If farmers start planting more ground in corn the use of fertilizers will increase. Marginal farm land will require more fertilizer than good farm land that already has good organic top soil. Since we are not making any new farm land on this earth we have to use what's available. Most all the good farm land is already being used by the farmers. And that which was not used the farmers were paid by the Fed not to plant. This was to help lower the supply and protect the marginal lands from further erosion of the top soil. With increased corn demand this marginal farm land will be put back into production and that will increase the use of more fertilizers. These fertilizers will be washed off the farm land and into the ditches, streams and eventually enter the rivers and ocean. And more pesticides will be required to get the crops to market. Mono culture of only one type of grain makes it easy for the insects to breed and feed on that crop. Insect populations will explode without the use of more pesticides. You increase the food for insects and their populations will grow unless you control them by some means. And that means more Pesticides on the farm land and more pesticides in the water that we fish.
Corn has a lot of sugar or starch in the grains. This is what the livestock need to feed on. I took a course in Animal Nutrition at Purdue when I was studying Pre Veterinary Medicine so I know a few things about nutritional requirements of the livestock. Also I belong to one of the Largest Agricultural Fraternities in the USA. My grandfather raised cattle and hogs and farmed a bit. My frat brothers all raised hogs, cattle, sheep and all sorts of crops. I could easily call a few of these guys up and ask them how fast the livestock will grow without the starch in the corn.
The starch is turned into sugars that are then turned into the Alcohol by the yeast and enzymes.
I took 14 hours of chemistry which Included Pharmaceutical Chemistry, (Qualitative Analysis) Biochemistry and Organic Chemistry so please don't try to tell me that you can feed the byproducts of the alcohol production process to the livestock and get good growth rates. It's not going to happen. Sure the cattle can eat and process the roughage due to the bacteria in their rumens (four chambered stomach) but they won't have the growth rates that they would get from eating the unprocessed corn.
Cattle are feed corn to fatten them up for market. Cattle feed on grass won't have the marbling or fat in the meat. They also won't gain the weight for market as fast as cattle feed pure corn.
We need to turn to Solar and Wind and Hydroelectric power and not put our food into the gas tanks.
You have to burn oil or natural gas to cook the grain to make the Alcohol and burning natural gas produced NOX emissions. In fact it creates a lot of NOx in the process. NOx is one of the pollutants that helps to form Ozone in the ambient air. The more NOx you emit the more Ozone we have to breath. And Ozone is just one of many deadly air pollutants formed in the hot summer months. It's actually just one of many air pollutants that need to be federally regulated. Ozone is just an indicator pollutant and when the ozone levels are high that means that the other pollutants are in higher concentrations as well. We all suffer from the effects or more air pollution in this area. And these plants will increase the demand for electric generation from the Coal fired Power Plants in this Valley. That will increase the amount of coal burned and increase the amount of air pollution.
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