Electric Cars

[Chris19]

Originally Posted by ElkHunter

The problem with Ethanol being made by corn is my loaf of bread has doubled in the last year. They say there are enough farms raising corn that it won't make a difference. But it has. Grocery prices have went sky high. Due mainly to transportation costs. However, anything using Corn Meal has really gone sky high. So we pay for what we get and right now, we're getting screwed.

Personally, ethanol has aways to go to become a viable alternative to foreign oil and as mentioned before cellulosic ethanol shows promise and uses the non-edible parts of corn, wood chips, and switchgrass (which allows ethanol production to go beyond the corn kernels). Cellulosic ethanol is much more efficient that corn-based ethanol. The trick is to getting it to mass produce it. With research and a little time, cellulosic ethanol will leave corn ethanol in the dust and be a bigger benefit for farmers and leave corn kernels for eating.

It is somewhat misleading to blame ethanol for higher corn prices. Some nonsense concocted by the oil industry and media feeding into people's paranoid tendencies. The flooding in Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Indiana along with a late start in other parts of the corn belt is part to blame for the higher prices in corn, due to the expectation that less corn will be produced due to mother nature's temper tantrum. Another biggie is the higher transportation costs due to higher price of crude, which is driven up by higher worldwide oil demand (thanks a lot to China and India), OPEC (a nice thanks to the crazies such as Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria (thanks rebels)), and wild speculation (playing on fears and should be watched closer-smell of crazy speculation of late 1920s). How about the huge payouts to oil company execs? Who has to foot the bill, we the people and other businesses who depend on oil. The oil execs and other exec are paid waaaaay too much in my opinion and should invest in their workers (who are the company's most important resources). The lack of investment in works is probably why workers feel underappreciated and have a poor work ethic. Better stop there or I can go on for hours.

Corn is a small part of the price when making cereal and other costs such as marketing costs and processing costs. Farmers make a very small part of the processed goods. I can see a closer correlation between a rise in dairy products and meat with corn, since corn is used as a feed for cows, pigs, etc. Then again, the the production costs are a fraction of the costs and a lot of the cost is transportation, processing, and marketing costs.

The rise of corn certainly does not help our inflation and ethanol is not the full blame of the high gas prices, it may be a small part of the blame. Look to mother nature, geopolitical environment and economy, higher oil/transporatation/energy costs, and balooning executive salaries as part of the blame.

[Chris19]

I also forgot one thing, the rise in minimum wage may be contributing to the price increases at some places such as fast food restaurants and service industries. Many of the places either eat the higher cost or pass it on to the consumers.

Back to electric cars, I am excited to see the Chevy Volt when it comes out within the next few years. I like it a lot due to it being a Chevy and another due to it being electric.

Improving on hybrid techology is a good idea right now and will bring us closer to electric cars. It is a good bridge between conventional gas and electric.