Time to"Pay the Piper"-Kevin
Doesn’t this simply adhere to the current model of centralized production? Where is your market for “big agribusiness” if there’s no operating infrastructure of distribution–i.e. transport trucks–powered by chemical hydrocarbon fuels needed in massive quantity and tens of millions of consumers all having little jobs that require personal transportation–i.e. automobiles–to buy agricultural, or any other type, products in mass quantities? This is the problem. Our whole system has developed on the basis of availability of huge quantities of cheap fuels to make it all work as a whole. It’s all about abundant, readily available energy. What good is a self sustaining, high production factory farm with no functioning transportation infrastructure to make use of its products? The high volume, self-sustaining factory farm is stranded. This is the very crux of the matter and failing to see the “big picture” is why most people don’t understand why it can’t work.
you have to think big picture, and beyond. we live near a farm that is selling electricity to the county. were running off of some of it now. and there also selling organic manure to wal-mart, instead of these alledged chemical-full, environmental hazards.
the energy put out does not have to be the same type you regain.
probably the most polluting things out there right now, are prius’. people are buying them left and right thinking they’re helping the planet. an '02 hummer is more green then a brand new prius because the life of the vehicle is offsetting the emissions from the factory. you want to save the planet? buy a motorcycle, or a Geo Metro. same mileage and there a helluva lot cheaper too. I highly doubt you knew that.
and the point of this thread, is bio-fuel. not just E85.
you can grow plants, but not electricity.
What you’ve said is an affirmation rather than a refutation of the point I’m making. Of course we should make direct use of resources we have at hand–e.g. organic fertilizer. This is something I have advocated all along. And yes, you’re right, Prius and other such solutions are not solutions at all. They just use more resources and create more pollution than the machines they’re intended to replace. I’ve been saying this all along too.
My argument is that we cannot sustain our current way of life-business as usual-because it simply requires more resources than the planet can provide. No conflict of views there.
The root problem, however, is one that very few people want to even acknowledge-that the human population of earth is simply greater than what the planet can support with any quality of life for an extended period of time. If we cannot get the human population to sustainable levels then all our other efforts will be in vain.
so you are a supporter of using bio fuels?
I’m not supporting anything in particular. BTW, did you read the report linked to at the top of this page:
http://www.landcoalition.org/cpl-blog/wp-content/uploads/08_right_to_food_and_biofuels.pdf
I believe it spells out quite clearly the situation of allocation of croplands to food production vs biofuel production. Anyone reading it can draw the obvious conclusion.
There are so many convulsions in the energy struggle. It seems that the Texas oil lobby pulled in the mid-west agriculture lobby to get a lot of interest in ethanol, knowing it was not an economically feasible move. But any song and dance wchich keeps oil in high profits is a good song. Coal oil is an ecconomical alternative which gets overlooked because it can’t overcome its poor image. West Virginia doesn’t have the buck$ to spend necessary to clean up its image when Texas is fighting against them.
I follow USDA reports on acreage planted and harvest yield (corn, wheat, barley, soybean, rice). Looking over the numbers since the ethanol demand started, I don’t see support for saying there is a problem. South America is meeting corn demand and then some. They’re just getting started. Being old commie states, the Ukraine and Georgia are a little slow figuring things out. But when they do we will have the potential to bury the globe in grains. Anyone care to restate the problem or is this “we think as we think, mainly because other people think so”?..Samuel Butler.
As long as the real and total cost of getting them in to my tank is less than the selling price I have no real problem. Remember that it is possible to make ethanol out of other non edible biomass. The question might be better served this way. Is using land and other resources to produce fuel ethical when they could be used to produce food for starving people? how fine dose one want to cut it? Apples grown in Australia vs dried apples grown in your own county. Is it ethical to spend the fuel just for shipping?
One thing to keep in mind is that in the US and most developed countries, most of the crop land is used to grow animal feed, while in developing countries most crop land is used for human food. Another concept is that the social and environmental impacts of biofuel production must be compared to those of petroleum and other energy sources.
that was done by the UN. not the US. we are the US. it may be cruel, but does it affect us here? there is plenty of of food here. if there was a problem with bio-fuels, I would tell. I’m wathcing this unfold right before me. its all good.
if anybody reading it draws a conclusion, they dont know how to think for themselves.
and spelling out something doesnt make it correct.
and i can spell out whatever i want, because i am an “expert in the field of general-ness”. whatever i say is correct. I could say the sun revolves around the earth. I’m wrong, but I’m correct because I said it. and I am an expert.
do you want to go to India, and tell them to eat the cows running around the streets? they have food there, they just dont want to.
No. Aside from issues about food, and questions as to whether more energy is used than created, very serious problems about the safety of ethanol emissions have yet to be addressed.
Ozone from gasoline is well-known to be detrimental to vegetation by damaging the foliar stomata and interfering with the plant’s ability to photosynthesize and produce chlorophyll. This study just released from Stanford (http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2009/12/aauuuuuggghhhh-no-duh.html) states unequivocally that ethanol emissions are worse for human health than ozone from gasoline, which is already responsible for epidemics of cancer, emphysema and asthma. These deleterious impacts go for trees and annual plants as well, leading to widespread irreversible tree decline and declarations of states of emergency the the Dept. of Agriculture due to crop failure.
Another possibility is that the enormous quantities of fertilizer used to grow corn for ethanol release nitrous oxides which are also toxic. Before there is any more consideration of increasing or even continuing biofuel use there should be comprehensive research to determine the impacts on health for humans and for plants. On that blog I have posted many photos and links to scientific studies on this topic. Don’t believe what the Environmental Prostitution Agency tells you!
I just want to reiterate, since nobody seems to be getting it. The real problem with biofuels is that it’s not going to work. Not if you have the idea that we can replace fossil fuels with them in any significant way. The reality of the situation makes the issue of ethicality rather moot. Sure we can make a little biofuel here and there-raiding Mcdonalds’ and Burger King’s fat fryers of their used vegetable oil and growing some crops on marginal land here and there to make a few hundred thousand barrels. But if you think we can even come anywhere near replacing the 85 million barrels/yr. and growing petroleum consumption of the world, not to mention all the gas and coal, then you have a capacity for self delusion that defies any and all descriptions.
As far as I can see the average person simply can’t get his/her head around the fact that our current way of life, vis a vis, energy consumption is not and cannot be permanent. It’s just another age, another epoch of human history here on earth-and a rather short lived one at that.
Allow me to correct myself. My most recent post, above, should read 85 million barrels/DAY, not /yr. That’s a staggering amount of petroleum that we could never touch with biofuels production.
So you’re saying you believe we can actually put a significant dent in the 85M bbl./day demand for petroleum with biofuel? I think your position must be either I’m OK, so everyone else is OK–the I’m OK you’re OK “philosophy” or, maybe, I’m OK, screw you–I’m getting what I need, I don’t care about the rest of the world.
All I can say to you is, if you know how to make biofuel work on the grand scale necessary then start your own business. It certainly has the potential to make you richer than B. Gates- In other words-put your money where your mouth is.
If biofuel is a real solution to our fuel problem why haven’t the best minds in the world’s most resourceful universities and companies replaced the petroleum based fuels we pump into our vehicles with biofuel? People have been working on it for decades now. It’s not a matter of technology but of land and material resources available to pull it off.
BTW, I’m looking forward to seeing your new company and its rising stock price. I’ll put my money where my mouth is and buy into it!
Ok, so what is your answer???
do you suggest we scrap any sort of progress on this issue and continue to build an economy based on Billion-year-old decomposed plant and animal matter?? Cuz THAT’s sustainable.
Here’s the reason we must make the distinction between ethanol biofuel, and Waste Veggie Oil biodiesel. Because Ethanol does not provide any sort of service before it is turned into fuel. I am recycling old oil that would go to waste. In one fell swoop, I am limiting the amount of material in the dump, and I am lowering the amount of carbon used to power my vehicle. (mainly in the extraction, processing, and delivery of petroleum based fuel) (I only use local waste oil)
Secondly, Industrial Hemp does NOT contain any considerable amount of THC. Meaning, you could smoke a literal ton of the stuff and all you would get is a headache. This is real reasearch from US scientists. *(go to http://www.thehia.org)
I did not say “lets grow marijuana and forget our problems”!
If you want to criticize my opinion…you need to give an alternative solution…or else I will believe you are an ignorant person, simply looking for a way to make yourself feel more powerful than someone else. Do you have an alternative?? (that works???)
Agree, if ALL the corn grown in the US was converted to ethanol, it would only supply 15% of gasoline needs.
Biofuels, in every study, can only supply 10-20% of projected world needs. That does not mean we should not pursue energy efficient biofuels from cellulose and algae.
What is does mean is that we either make gasoline from coal in the distant future, or we make heavy use of electric cars for short commutes.
I totally agree with you. There is no quick fix for this problem. Biofuels are a limited resource based on the amount of material we can create in one solar year. I offered a suggestion of another crop that could be used to fix marginal lands, create biofuel, clothing, and food. (all at the same time!) (post 89) This is only part of the solution. If we want to talk about big solutions, we need to shift our focus on becoming local. If we eliminated the thousands of miles needed to transport our food to the customer, we could eliminate most of the energy consumption used on our roads. So…in conclusion I do agree that biofuels are not going to be the “Silver Bullet” that will deliver us from our problems. I believe that it will be a small part of our total climate change action. If we want to talk about an ethical way to reduce the emissions from tailpipes, I say “Grow your own vegetable garden, buy food from local farmers, enjoy local music, and ride a bike!”
I’m really in neither camp.
first, you seem to be a reasonable guy. I’m getting that from your posts. and since neither of us seem to be agreeing, why make it hard to co-exist. from this post out, you wont have trouble from me.
as for my position. we should help others, but theres nothing our fields here can really do. we can send equipment, and people over-seas to help, but shipping a lot of food is hard. some governments wouldnt even let you.
example: when that tsunami hit the India area, we had boats of food offshore, waiting to help people. but the government didnt want it.
you cant even ship a box of oranges from mexico to the US this time of year.
the market is a self correcting system (thats what a recession is, a time of correction). if a lot of farmers grew ethanol corn, the prices would rise on food corn, and drop on ethanol. then the farmers would grow food corn next year because its more profitable.
if ethanol doesnt work, farmers will stop growing the corn, and start growing other things.
First: I did not critique you for personal use of waste oil; I was merely making the point that there’s not enough waste oil to go around, so as a public policy issue, running the nation’s fleet on veggie oil involves growing (for instance) soybeans to fuel cars. This would seem to have the same drawbacks as ethanol (though no energy for distilling…interesting to run the numbers).
Second: Ethanol CAN be made from post-conumer sources, or even sources that are in our interest to get rid of anyway. (Google “kudzuhol” for an example).
Third: My flippant response (good luck getting anyone to notice sarcasm w/o emoticons these days!) was a humorous observation that potheads (not that you necessarily are one) tend to see hemp as a panacea: recreation, fabric, cures baldness and common cold, etc, etc. On a serious note, however, I don’t see hemp-based fuel as anymore “anti-marijuana prohibition” than E85 is “anti-alcohol prohibition.”