castledoom.com

[JuntaJoe]

Seen food prices lately? They haven't jumped this much since Jimmy Carter was president.

Heard about the riots in Egypt and Haiti? Over food prices, no less.

So what's causing the big rise? It's a perfect storm where petroleum prices are shooting up and everyone with an acre of land is planting corn for biofuel. You'd think all that biofuel would drop the price of oil. No such luck as they can't make enough of it. So you have reduced acreage going to basic grains, which effects the price of most starch and meat products, and now a much higher cost to get the food to market, which affects all food.

We can't plant our way out of this problem by using planting corn, and to a lesser extent wheat and sugarcane. We'll starve first and still have high fuel prices.

Nor will we solve the pollution or "climate change" problems.

Read this:

Quote: The biofuel myths

The term "biofuels" suggests renewable abundance: clean, green, sustainable assurance about technology and progress. This pure image allows industry, politicians, the World Bank, the United Nations and even the International Panel on Climate Change to present fuels made from corn, sugarcane, soy and other crops as the next step in a smooth transition from peak oil to a yet-to-be-defined renewable fuel economy.

But in reality, biofuel draws its power from cornucopian myths and directs our attention away from economic interests that would benefit from the transition, while avoiding discussion of the growing North-South food and energy imbalance.

They obscure the political-economic relationships between land, people, resources and food, and fail to help us understand the profound consequences of the industrial transformation of our food and fuel systems. "Agro-fuels" better describes the industrial interests behind the transformation, and is the term most widely used in the global South

Industrialized countries started the biofuels boom by demanding ambitious renewable-fuel targets. These fuels are to provide 5.75 percent of Europe's transport power by 2010 and 10 percent by 2020. The United States wants 35 billion gallons a year.

These targets far exceed the agricultural capacities of the industrial North. Europe would need to plant 70 percent of its farmland with fuel crops. The entire corn and soy harvest of the United States would need to be processed as ethanol and biodiesel. Converting most arable land to fuel crops would destroy the food systems of the North, so the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development countries are looking to the South to meet demand.

The rapid capitalization and concentration of power within the biofuels industry is extreme. Over the past three years, venture capital investment in biofuels has increased by 800 percent. Private investment is swamping public research institutions.

Behind the scenes, under the noses of most national antitrust laws, giant oil, grain, auto and genetic engineering corporations are forming partnerships, and they are consolidating the research, production, processing and distribution chains of food and fuel systems under one industrial roof.

Biofuel champions assure us that because fuel crops are renewable, they are environment-friendly, can reduce global warming and will foster rural development. But the tremendous market power of biofuel corporations, coupled with the poor political will of governments to regulate their activities, make this unlikely. We need a public enquiry into the myths:

Myth: Biofuels are clean and green.

Because photosynthesis performed by fuel crops removes greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and can reduce fossil fuel consumption, we are told they are green. But when the full lifecycle of biofuels is considered, from land clearing to consumption, the moderate emission savings are outweighed by far greater emissions from deforestation, burning, peat drainage, cultivation and soil-carbon losses.

Every ton of palm oil generates 33 tons of carbon dioxide emissions - 10 times more than petroleum. Tropical forests cleared for sugar cane ethanol emit 50 percent more greenhouse gases than the production and use of the same amount of gasoline.

Myth: Biofuels will not result in deforestation.

Proponents of biofuels argue that fuel crops planted on ecologically degraded lands will improve rather than destroy the environment. Perhaps the government of Brazil had this in mind when it reclassified some 200 million hectares of dry-tropical forests, grassland and marshes as degraded and apt for cultivation.

In reality, these are the biodiverse ecosystems of the Atlantic Forest, the Cerrado and the Pantanal, occupied by indigenous people, subsistence farmers and extensive cattle ranches. The introduction of agrofuel plantations will push these communities to the agricultural frontier of the Amazon where the devastating patterns of deforestation are well known.

Soybeans supply 40 percent of Brazil's biofuels. NASA has correlated their market price with the destruction of the Amazon rainforest - currently at nearly 325,000 hectares a year.

Myth: Biofuels will bring rural development.

In the tropics, 100 hectares dedicated to family farming generates 35 jobs. Oil-palm and sugarcane provide 10 jobs, eucalyptus two, and soybeans a scant half-job per 100 hectares, all poorly paid.

Until recently, biofuels supplied primarily local and subregional markets. Even in the United States, most ethanol plants were small and farmer-owned. With the boom, big industry is moving in, centralizing operations and creating gargantuan economies of scale.

Biofuels producers will be dependent on a cabal of companies for their seed, inputs, services, processing and sale. They are not likely to receive many benefits. Small holders will be forced out of the market and off the land. Hundreds of thousands have already been displaced by the soybean plantations in the "Republic of Soy," a 50-million hectare area in southern Brazil, northern Argentina, Paraguay and eastern Bolivia.

Myth: Biofuels will not cause hunger.

Hunger results not from scarcity, but poverty. The world's poorest already spend 50 to 80 percent of household income on food. They suffer when high fuel prices push up food prices. Now, because food and fuel crops compete for land and resources, both increase the price of land and water.

The International Food Policy Research Institute has estimated that the price of basic staples will increase 20 to 33 percent by 2010 and 26 to 135 percent by 2020. Caloric consumption declines as price rises by a ratio of 1:2.

Limits must be placed on the biofuels industry. The North cannot shift the burden of overconsumption to the South because the tropics have more sunlight, rain and arable land. If biofuels are to be forest- and food-friendly, the grain, cane and palm oil industries need to be regulated, and not piecemeal.

Strong, enforceable standards based on limiting land planted for biofuels are urgently needed, as are antitrust laws powerful enough to prevent the corporate concentration of market power in the industry. Sustainable benefits to the countryside will only accrue if biofuels are a complement to plans for sustainable rural development, not the centerpiece.

A global moratorium on the expansion of biofuels is needed to develop regulatory structures and foster conservation and development alternatives to the transition. We need the time to make a better transition to food and fuel sovereignty.

Copyright © 2008 The International Herald Tribune


But there is a cure!

Unfortunately it doesn't favor companies like ADM and ConAgra. It also doesn't let countries put people to work in agri-jobs or give subsidies to farmers.

It's called algae.

The US could create all the biofuel for all transportation needs out of algae with around 15,000 square miles.

Sound like a lot? Let's take just a single grain production state in the US, Kansas, and note that it has 82,277 square miles. Almost all of Kansas is arable land. So around a quarter dedicated to algae production and we can quit foreign oil for good. And all our farmers can go back to actually making food!

Actually, we wouldn't need to waste that great Kansas farmland either. We could warehouse the algae production almost anywhere. Slap it over superfund sites that we can't put buildings on anymore. Or on the Alaskan tundra. Or in the southwestern desert.

But you can bet this would be lobbied against hard by the agri-giants and they would drag in small farmers to protest as the small farmers are making a nice profit out of this too.

Archer, Daniels, Midland has been building up this corn fuel angle for over a decade and are now cashing in huge! Algae production would kill their golden goose. They have aspirations of supplanting ExxonMobil, Shell, and BP in the global commerce domination game. Worse is they can parade out small farmers for pity to cover their asses while they pump legislators full of lobby money. Let's face it, they can slap up a pitiful Kodak moment a lot better than Exxon can when it comes time to garner public sympathy. Hell, if it wasn't for ADM the small farmer wouldn't have been hurting so bad in the first place that they now need to fight to keep the biofuel grain sales going.


Frankly, I'm not even sure we could make the average Washington politico truly understand all this and believe the fight is worth it.

But for those of you who wish to be smarter than your average Washington hack then let me point you to a Wiki page that has all the tech data you could ever want as a layman.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel

Read it closely at the bottom about feeding the algae from sewer treatment plants. Imagine your sewer service provider actually paying YOU for hitting the toilet a couple times a day!

[ExarKun]

Where I live in IL there is a ConAgra plant, and a lot of prices in this region of gas goes down cause of the bio-fuel, but it never seems worth it. It usually is only going down here at least about 3 cents p/gallon... maybe.

[s_stabeler]

what I don't understand is why they can't use the stalks ( in other words, straw) and keep the corn for human consumption? I mean, there has to be more hydrocarbons in the straw than in the corn........ more of it, too. it also has the advantage of producing a ton more food to boost food aid in countries that have a famine.

[JuntaJoe]

Sstabler, the stalks can provide energy from the cellulose, but it is only methane. Not a suitable product for transportation unless you convert completely to electric cars. Methane is perfectly fine to run gas fired generators in static locations, but hydrogen is far more productive to carry in vehicles and hydrogen is having its own troubles with carrying capacity. A methane powered vehicle would have extremely short range.

Corn, sugar beets, and sugarcane are used because they provide alcohol for methanol, while corn and soybeans provide oil for biodiesel.

At best the stalks can add to the general power potential for general use, but not for transport.


Combined they still don't hold a candle to algae's potential.

[s_stabeler]

I get it, I was just wondering if it would help. it would at least deal with the food price issue,wouldn't it? but algae, its' possible I suppose. where does the fuel actaully come from?

[JuntaJoe]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel

[CharlieBrown]

I used to be a believer in the whole "corn will save America" thing but then I did a little research myself and found that most of it is bullcrap. I havn't heard about algae fuel before (shows were I get my information) and it sounds very compelling but I am not totally sold on it yet. Could you possibly send some more links my way other than the wiki information?

[Brf]

Besides the alcohol, there are the vehicles that run on corn oil too.
I saw a show a few days ago that show a guy making his own fuel from corn oil and a few other ingredients for about $1 per gallon.

[JuntaJoe]

Not enough corn in the world, Brf. There is a guy in town who drives for almost free because he uses oil from restaurant grease traps to fuel his vehicle. He used to protest the local oil companies until a savvy reporter asked him how much of this type of grease was available, his average usage, and how many cars that would run compared to the actual numbers of cars here. When it was pointed out 90+% of us would not have fuel then decided to quit being so vocal......

Besides, if everyone was hunting for corn oil the price would skyrocket.


We also need to accept that using dozens of different ways to fuel vehicles isn't going to work well either. It will raise the price per unit cost with reduced standardization. It will increase the potential for recall for the same reason. All across the board for spare parts, repair, maintenance, and the like as well.

Did you know that the EPA formulations and regional regs have boosted the price of gas around 30 cents simply because the fuel makers have to create so many different types of gas for everyone? Now imagine taking that knowledge and extrapolating it to many completely different fuels.

Most of these people with cooking oil cars do the work themselves. They have personal skills of a strong mechanical and highly intelligent nature. Now wander your average WalMart and stare at the crowd. Try to guess which ones are capable of doing their own specialized mechanic work.

Yeah, we'd be back to hoofing it everywhere in no time.



We need a robust, productive, and affordable SINGLE alternative fuel source for most vehicles.

Corn ain't getting it.

Sugar cane ain't getting it.

We'll burn our topsoil to the bedrock before we get enough fuel for everyone to drive.

[CharlieBrown]

One possible answer to our energy crisis is using “clean coal”. What they do to this coal is they chemically wash it of its minerals and impurities to make it possible to capture the CO2 and store it instead of emitting it into the atmosphere. This would effectively reduce our CO2 emissions into the by 80%-90% because most of our greenhouse gasses come from our fossil fuel power plants and not from our cars. This would also significantly reduce dependence on foreign countries for our energy needs due to the fact the America has on of the largest coal reserves in the world.

But there are drawbacks. We currently do have the technology to capture and store emissions but it is very expensive to do so. It takes a lot of energy to capture and store the emissions and would increase energy needs of a power plant by 40% and would increase the cost of energy from such a power plant by 30%-60%. So until the technology can be improved to be more cost effective, which is estimated to take about another ten to twenty years, energy companies will not invest in the idea.

Just imagine the resurrection of the old coal town and the rise of black lung disease!

[JuntaJoe]

And what exactly are you going to do with all that stored CO2?

[CharlieBrown]

There are three ways one can store this CO2. Geological storage, ocean storage and mineral storage. The best place to store the CO2 would be geologicly. This would mean sealing it in depleted oil fields, gas fields, saline formations, unminable coal seams and saline filled basalt formations in a supercritical form.

If geological storage sites are well selected and managed it is estimated that CO2 could be stored there for millions of years.

Also one could also reuse the CO2 as feul for the future or to make plastics.

Like I said before it should only be considered as a possible solution for our energy and environmental problems and not the solution.

[s_stabeler]

C02 capture would reduce emissions, yes. though it might nit help 100%, and you also have the problem of what to do when the oil etc runs out. ( assuming that you don't tap any oil under Antarctica, due to the environmental damage that would do to the last wilderness on earth) you would be in a similar situation. wheras, algae would provide a solution pretty much forever. so yes, clean coal could buy us time, but not be a permanant fix.

[JuntaJoe]

Static source power isn't our real problem anyway. We have numerous ways to generate electrical power that have far reduced carbon output. The "clean coal" idea is nice, but a bit redundant.

Our real problem is energy for motive power. We have far fewer good options.

[broomdalf]

We could always, ya know, stop federally encouraging banks to give adjustable-rate mortgages to consumers with terrible credit histories, enabling them to buy oversized poorly constructed homes with woefully insufficient insulation, windows placement, so that they can live the American dream of having their own petrol-base-fertilized huge lawn void of soil suitable for gardening (thanks to subdevelopment policies). Perhaps we could tax consumer vehicles based on their fuel consumption per mile, as well. Maybe we could even rework the tax system a little bit to encourage people to actually rent living spaces in shared buildings.

This could be accompanied by considerably higher taxes on gasoline, encouraging more economically efficient transportation and technological innovation at the same time, whether it ends up coming from algae, switchgrass, hemp, or the horrific "electric tram system" of the past.

Perhaps we could combine this with a tax on lighting sources proportional to their electricity usage/light output.

Things like these could actually punish behaviors that harm our country, encouraging efficiency in more innovative means insted of punishing a benign-neutral act (earning). At the very least, this could buy us some time and save us some money.

I mean, really, how much more does foot thick insulation cost? We could do this all quite a bit better if we channeled our forces into energy use reduction.

There is no good reason to focus on new methods to let us waste the same amount of energy with a net increase in technology and fancy research until we have to...

[JuntaJoe]

Punitive taxation as a cure doesn't get politicians reelected unless it is a "sin tax".

The idea of encouraging renting over ownership will not garner you many friends either.

[crispybacon]

Yep-good luck getting those passed, Broom. The problem with agrevating the majority of the country for their own benefit is that we live in a democratic republic, not a meritocracy. If you could find enough politicians who care more about their country then their jobs and personal reputations, then...maybe. Good luck with that.
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grandma Webcam

[Batchman]

I don't know any details about it, but what about this synthetic fuel that congress was investigating in, what, the 80s? Supposedly OPEC dropped its prices from about $40 a barrel to $8 a barrel to kill the idea at the time.

Rumor has it we could make synthetic oil ourselves [as a nation, not as individuals] for $55 a barrel.

What are the negatives that swamp this idea?

[Batchman]

I've been doing a little reading on both this idea (which is making liquid fuel from coal) and on the algae idea.

Now from my understanding, while the algae is a great idea in theory, it still has a way to go before it is usable. More research and development needed.

The coal fuel idea is already developed. It would just need the infrastructure built. (Perhaps 5 years to get up and running, and prodcing serious amounts of products.)

Now, the biggest listed problem I find with coal is that a lot of extra CO2 is produced in the manufacture, that they don't know what to do with.

One of the problems listed for the algae is the need for large quantities of CO2 to produce the stuff.

Could these two technologies not support one another nicely?

In the meantime, with a little time, no importing fuel from the Middle East, more jobs in the coal mining industries, as we would need a lot more coal. More money going into the industry would likely lead to improvements and refinements in mining areas. More jobs in America in construction industries, in building the plants to produce the new fuel.

More jobs in the further development and research of the algae fuels, and more jobs in producing them (though hopefully not too many more, as this sounds like it needs less oversite and human involvement).

Much more having to do with American fuel being done -in- America. If we get moving on it.

Or we let somebody else fully develop it, and start importing it in the future, instead of the oil. Hopefully at a much cheaper rate, but still at the whim of somebody else.

[JuntaJoe]

Your earlier sythfuel question got me looking at this Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel


It in turn led me to something fascinating: http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php/fuseaction/home.story/story_id/12554


It also seems that algae fuel wiki link I posted earlier has been expanded.

I also found out that Chinese Tallow trees provide more oil per acre than corn does. Using corn requires you to strip the soil every year. It gets worse if you use the silage too. But the Chinese Tallow is a fast growing tree that is very hardy. We have tons of them in Houston. Grow like weeds with "volunteers" everywhere there isn't landscaping or agriculture.

Seems to me that planting a lot of permanent trees on an acre and getting more energy from it is damn smarter than planting corn.

We are so doing this all wrong. To hell with being mad at the oil companies, we need to point the protesting tree hugger in the direction of Archer Daniels Midland.