Green Options » commodity prices http://greenoptions.com/tag/commodity-prices Posts tagged 'commodity prices' Tue, 06 May 2008 20:13:06 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 en Unintended Consequences and the Ethanol Deathwatch http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/05/06/unintended-consequences-and-the-ethanol-deathwatch/ http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/05/06/unintended-consequences-and-the-ethanol-deathwatch/#comments Tue, 06 May 2008 20:13:06 +0000 Shirley Siluk Gregory http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/05/06/unintended-consequences-and-the-ethanol-deathwatch/ Big River Resources’ ethanol plant in West Burlington, Iowa.The U.S.’s rush to grow corn for fuel has already been blamed for rising food costs that are pricing the world’s poor into hunger and malnutrition. But the high cost of corn is having another unintended consequence: a plunge in biofuel plants’ profit margins.

About one-fourth of all corn grown in the U.S. is now cultivated for fuel rather than for food. Meanwhile, the growing demand for both food and fuel is driving commodity prices for crops like corn to record highs. That means, even with the federal government’s generous subsidies for ethanol production, today’s biofuel profits aren’t what they used to be.

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