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Of course it is profitable to do so. There is a large market for it, from animal feed, to sugar, to tortillas, to many things in between. The trouble is that i
by randomdata 4y ago
Of course it is profitable to do so. There is a large market for it, from animal feed, to sugar, to tortillas, to many things in between.
The trouble is that it's unpredictable how big the crop will be before planting. As mentioned before, yields can vary quite significantly from year to year. As such, you will have periods of excess where we don't have enough storage for it all. Ethanol was promoted as a way to clean up those excesses before they turn to waste, recapturing some of fuel that was put into its growth initially.
- kraussvonespy 4y agoWhen ~45% of US corn is used for ethanol production[1], I'd say we can stop considering that "periods of excess" and call it what it really is: grift. [1] - https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/corn-and-other-feed-grains/feed-grains-sector-at-a-glance/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/corn-and-other-feed-gr...
- randomdata 4y agoOn the other hand, US soybean acres have grown by essentially the same amount over the same period (63.78M in 1983, 87.45M in 2022). It is well understood that soybeans and corn are kept in the same rotation for a lot of practical and ecological reasons, so how are you establishing that it isn't excess as a byproduct of producing other crops? None of this happens in a vacuum.