses are a Ford Mustang.. and the 40 acres are cranking out a bit more production... but we still have the feedstock left over to feed the real horses at the end of the day.
When you come to a mountain.. you can lay down and die.. OR you can figure out a way to go around it.. over it.. or THROUGH It if you Must... but it can be done. The world is running OUT of CHEAP Fossil fuels... does that mean we need to TAX it out of existence? H@77 NO!! Does that mean we need to BAN the AUTOMOBILE.. again... No... how about using our brains and useing the existing fleet of cars while we work on "the next thing." That is what ethanol is doing for us.. buying us time.. until the next thing.. plug in hybrids...??? Fuel cells? I don't know but over the next fifty years things will change... just like they have over the last 135... but hopefully some things won't... like our lifestyle and what we believe in and what we are willing to fight for.
I've followed this industry my whole life... we are efficient and we are able... just because we don't always fit in someone else's idealic view of what the American Farmer should be doesn't mean we can't be who we are.
Edited by JonSCKs 1/15/2010 01:59
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USDA Dec 1 STOCKS 10.934 Billion Bushels.
