Is Food or Fuel a false choice?

[flashl]

Food and fuel compete for land

Shopping at a Whole Foods Market in suburban Chicago, Meredith Estes said food prices have jumped so much she has resorted to coupons. Charles Rodgers Jr., an Arkansas cattle rancher, said normal feed rations so expensive and scarce he is scrambling for alternatives. In Oregon, Jack Joyce, the owner of Rogue Ales, said the cost of barley malt has soared 88 percent this year.

For years, cheap food and feed were taken for granted in the United States.

But now the price of some foods is rising sharply, and from the corridors of Washington to the aisles of neighborhood supermarkets, a blame alert is under way.

...

Now, with Congress poised to adopt a new mandate that would double the volume of ethanol made from corn, ethanol skeptics say a fateful moment has arrived, with the nation about to commit itself to decades of competition between food and fuel for the use of agricultural land.

"This is like a runaway freight train," said Scott Faber, a lobbyist for the Grocery Manufacturers Association, who complained that ethanol has the same "magical effect" on politicians as the tooth fairy and Santa Claus have on children. "It's great news for corn farmers, but terrible news for consumers."

...

The bill in Congress would increase the mandate for renewable fuels to a striking 36 billion gallons by 2022. That is far beyond a requirement on the books now for 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol by 2012.

...

Feed costs have increased 25 to 30 percent in the last year, according to David Fairfield, director of feed services at the National Grain and Feed Association. He attributed virtually all of the increase to the demands of the ethanol industry

One consequence of the higher feed costs is rising competition for malt barley between livestock farmers, who want it for feed, and brewers, who need it for beer. Joyce, the Rogue Ales owner in Newport, Oregon, said he has been forced to raise prices to pay for the additional costs of ingredients.

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[MadHound]

1. This is insanity that could ruin our agriculture sector

First of all, this entire ethanol kick is a goddamn chimera. We cannot, no way, no how, fuel our entire transportation needs with ethanol, hell we can't even do a significant portion of it. The land equation simply isn't there for us to do even if we devoted all of our land to corn.

Secondly, this is a big giveaway to Big Ag, ADM, Cargill, Monsanto, these find folks. That's who is making the money, not the farmer. Sure, corn prices have gone up, but so has the fuel costs, so farmers are coming out perhaps a little richer than before corn took off, but not much. Meanwhile, following the law of supply and demand, with non corn land scarce, the price of other crops has gone up. With the rise in prices of things like corn and soybeans, the price of raising livestock has gone up also.

In addition corn is a hard crop on the soil. Normally in a crop rotation with corn, the field would lie fallow, or at least grow a cover crop after it had been used for corn. Instead, we've got farmers growing corn season after season, depleting the soil of nutrients. This is replaced with petroleum intense, expensive fertilizers in larger and larger quantities. Frankly, I expect that if this keeps up for a few more years that we're going to have a massive soil collapse, with vast swathes of our soil unable to grow anything for years, no matter what kind of fertilizer you put on it.

The sad thing is that this isn't needed, we have an alternative, growing oil bearing algae as the feedstock for biodiesel. We could institute a biodiesel fuel structure and a whole new field of aquaculture that is not only sustaining, but is also able to fulfill all of our fuel needs. Michael Briggs, University of New Hampshire, has calculated that it would only take 15.000 square miles of water surface area to grow enough algae to fill all of our fuel needs, every single car, truck and motorcycle on the road. This sounds like a lot, but in reality it isn't much at all. Besides many wastewater treatment plants use algae pools as their first stage treatment, most small farmers have ponds they could grow in, we could easily do this if there was a push behind it. All it takes is the collective will for our government to mandate that all vehicles are powered by biodiesel compatible diesel motors and perhaps provide assistance to distributors to revamp their infrastructure. Unlike hydrogen or even 85% ethanol, biodiesel would require the least amount of change to our current infrastructure, from refinery to pipeline to retail. About the only adaptation needed would be the retrofitting of biodiesel tolerant gaskets. The rest would work just fine.

Biodiesel is cheap to make, clean burning(90% less pollution than gas powered cars or dino diesel). In addition, it is clean to refine, with the waste products of biodiesel refinement being water(which can be treated and recycled) and glycerin(which can be used in soap or bombs, take your choice). Biodiesel is biodegradable and non-toxic(yes, I drank some with no ill effects).

We have the fuel of the future now. It is only a matter of setting the pieces in motion to bring about a new paradigm shift. Let's hope our so called leaders wake up and do just that.

[flashl]

2. several days ago, I posted an article about suppression of inventors

and I strongly believe the answers to our 'emergencies' are already out there and readily available.

[tekisui]

5. It is hard to know what the true possibilities are

when it comes to bio-fuels. Like so much that threatens big business, active disinformation campaigns muddy the waters. Bio-diesel is great, it recycles waste and is very clean to burn compared to diesel or gasoline.

Ethanol is relatively clean as well. However, since our current biofuel ethanol technology requires us to grow corn, or other plants, for fuel it would eventually strain the food supply.

But, it is important to remember, we will get off of oil in steps. Ethanol is not the only solution. It is a helpful tool in our necessary transition away from oil.

Eventually, we will develop cellulosic ethanol, a recycled fuel source. The land use will not be an issue. Also, we can develop electric vehicles, powered by renewable sources.

It is going to take a great effort to transition. We don't know what the final replacement of oil will be, but we need to look at and use all of the possibilities as we shift.

[flashl]

6. During transition the immediate use of fuel efficient and low pollution carburetors

would buy time. The technology exist today to increase mpg.

[MadHound]

8. The trouble is that we can't wait for "eventually" anymore.

We're staring Peak Oil in the face right now, along with major global climate change, which we have to address in a major way, now. We don't have time for "eventually", that's part of what has gotten us into this mess.

Biodiesel, with algae as the feedstock is the answer to our problem. It is something that we can transition to rather quickly, it fulfills our immediate needs of providing transportation fuel cheaply and cleanly. It has the best fit for our current infrastructure, and doesn't require radical engines to burn it, just diesels in various sizes. We can retool for this within five years if we have the political and corporate will.

Is this our permanent answer, no, I doubt that anything is. But it is a good answer for the near future while we wait for "eventually".

[TheFarseer]

3. wow, that's amazing

biodiesel and high CAFE standards seems like a much better answer than ethanol and "I need a Hummer for my kid"

[MiniMe]

4. High gas prices are what is driving the increase in food prices

It costs more for the farmers to operate their farm equipment, and it costs more to ship the produce, etc to market.

[ThomWV]

7. Its primarily the high price of natural gas that is driving food prices

Natural gas is used to make nitrogen fertilizers. In order to grow corn on any sort of commercial basis you need to dump at least 100 pounds of nitrogen on every acre of land you grow on every year. Its used to make other fertilizers and pesticides as well. It is the increased cost of these inputs that drives the increased cost of production of food and fiber. Next,

The dollar has been dropping like a stone and the people who gain from this, other than currancy speculators, are farmers. That is because when the dollar is cheap our exports go way up, as they have this year. That $10 a bushel you are now seeing for corn (about 3X traditional prices) is much less expensive in other currencies. Just as the fall of our currency is rapidly making everything not made in China (they are artificially manipulating their currency) cost more and more and everything we make relatively less expensive on the international market. So there is your second source of the high prices you are seeing, foreign purchase and export of our production.

[Didereaux]

9. Takes more oil to produce a gallon of ethanol than it replaces!

Put the wheat back on the table, the corn back into the hogs and chickens and your increase in meat, milk, bread and pasta items will fall back at least 50% of their price rise of the last 2 years. THOSE are facts! Remove the corporate farm subsidies for producing those crops for ethanol and your 286 BILLION dollar farm welfare budget can be cut enough to fund SCHIP completely with a large amount left over for other needed programs here at home.

...but it ain't gonna happen folks, because our very own beloved Democratic representatives are on the take from the same lobbyists as the repugnants!

[SergeyDovlatov]

10. Ethanol from Corn is a political scam

ADM and other huge corporate farmers lobbying hard for it irrespectively of how counter productive it to use more than a gallon fossil fuel to produce a gallon of ethanol.