Fuel blenders got $3.3 Bil for blending ethanol in 2007. Gas prices were 15% lower saving $82 Biln

[JohnWxy]

Fuel blenders received $3.3 Billion ($.51 per gallon blended) in Petroleum Excise tax credits for blending 6.5 billion gallons of ethanol.

Ethanol, by replacing gasoline brought down the price of gas about 15% (http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=95429">Francisco Blanch, Commodities Strategist, Merrill Lynch). Since we consumed a bit over 142 billion gallons of gas in 2007, this price reduction saved us about $85.4 Billion in total gasoline costs.

The NET Cost of ethanol to the country was a SAVINGS of about $82 billion.

Also, without ethanol we would have spent an additional $16.5 billion for an additional 228 million barrels of oil in 2007. This money would have gone out of the country to import that oil.

The money was instead spent for domestically produced product adding $47.6 billion to gross domestic output and created 238,000 jobs in all sectors of the economy – 46,000 in the manufacturing sector alone.

[kristopher]

1. Here is some text from the original report...

Merrill Lynch does and seeks to do business with companies covered in its research reports. As a result, investors should be aware that the firm may have a conflict of interest that could affect the objectivity of this report. Investors should consider this report as only a single factor in making their investment decision.

10728832
Global Energy Weekly


Biofuels driving global oil supply growth

Biofuels are making up a huge portion of oil supply growth
The expanding global economy continues to face oil supply constraints, prompting consumers to become more efficient in their oil use and substitute into other fuels.

Helped by a favourable policy wave, biofuels have rapidly become a major source of incremental fuel supply. On a global scale, biofuels are now the single largest contributor to world oil supply growth. We estimate that retail gasoline prices would be $21/bbl higher, on average, without the incremental biofuel supply.


In the meantime, food prices are rising across the board…
While corn-based ethanol has surely helped increase the supply of transportation fuels, it is also taking away significant amounts of food from the market. Almost 25% of the US corn crop was used for fuel ethanol in 2007, and this share is likelyto increase to almost 35% in 2008. But the number is lower at a global level.
When we aggregate global corn, soybeans, rice, wheat and sugar production, we find that 7% of the calories contained in these crops was turned into fuel in 2007.

…partly due to the incremental grain demand from biofuels
The sharp increase in grain demand from the biofuels sector—together with soaring demand for richer diets from emerging markets—has started to affect food prices. We estimate that the increased ethanol production from corn in the US has pushed up corn prices by 21% since 2004. In turn, corn is adding pressure on other food product prices through crop substitution and spill-over effects. Our analysis shows that price changes in corn tend to lead soybean and wheat prices. On a more positive note, sugar has bucked the trend, and prices have fallen below historical averages despite surging ethanol output thanks to expanding crops in Brazil and India.


Page 2
Global Energy Weekly
06 June 2008
2
Biofuels driving global oil supply growth

Biofuels are making up a huge portion of oil supply growth
The expanding global economy continues to face oil supply constraints, prompting consumers to become more efficient in their oil use or substitute into other fuels. Substitution has many forms, and natural gas and coal have experienced fast demand growth in recent years. Similarly, helped by a favourable policy wave, biofuels have rapidly become a major source of incremental fuel supplies in an oil-constrained world economy. On a global scale, biofuels have become the single largest contributor to world oil supply growth in recent years (Chart 2), given the inability of non-OPEC crude oil supply to expand. As an example, corn-based ethanol is now adding more than 400 thousand b/d or 2% of supply to the domestic fuel mix in the US (Chart 3), up from 0.2% at the start of the decade. On our estimates, retail gasoline prices would be at least $21/bbl higher on average without the incremental biofuel supplies. In particular, the surging ethanol output has contributed to temper prices in the Midwest (by $32/bbl) and in the East Coast (by $24/bbl) due to the greater availability of ethanol and the lower price elasticity of demand in these regions.

European biodiesel output has suffered in recent months.
The growth in biofuels production has not been very even though, with the US and Brazilian ethanol production accounting for most of the growth while European production fell behind (Chart 4). In part, negative biodiesel margins have reduced the availability of oilseeds-based diesel fuels in Europe (Chart 5).

Of course, with soybeans, crude palm oil and rapeseed oil prices hitting new records, biodiesel margins have turned negative in most regions in spite of the subsidies, reducing supply. As we pointed out in our March GEW (see “Mind the refining gap in global distillates”), the incremental amount of ethanol relative to biodiesel is lending support to a very wide diesel-gasoline spread.


Page 3
Global Energy Weekly
06 June 2008
Subsidies and high oil prices supporting US corn ethanol
In effect, both corn and sugar-based ethanol are the key contributors to the growth in global biofuels supply. How is corn turned into ethanol? Corn contains starch, which can be transformed into sugar and then into ethanol through a high-temperature enzyme process. This is a highly energy-intensive process, which also requires water and chemicals. The output is ethanol, sold to gasoline marketers, and Dry Distillers Grains and Solubles (DDGS), sold to livestock producers as feed. Largely due to the USc 51/gallon blenders subsidy (USc45/gallon when the new Farm Bill is enacted), gasoline marketers have been making a profit and were willing to pay a premium for ethanol, sharing these profits upstream (Chart 6 and 7).


Still, US corn ethanol will not save the oil markets
While a good part of the growth in global ethanol supply has come from corn, there are questions as to how sustainable this incremental production will be. In part, corn ethanol is a highly inefficient source of energy. A gallon of ethanol holds about 76 KBtu, but the production of a gallon of ethanol requires the energy equivalence of at least 40-50 KBtu to harvest the crop and transform it into fuel.

Thus, the energy return on investment (EROI), defined as the ratio of energy delivered to the energy used as an input into the production process, is just about 1.5. In contrast, conventional fuel sources such as crude oil show an EROI of 20 while coal can reach an EROI of 80 in some cases (Chart 8). With an EROI close to one, corn-based ethanol is essentially natural gas turned into a transportation fuel. Whenever natural gas has decoupled from oil in recent years, corn ethanol has been profitable. If US natural gas prices were to converge towards oil parity, corn-based ethanol would likely turn unprofitable very quickly


In the meantime, world food prices are rising across the board…
While corn-based ethanol has surely helped increase the supply of transportation fuels, it is also taking away significant amounts of food from the market. Almost 25% of the US corn crop was used for fuel ethanol in 2007, amounting to a significant disappearance of food calories (Chart 12). On our estimates, this share is likely to rise to almost 35% at the end of 2008. A typical 15 gallon car tank of E-10 gasoline requires around half a bushel of corn. In turn, the food calories contained in the typical car tank can maintain the desirable weight of an adult an at low activity level for 11 days.

…partly due to the incremental grain demand from biofuels
In turn, the sharp increase in grain demand from the biofuels sector has started to affect food prices. We estimate that the increased ethanol production from corn in the US has pushed up corn prices by 21% since 2004. This figure is in line with the US Council of Economic Advisors’ (CEA) estimate of 20%. Furthermore, corn ethanol demand has provided considerable pressure on other food product prices through crop substitution and spillover effects. Our statistical analysis shows that price changes in corn tend to lead soybean and wheat prices1. Thus, the world may have benefited from slightly lower gasoline prices but it is also suffering from higher food costs. These food price increases are in turn starting to affect global trade balances, and a number of poor countries particularly in Africa will be greatly affected (Chart 13)

Merrill Lynch does and seeks to do business with companies covered in its research reports. As a result, investors should be aware that the firm may have a conflict of interest that could affect the objectivity of this report. Investors should consider this report as only a single factor in making their investment decision.


Download full report here: http://www.europabio.org/Biofuels%20reports/MerrilLynchJune2008.pdf.

[notesdev]

2. Cool

how many people were left to starve as a result of rising food prices in the wake of ethanol burning an ever greater percentage of the agricultural crop so that Merrill Lynch could make a buck and a bunch of naive fools could feel like they were saving the planet?

[madokie]

5. Are you suggesting that this is starving people

No where have I read that there is a shortage of corn in the food chain. I think its more so the farmers are planting more corn on land they otherwise would leave un-planted and be drawing a subsidy on. I know a few farmers who have upped there planting of corn but not by planting less of other food crops. What your saying to me sounds more like chicken little bullshit.

I may be wrong so show me

[kristopher]

6. He is going by the information in the report the OP relied on.

John relied heavily on the validity of the Merrill Lynch investment report. See post 1 where the text of the original report is quoted and they say:

In the meantime, food prices are rising across the board...
While corn-based ethanol has surely helped increase the supply of transportation fuels, it is also taking away significant amounts of food from the market. Almost 25% of the US corn crop was used for fuel ethanol in 2007, and this share is likely to increase to almost 35% in 2008. But the number is lower at a global level. When we aggregate global corn, soybeans, rice, wheat and sugar production, we find that 7% of the calories contained in these crops was turned into fuel in 2007.


...partly due to the incremental grain demand from biofuels
The sharp increase in grain demand from the biofuels sector—together with soaring demand for richer diets from emerging markets—has started to affect food prices. We estimate that the increased ethanol production from corn in the US has pushed up corn prices by 21% since 2004. In turn, corn is adding pressure on other food product prices through crop substitution and spill-over effects. Our analysis shows that price changes in corn tend to lead soybean and wheat prices. On a more positive note, sugar has bucked the trend, and prices have fallen below historical averages despite surging ethanol output thanks to expanding crops in Brazil and India.

(Bold in original)

I don't value such reports very much, they are far to self serving to the interests of the investment banks. There is a good reason this disclaimer is required:
Merrill Lynch does and seeks to do business with companies covered in its research reports. As a result, investors should be aware that the firm may have a conflict of interest that could affect the objectivity of this report. Investors should consider this report as only a single factor in making their investment decision.

From Merrill Lynch's
Global Energy Weekly
Commodities | Global 06 June 2008

[JohnWxy]

9. You appear to be relying upon the report (March 2008) to support your disinformation..LOL

BEfore anybody accepts the Great Dissimulator for an accurate characterization of what I said, you should check with me first. He has a well established track record of mis-stating what I say.

I offered FRancisco Blanch's appraisal (The article from the WSJ, is dated March 24, 2008) of Ethanol's impact on the price of gasoline as one example of the universal recognition that an additional supply of an equivalent commodity will bring down the price of the commodity it is competing with. THe OPEC oil ministers are of course aware of this that's why they cut production in 2008 to try to stop the slide in gas prices. Francisco Blanch also gave an estimate of how much ethanol reduced the price of gas. I used his estimate as that is far simpler than getting into technical discussions about the Elasticity of Price with respect to Demand or Supply of oil/gasoline (some of the estimates are higher than Francisco BLanch's estimate).

Now a excerpt was provided to imply that ethanol was responsible in large part for the rise in the price of food in the last few years. Let's take a look at the quote:

Mr. Blanche said "We estimate that the increased ethanol production from corn in the US has pushed up corn prices by 21% since 2004." NOte that the the price of Corn rose 118% from 2004 to 2008 (7/8/04): $256 - (3/12/08): $557. Now keep in mind that farm commodity prices amount to about 19% of the final retail price of food. So the 21% increase in corn price (from 2004 to 2008) would translate into a 4% increase to retail food prices (for foods made entirely of corn) over 4 years (.19 x .21 = .04) due to ethanol. Also, I tried to find out what percentage the corn crop is of the total farm production market value. I was not able to but keep in mind food comprises more than just corn. There is corn, wheat, rice, cattle, fruits, nuts, and all those vegetables. Corn is a portion of that total. Could it be 10% of the total market value farm production? i don't know but it is not 100%. To get the impact on the cost of all foods you would have to factor the increase (retail) of the price of corn by what proportion corn is of the total food commodities.

NOW, as far as how much affect the demand for corn to make ethanol had on food prices for the first half of 2008, Secretary of Energy, Samuel W. Bodman, and Secretary of Agriculture, Edward T. Schafer said that the production of Ethanol and biodiesel increased the price of food in the first half of 2008 about 2 tenths of one percent, that looks like this: 0.002. This information was provided in a response to a request from Sen. Jeff Bingaman Chairman Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

"During the first 4 months of 2008, the all food CPI increased by 4.8 percent, with increased ethanol and biodiesel consumption accounting for only about 4-5 percent of the total increase while other factors accounted for 95-96 percent of the Increase."

[bhikkhu]

10. yes, it was well on the way to starving people

http://brooklynfoodconference.org/2009/05/raj-patel-what-food-riots-really-are/

Imagine what it takes to get people to protest and verge on riot here? Google "mexico corn price riot" if you want more info, and most of its about the biodiesel industry driving up the price of a food staple millions of poor people depend on.

[JohnWxy]

20. CBO report concludes ethanol has one half to one third the impact on food prices as energy costs

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/100xx/doc10057/04-08-Ethanol.pdf


for countries that import food the fuel impact is much greater. The reason many countries are importing so much food is the World BAnk forced the Structural Adjustments program on them (if they were to receive any loans they had to agree to it) and this required them to not support local agriculture but import food from developed countries and the developing countries were to plant cash crops for world trade. When cost of fuel jumped up (2007-20080 this hit the importing countries very hard. also, for importing countries moving food from ports to inland is more expensive (than domestically produced crops) becuse they do not have the infrastructure developed. Food prices inland can be markedly different than at the port of entry.

Fuel prices for importing countries has a much bigger impact than ethanol. Ethanol's impact is actually small compared to the price of fuel and the Structural adjustments program which forced developing countries to import much more of their food requirements. Malawi told World Bank to take a hike and became a net exporter of food. http://www.bicusa.org/EN/Article.3601.aspx

"A prominent New York Times article describes how Malawi went from food aid recipient to regional food provider in just two years after re-introducing fertilizer subsidies for its low-income farmers. The move contravened years of policy guidance from the World Bank and IMF, which warn against such distortions of the “free market.” But donors find it hard to argue with success, especially because in violating what its wealthy benefactors in Europe and North America say, Malawi is doing precisely as they do."

also:

Ending Famine, Simply by Ignoring the Experts


"Over the past 20 years, the World Bank and some rich nations Malawi depends on for aid have periodically pressed this small, landlocked country to adhere to free market policies and cut back or eliminate fertilizer subsidies, even as the United States and Europe extensively subsidized their own farmers. But after the 2005 harvest, the worst in a decade, Bingu wa Mutharika, Malawi’s newly elected president, decided to follow what the West practiced, not what it preached."

[JohnWxy]

3. OCT 2008: OPEC oil ministers cut production to stop decline in price of oil. Too much supply lowers

the Price of any commodity.

The Price of oil in the latter half of 2008 was dropping.. so the OPEC oil ministers decided to cut production (lowering supply) to stop the drop in prices and perhaps drive them up.

As the report states Ethanol played a part in meeting demand for fuel by adding to the supply. Additional supply will bring down prices. (Of course, we cut back on our driving, in the latter part of 2008 and that was a big factor too.)

One thing any Brokerage house tries to do is give customers advice on the direction of commodity prices. this is what Blanch is doing. Warning customers that oil prices in the future don't look so good for price appreciation. And ML is saying why: ethanol is increasing supply of fuel and if ethanol is here to stay it doesn't look good for oil prices.

Of course, OPEC can fight back by cutting production. But they also have to have a certain amount of revenues coming in from oil sales so there is a limit to how much they can cut supply.


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=af9H6mErKzwA

Oct. 24 (Bloomberg) -- The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries cut oil production targets for the first time in almost two years as the group battles to slow a collapse in prices.

OPEC decided to lower supply by 1.5 million barrels a day from November, oil ministers said today at the end of a meeting at the group's Vienna's headquarters. The reduction will be from the existing quota for 11 members of 28.8 million barrels a day.

[kristopher]

4. Is that supposed to mean something?

We had an economic meltdown, demand plummeted and the bottom fell out of the market.

What does that have to do with the fact that you posted a piece of garbage "analysis" that gives any investor with a bias some reason to buy?

If you want to believe in ethanol just read about how much money the policy is saving (no hint of how they arrived at that preposterous number) and then contact your broker for a list of recommended stocks in the ethanol sector.

Don't like ethanol and want to bet against it? Surprise, Merrill Lynch agrees and gives some more preposterous numbers regarding EROI of fossil fuels to help you ask questions when you contact your broker.

The OP is a backdoor way to shovel this economic drivel onto the screens of people who have enough sense to disregard crap like this from brokerages. The only true thing in that "report" is this:
Merrill Lynch does and seeks to do business with companies covered in its research reports. As a result, investors should be aware that the firm may have a conflict of interest that could affect the objectivity of this report. Investors should consider this report as only a single factor in making their investment decision.

[joshcryer]

7. I don't question Francisco Blanch, as his track record looks impeccible.

And I applaud Merrill Lynch for making it clear that they do business with those whom their reports are made for, as this is sorely lacking in the business world from my point of view.

If anything you should be applauding the analysis from Francisco, since he makes strong mention of corn subsidies and food prices.

All he does is display the data.

[kristopher]

8. This analysis is to make money for Merrill Lynch by encouraging people to trade.

All he gives is a conclusion - no data. In order to have any validity the analysis behind claimed savings would need to be examined. Such a number is EXTREMELY difficult to determine accurately since there are a large number of variables in play all at the same time. Sorting them out is no easy task and any analysis that tackles that problem without addressing these variables is probably wrong.

The disclaimer is required by law. That's because the document is prepared by people who have a first obligation to the profitability of Merrill Lynch. They can't outright lie, but they can come so close that the difference is mere legalistic semantics. Of all sources of data, reports like this are among the very worst.

There could be some validity to the numbers offered, gasoline consumption is very inelastic in the short term and a small 1-2% change in supply (up or down) can have a very large effect on final price. However, any analysis and claim like the one made is going to include a set of assumptions that can have extreme effects on the outcome. Without peer review it is really worthless as a public policy input.

For example, the impression created is that there are substantial savings to consumers because of ethanol mandates (public policy). The problem is that the number in the report almost certainly doesn't take us to the number representing the REAL effect of that policy since that number would, for example, include things like the increased cost of corn as a result of ethanol demand, the effect of the policy on the value of our currency, and regional differences in petroleum markets.

[joshcryer]

14. The analysis is not to "encourage people to trade."

The analysis is to determine what areas of the market can be profitable. The data is all there in the paper, including citations. What you seem to disagree with are economic side-effects that the paper doesn't address. Fair enough.

But subsidies aren't the end all and corn isn't the best source of ethanol, ethanol did undoubtedly stem the price manipulation created by OPEC.

[kristopher]

16. Bullshit.

The company makes money when people trade commodities - that is their primary reason for existing. EVERYTHING they do is to that end. The paper reads like Tevya's monologue in Fiddler on the Roof and in doing so it sucks up to the bias of everyone that has a preference regarding where to spend their money in the biofuels sector. If you like ethanol, it gives you a reason to invest more in the sector, if you are spooked about ethanol, it gives you a reason to sell.

The document neither says nor implies ANYTHING about stemming "the price manipulation created by OPEC".

You must not have much experience with this type of information. You are out of your area of knowledge again.

[joshcryer]

18. "gives you a reason to invest, gives you a reason to sell"

That is fully in line with what I said.

[kristopher]

19. Sorry it isn't.

You wrote, "The analysis is not to "encourage people to trade."

Encouraging people to trade is EXACTLY the purpose of the document. Look up "churning" re the stock market. Brokerage houses make money when their clients trade - it doesn't matter if the client makes money or not.

A valid analysis would integrate the entire package of information and distill conclusions from the evidence available. They didn't go to that point because it wouldn't serve their purposes to do so.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[kristopher]

12. I didn't realize that price being determined by supply/demand was news to you.

Sorry for the invalid assumption about your knowledge base.

The Merrill Lynch analysis is just that - a self serving analysis by an entity that makes money off of trading commodities. That type of information has near zero credibility with any serious analyst. Your claim about savings is a perfect example of dubious data being manipulated. You routine come on this forum expressly to pump support for ethanol. You routinely misrepresent facts and distort logic to accomplish that goal. In this case you are presenting numbers that we have no way of verifying the validity of (except to take the word of an investment house) and you are acting as if that were some sort of gospel.

It isn't. It is "gray literature" of the lowest kind because we KNOW that Merrill Lynch has financial motives that justify to them their distortion of any given circumstance.

The same example still applies - does that "savings" take into account the higher overall price of corn?

Ethanol is not a recommended solution to our energy security or climate change needs. Any public money flowing to it should be redirected to more productive public policy initiatives.

http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[kristopher]

13. Almost forgot the part about the link:

See post #1 this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=225569&mesg_id=225596

Link to download pdf of the full report is (and always has been) after the excerpt.

You wrote: "BY THE WAY THE TWIT PASTED EXCERPTS FROM A SOURCE WHICH HE DID NOT GIVE THE LINK TO. THIS IS SOMETHING HE REPETITIVELY DOES AND IS A TECHNIQUE OF DISINFORMATION. NOt making complete diclosure of your info nor making it available to people. IF THE TWIT CAN CUT AND PASTE FROM A REPORT HE HAS TO HAVE THE URL TO THAT DOCUMENT. IF THE TWIT WAS GOING TO BE UP-FRONT ABOUT IT HE WOULD HAVE INCLUDED A LINK TO THE DOCUMENT (NOT TO SOME GENERAL WEB-SITE - RIGHT TO THE SAME DOCUMENT) HE IS CUTTING AND PASTING FROM - so others can look at the whole docuement. TAking excerpts out of a document and showing you only what he wants you to see - is a technique of disinformtaion which the TWIT practices. Does the TWIT not want you to see something in the report??"

[JohnWxy]

21. my bad. I didn't see link. I tried it and didn't work. I fixed it and have it here.

http://www.europabio.org/Biofuels%20reports/MerrilLynchJune2008.pdf

The link in your cmt #1 has the period (for end of sentence I suppose) rigth behind link. THis is loaded into the navigation field and then it doesn't work (unless you edit the url in navigation field and take out the period. If you put in a period leave a space after your link url or it will think the period is part of the url.

here is opening statement of the report:

"Biofuels are making up a huge portion of oil supply growth
The expanding global economy continues to face oil supply constraints, prompting
consumers to become more efficient in their oil use and substitute into other fuels.
Helped by a favourable policy wave, biofuels have rapidly become a major source
of incremental fuel supply. On a global scale, biofuels are now the single largest
contributor to world oil supply growth. We estimate that retail gasoline prices
would be $21/bbl higher, on average, without the incremental biofuel supply."

thanks for link.

[joshcryer]

15. Blanch has a pretty impeccible record.

The question kristopher seems to be asking is whether or not the side effects from corn subsidies and food prices are less than the savings. Blanch admittedly does not get in to this.