telegraph.co.uk— Environmental campaigners have called for a change in policy on biofuels after a report that they have caused a 75 per cent increase in food prices.
Jul 7, 2008View in Crawl 4
And corn is a fungible commodity, meaning every acre you plant for biofuel is an acre you DIDN'T plant for cheap animal feed.And animals are food, too.One thing oil is that ethanol ain't is a feedstock for a pantload of other chemicals, such as fertilizers and pesticides, both of which are key in the production of cheap food. So the increase in oil prices in and of itself raises the cost of food (and damned near everything else).The real tragedy here is that beer prices are going up :(
This is bollocks. Most experts agree that biofuels have only contributed to about 2% of the food price rise. Rice, eaten all over the world especially in China/India, has virtually no biofuels programme but has risen in price. The opposite is true for sugar cane. The reason food costs more is complex, but it doesn't help that we've had back-to-back years of exceptionally poor harvests in Australia and the US, main producers of wheat and corn.
I question the validity of this article too. They state that the results were held back for fear of making Bush's pro-biofuel policy look bad. Bush doesn't have a pro-biofuel policy. He and his cronies are actively against biofuel production. In fact, short of nuclear and coal, Bush has no interest in any alternatives to oil.
This is just like global warming, its bull s**t.You have to first take a look at all the farmland the government is paying farmers not to use. There is plenty of farmland to grow things on and plenty of resources to use. Dont blame the farmer, talk to the legislators and by the way you might tell green peace to go taking a long walk off a short pier. If we had more nuclear plants and environment friendly oil sites, which are possible, we wouldn't be in the fix we're in. YOU CANT HAVE IT BOTH WAYS
Like I said, we dump 52 percent of our corn into livestock feed...and we can take that 52 percent and make billions of gallons of ethanol with it, and then STILL feed it to livestock after. What's wrong with that? As to algae, where are the algae farms going to come from? We use corn because there is a gigantic infrastructure in place to produce, harvest and deliver it. There is none of that for algae. It's pure economics, not as much political wrangling as you'd like to imagine.
doctechnicalJul 7, 2008
And corn is a fungible commodity, meaning every acre you plant for biofuel is an acre you DIDN'T plant for cheap animal feed.And animals are food, too.One thing oil is that ethanol ain't is a feedstock for a pantload of other chemicals, such as fertilizers and pesticides, both of which are key in the production of cheap food. So the increase in oil prices in and of itself raises the cost of food (and damned near everything else).The real tragedy here is that beer prices are going up :(
scottperezfoxJul 7, 2008
This is bollocks. Most experts agree that biofuels have only contributed to about 2% of the food price rise. Rice, eaten all over the world especially in China/India, has virtually no biofuels programme but has risen in price. The opposite is true for sugar cane. The reason food costs more is complex, but it doesn't help that we've had back-to-back years of exceptionally poor harvests in Australia and the US, main producers of wheat and corn.
marx2kJul 7, 2008
Look into how much oil we use daily for military purposes
cybersuchusJul 8, 2008
I question the validity of this article too. They state that the results were held back for fear of making Bush's pro-biofuel policy look bad. Bush doesn't have a pro-biofuel policy. He and his cronies are actively against biofuel production. In fact, short of nuclear and coal, Bush has no interest in any alternatives to oil.
harry8227Jul 8, 2008
This is just like global warming, its bull s**t.You have to first take a look at all the farmland the government is paying farmers not to use. There is plenty of farmland to grow things on and plenty of resources to use. Dont blame the farmer, talk to the legislators and by the way you might tell green peace to go taking a long walk off a short pier. If we had more nuclear plants and environment friendly oil sites, which are possible, we wouldn't be in the fix we're in. YOU CANT HAVE IT BOTH WAYS
hendrixiloveyouJul 8, 2008
schieß article gets buried
beauleyJul 8, 2008
There have been many attempts to design an electric powered vehicle for as long as the the internal combustion engine has been around. Unfortunately, battery power was never a formidable contender to the present internal combustion engine, but it looks as though the future looks more pronising.<a class="user" href="http://www.gomestic.com/Consumer-Information/The-Electric-Vehicle-is-It-the-Answer.20777">http://www.gomestic.com/Consumer-Information/The-E ...</a>The Electric Vehicle, is It the Answer?
bjzq8Jul 14, 2008
Like I said, we dump 52 percent of our corn into livestock feed...and we can take that 52 percent and make billions of gallons of ethanol with it, and then STILL feed it to livestock after. What's wrong with that? As to algae, where are the algae farms going to come from? We use corn because there is a gigantic infrastructure in place to produce, harvest and deliver it. There is none of that for algae. It's pure economics, not as much political wrangling as you'd like to imagine.