After trillions on taxpayer subsidizes....
Hard times have hit the once-robust U.S. ethanol sector amid the economic recession, with as much as 15 percent of production capacity likely standing idle, USDA chief economist Joseph Glauber said on Thursday. It was a sobering assessment of the fledging industry that was once bursting with optimism and financial gains as the country issued mandates on using the renewable fuel...
The Energy Information Administration, the U.S. government's top energy forecasting agency, earlier this month cut its estimate for world oil demand in 2009 by 400,000 barrels per day, citing the slower global economy. The EIA predicted that world oil demand this year would fall by 1.17 million bpd from 2008 to 84.70 million. That would be down from peak demand of 85.9 million bpd in 2007.
But hold on, we will still 'stick to taxpayers & food sectors'
Glauber said that rising mandates for ethanol use are expected to support corn demand and prices in the 2009/10 marketing year that begins Sept. 1. He said mandated ethanol use rises from 10.5 billion gallons in 2009 to 12 billion in 2010. On a crop-year basis, that translates into about 11.5 billion gallons of ethanol demand in 2009/10, he said, adding that that would mean a 14-percent hike in corn used to produce the biofuel. At a projected 4.1 billion bushels, ethanol use will account for 33 percent of expected corn use in 2009/10, up from a forecast of 30 percent the current marketing year.
