March 10, 2008
COMMENTARY: Biofuel Production Causing Ecological Damage, Food Shortages
By Christopher Calder
Oil price increases have not shrunk the human food supply, but biofuel production has! The more biofuels we produce, the less food we have to eat, because we grow biofuel crops, even switchgrass, using the same land, water, fertilizer, farm equipment, and labor we use to grow food.
The world is running out of wheat because too many wheat farmers have switched to growing corn for ethanol production. The United States Department of Agriculture has stated that by May 31, 2008, US wheat supplies will be lower than any time since 1948, when the United States population was under 147 million people.
According to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization, global food prices rose 40% in 2007 alone. Wheat prices rose 25% on just one day, Feb. 25, 2008, and the American Bakers Association plans a protest against high wheat prices in Washington DC on March 12.
When American politicians foolishly turn our food into fuel, they raise food prices globally which gives other countries a financial incentive to burn down rainforests in order to grow more food. Poor people in Haiti are now resorting to eating mud because American biofuel mandates have made grains unaffordable. As we heartlessly starve the world's poor, pressure for illegal immigration to the USA continues to rise. Biofuel production aggravates water shortages, and it takes 9,000 gallons of water to create just 1 gallon of biodiesel.
The twisted logic of biofuel advocates has been that we should gladly starve the world today by turning our food into fuel, but in a few years the world can eat again because we will soon make biofuels out of easy to grow inedible cellulose crops instead of corn, soybeans, and rapeseed.
Unfortunately, three agricultural economists with insider knowledge from Iowa State University have published a study which states that even with the latest technology ethanol made from cellulose will likely never be affordable. Federal tax credits would have to be raised from the current $.51 for per gallon for corn ethanol to $1.55 per gallon for cellulosic ethanol, which will be unacceptable to Congress and the American public. That means no ethanol from switchgrass, wood chips, and "crop waste" will ever be sellable! http://www.card.iastate.edu/publications/DBS/PDFFiles/08wp460.pdf
This comes on top of the recent Princeton University study published in the journal SCIENCE that concludes that all current and proposed future biofuels, even switchgrass, are far worse for the environment and global warming than using ordinary gasoline. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1151861
Nitrogen fertilizers used to grow anything unleash nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 296 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, and that is just part of the reason that farming contributes more to global warming each year than all land, sea, and air transportation combined. Farming should only be used for essential food production, not for fuel production.
he global destruction caused by biofuels makes no sense strategically because by 2015 it is estimated that oil from American shale will cost only $30 a barrel to manufacture, and there is more oil potential in Colorado shale alone than in the entire Middle East before drilling began in 1908. Making hydrogen fuel through the electrolysis of water via electricity provided by nuclear energy would be far better for the environment than farming biofuel crops. It would also obviously be better to drill in ANWR for energy than in our own food!
The "energy independence" argument for biofuels is a hoax because American biodiesel made out of soybeans costs the equivalent of making regular diesel out of oil at $232 a barrel. Making ethanol from corn costs the equivalent of oil at $81. a barrel and uses 28% more fossil fuels than gasoline. Only massive government subsides makes biofuels affordable at the pump. Biofuel manufacturers have become a malignant force in America like the tobacco companies, not caring who they harm as long as they make their fortune, so beware of their misleading spin-doctoring of facts. Most countries had large food surpluses before the onset of the biofuel hoax, and the world will return to food surpluses once we put an end to government biofuel mandates.
SEE 10 good reasons to oppose biofuels - http://home.att.net/~meditation/bio-fuel-hoax.html - You will find a warehouse of facts and links here!
SEE shocking food crisis news - http://home.att.net/~meditation/biofuel-news.html
SEE why the Bush biofuel plan is similar in nature to Mao Tse Tung's "Great Leap Forward," which caused the greatest famine in history. - http://home.att.net/~meditation/bush-mao.html
SEE "Biofuels: an unfolding disaster" by Dr. Andrew Boswell pdf 514kb] - http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/docs/ECOS-6-5.pdf
Christopher Calder writes from Eugene, Or., where he calls himself a "concerned citizen with no connection to any special interest." Contact him at: mail2calder@worldnet.att.net
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COMMENTARY: Biofuel Production Causing Ecological Damage, Food Shortages
By Christopher Calder
Oil price increases have not shrunk the human food supply, but biofuel production has! The more biofuels we produce, the less food we have to eat, because we grow biofuel crops, even switchgrass, using the same land, water, fertilizer, farm equipment, and labor we use to grow food.
The world is running out of wheat because too many wheat farmers have switched to growing corn for ethanol production. The United States Department of Agriculture has stated that by May 31, 2008, US wheat supplies will be lower than any time since 1948, when the United States population was under 147 million people.
According to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization, global food prices rose 40% in 2007 alone. Wheat prices rose 25% on just one day, Feb. 25, 2008, and the American Bakers Association plans a protest against high wheat prices in Washington DC on March 12.
When American politicians foolishly turn our food into fuel, they raise food prices globally which gives other countries a financial incentive to burn down rainforests in order to grow more food. Poor people in Haiti are now resorting to eating mud because American biofuel mandates have made grains unaffordable. As we heartlessly starve the world's poor, pressure for illegal immigration to the USA continues to rise. Biofuel production aggravates water shortages, and it takes 9,000 gallons of water to create just 1 gallon of biodiesel.
The twisted logic of biofuel advocates has been that we should gladly starve the world today by turning our food into fuel, but in a few years the world can eat again because we will soon make biofuels out of easy to grow inedible cellulose crops instead of corn, soybeans, and rapeseed.
Unfortunately, three agricultural economists with insider knowledge from Iowa State University have published a study which states that even with the latest technology ethanol made from cellulose will likely never be affordable. Federal tax credits would have to be raised from the current $.51 for per gallon for corn ethanol to $1.55 per gallon for cellulosic ethanol, which will be unacceptable to Congress and the American public. That means no ethanol from switchgrass, wood chips, and "crop waste" will ever be sellable! http://www.card.iastate.edu/publications/DBS/PDFFiles/08wp460.pdf
This comes on top of the recent Princeton University study published in the journal SCIENCE that concludes that all current and proposed future biofuels, even switchgrass, are far worse for the environment and global warming than using ordinary gasoline. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1151861
Nitrogen fertilizers used to grow anything unleash nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 296 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, and that is just part of the reason that farming contributes more to global warming each year than all land, sea, and air transportation combined. Farming should only be used for essential food production, not for fuel production.
he global destruction caused by biofuels makes no sense strategically because by 2015 it is estimated that oil from American shale will cost only $30 a barrel to manufacture, and there is more oil potential in Colorado shale alone than in the entire Middle East before drilling began in 1908. Making hydrogen fuel through the electrolysis of water via electricity provided by nuclear energy would be far better for the environment than farming biofuel crops. It would also obviously be better to drill in ANWR for energy than in our own food!
The "energy independence" argument for biofuels is a hoax because American biodiesel made out of soybeans costs the equivalent of making regular diesel out of oil at $232 a barrel. Making ethanol from corn costs the equivalent of oil at $81. a barrel and uses 28% more fossil fuels than gasoline. Only massive government subsides makes biofuels affordable at the pump. Biofuel manufacturers have become a malignant force in America like the tobacco companies, not caring who they harm as long as they make their fortune, so beware of their misleading spin-doctoring of facts. Most countries had large food surpluses before the onset of the biofuel hoax, and the world will return to food surpluses once we put an end to government biofuel mandates.
SEE 10 good reasons to oppose biofuels - http://home.att.net/~meditation/bio-fuel-hoax.html - You will find a warehouse of facts and links here!
SEE shocking food crisis news - http://home.att.net/~meditation/biofuel-news.html
SEE why the Bush biofuel plan is similar in nature to Mao Tse Tung's "Great Leap Forward," which caused the greatest famine in history. - http://home.att.net/~meditation/bush-mao.html
SEE "Biofuels: an unfolding disaster" by Dr. Andrew Boswell pdf 514kb] - http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/docs/ECOS-6-5.pdf
Christopher Calder writes from Eugene, Or., where he calls himself a "concerned citizen with no connection to any special interest." Contact him at: mail2calder@worldnet.att.net
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