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I just came across this article today:
www.reuters.com/article/bu...47920070911
I'm quoting two key bits from this article that I'm responding to and would like to know who and why anyone either supports what this article says or thinks it as much bollocks as I do.
"When acidification, fertilizer use, biodiversity loss and toxicity of agricultural pesticides are taken into account, the overall environmental impacts of ethanol and biodiesel can very easily exceed those of petrol and mineral diesel," it added.
"The OECD therefore called on governments to cut their subsidies for the sector and instead encourage research into technologies that would avoid competing for land use with food production."
...Acidification, fertilizer use, biodiversity loss, pesticides, etc. are all happening ANYWAY in conventional agriculture.
Not only does HALF of US food go to waste per year* but the US government actually PAYS farmers NOT TO FARM** to control market prices. Meanwhile, millions of people continue to starve in other countries.
* foodproductiondaily.com/news/ng.asp www.metro-region.org/article.cfm
** "the (US) government pays farmers several billion dollars not to farm (Ervin, 1992)." dieoff.org/page55.htm
We have more than enough land to produce our food AND our fuel, and this in no way adds to the environmental impact currently made by our agricultural practices.
The given environmental benefits of biofuels aside, we would also be saving *BILLIONS* of dollars by not needing to deploy our military across the globe to secure petroleum resources AND we'd be saving hundreds of thousands of lives lost to war on BOTH sides, which is PRICELESS.
There's no reason we have to choose between fuel and food on our abundant land, and there is simply NO WAY to argue the benefits of petrofuels over biofuels!
End of Story.
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SF Bay Area
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Re: Food vs Fuel
Wed, September 19, 2007 - 7:37 AMI think it's a very complicated issue, and I think it's important to view biofuels as a stop on the way, because they absolutely, irrefutably do still pollute. Perhaps they are an improvement - it's definitely good to move away from petro - but they are not a panacaea, and they are not cause for us all to relax as biofuels gain popularity. We simply cannot consume our way out of the problem, we are merely heading toward a different set of problems.
First of all, we have to think about why there are biofuel subsidies in the first place. I promise, it's not because it's the right thing to do - it's because someone with enough money and influence lobbied to make it happen. That would be agribusiness such as ConAgra & ADM. I absolutely agree that agribusiness and price fixing is a bad idea. But I think it's an even worse idea to give them control of both the food supply *and* the energy supply. If biofuels are getting a bad rap, it's not coming from these guys or those in their pockets.
So then we have to consider that it takes a long time to build topsoil, and ours is vanishing at an alarming and totally unsustainable rate. I think that in that way, extra production *does* have an impact. Sure it's happening anyway, but it seems to me that as production of fuel crops increases, it's happening more. We cannot continue to overstretch the same soil without consequences. Whether or not biofuels actually exceed petrol or mineral diesel in environmental impact is rather beside the point, imho. The acidification, fertilizer use, soil erosion, etc is absolutely there. And this does not even go into water supply issues.
Also, in order to produce enough biofuels in the world, rainforests are getting chopped down to produce it.
And consumption is and will remain the biggest problem. We simply cannot grow enough to meet the entire world's needs, especially as the world's desire for fuel continues to grow. I think a study said the best we can hope for is 30%.
Is it an improvement? Sure. Is it sustainable? I'm not so sure. All in all, I think we need to be looking beyond biofuels for something that will further eliminate (or hopefully eradicate) pollution, do not require precious resources that have the potential to interrupt the food supply, does not take precious rainforest, and do not primarily benefit corporations who have already shown a long history of extremely unsustainable practices.
It's difficult because we're emotionally attached to the outcome - we *want* it to be the answer. We want it to work because we care about sustainability and the environment. But if we took the word "biofuels" out of the argument and had a mystery product that presented this list of improvements with major shorcomings, objectively we would be skeptical, I think. Like I said, it's complicated... -
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Re: Food vs Fuel
Wed, September 19, 2007 - 11:41 PMYes, it's certainly complicated! Good point too about emotional attachment.
I enjoyed your insight here and fully agree with the issues you raised about soil depletion, deforestation and the allusion to water issues which are certainly there.
You're right on about big agri-business. We have to be *really* careful about that. With the right tweaks, we can "green" our future away.
"The OECD also encouraged government to work on cutting demand for transport fuel rather than encouraging production of so-called 'green' fuels."
Perfect example of when to look between the lines. The OECD has their own agenda. Just think about their name for goodness sake:
Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development
The last part of their name is the most damning. How can you "develop" the economy when it's being strangled through conservation??
I wrote to someone else regarding this issue by saying that the OECD's agenda is to undermine sustainable, renewable fuels so that Big Oil can do business as usual, and while that may be so at this time, Agri-Fuels can be the next Big Oil and all the problems the Big A brings would mushroom.
While I would say that we don't *have* to use conventional toxic farming methods that deplete the soil in order to produce biofuels, I have seen conflicting reports on agri-space and cannot say for sure yet if even "sustainable" agri-methods will prevail over simply too much demand.
That's why I'm fond of using algae -which can grown *vertically*, and algae produces more oil than any other plant so far as I know.
Imagine "Algae Towers" spread throughout cities, sucking in carbon and spewing out oxygen before it's processed into fuel *and food*!
We have the means to implement this. It's more a matter of political will and the powers that be organizing it to make it happen.
Meanwhile, we have solar, wind, hydro and geothermal to produce plentiful clean electricity. Of course the big problem with electric-powered vehicles is battery life -and then what to do with those batteries once they can't hold a charge anymore.
Remember how Nikola Tesla showed how the Earth itself could conduct electricity though? It seems within human ingenuity to create land-based vehicles that could tap into that on the go.
I *do* realize it's kind of like trying to turn the Titanic at a 90 degree turn however, but there's *much* more to it than that given all the vested financial interests out there.
It's like how drug companies posture about looking for a "cure" when they'd go out of business if they ever did!
Think about Food Aid. They actually *perpetuate* starvation and economic slavery in already desperate and vulnerable countries by out-maneuvering their ability to produce their own food competitively with foreign powers -esp. the US!
www.inthesetimes.com/article...benefit/
As for deforestation, well that's clearly how *not* to go about producing biofuel. There are sustainable ways to produce it, thus it's imperative that we don't blackball the whole idea of biofuels because a minority of idiots are doing it the wrong way.
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