Posted on 03/29/2008 3:33:03 AM PDT by stickman20089
Yet another prominent scientist has joined the chorus against crop-derived biofuels, as Lewis Page reports.
Dr Richard Pike, chief of the Royal Society of Chemistry, has said that biofuels are a "dead end" and "extremely inefficient", and that the government was wrong to impose a requirement for 5 per cent biofuel content in motor fuel by 2010.
Dr Pike points out that "the 80 tonnes of kerosene used for a one-way commercial flight to New York is equivalent to the annual biofuel yield from an area of approximately 30 football pitches." At this rate it would take the whole of Britain's farmland just to run Heathrow.
It really is time to stop this nonsense. To produce these crops people are farming intensively, using more fertilizers and pesticides. In poorer countries people are cutting down virgin rainforest to plant biofuel crops. Poor people are finding corn and wheat priced out of their market, and the tanks of 4x4s are taking the food from the plates of poor families.
(Excerpt) Read more at adamsmith.org ...
“...30 football pitches...”
???
Football fields?
(Love those quaint Brits!)
I’m glad more people are coming around on this. Now maybe the price of beef will come back down.
Foodstuffs can make fuel.
By using corn as fuel it has raised prices making farming profitable.
Besides it makes foodstuffs more expensive for other countries that don’t raise enough for their own populations.
The Mid-East makes us dig deep for their fuel, let’s make them dig deep for our foodstuffs.
Use food as a weapon.
I can mostly get by without fuel but I gotta eat.
We are in the process of transitioning to a significant presence of ethanol based fuels in our society but we are also faced with a Chicken and Egg issue. The Government is pushing through this barrier via a number of programs.
Ultimately the step up to E85 as a significant player in the auto fuel market will bring down the cost of Oil and Ethanol both. And, in the pipeline are newer technologies that will replace grain based ethanol in the next 5 years.
Amen!
There was an article in the paper the other day about a company in Wisconsin making biofuel from switch grass. It’s cheaper to produce and more efficient.
I disagree strongly with this article. While ethanol is a dead end, biodiesel is not, and there’s no need to throw the baby out with the bath water when a number of technological breakthroughs are being made that make production of biodiesel and even ethanol to a certain extent more practical and less harmful to the food supply for this country.
This article might be of interest to you.
By using corn as fuel it has raised prices making farming profitable.
1960 Corn $1.05/bu
1960 New Chevrolet $2500.00
2008 Corn $4.00
2008 New Chevrolet $32,000.00
Corn should be $13.40/bu
1960 New combine $7,500.00
2008 New Combine $250.000.00
Corn should be $34.66/bu
The American farmer is still getting the shaft.
Oil is the lifeblood of the American economy, it cannot be replaced at this time, or in the near future.
I encourage you to read Walter William’s recent article on this topic. Please do so and give us your opinion on what he has to say.
For instance; to produce one gallon of ethanol, from to seed to “fuel”, more than one gallon of fossil fuel is used.
Only Texans are against ALL alternatives to oil.
We currently (2008 Farm Bill )pay farmers NOT to plant 38m acres.
Man kind has always used food for transportation fuel.
A 1,000 pound horse consumes 3% of its body weight daily.
It really is time to stop this nonsense.
Biofuels are nothing more than taxpayer and consumer payoffs to farm states and their politicians.
I’m not a Texan, it’s just insanity to not increase the productiion of oil BEFORE an alternative is discovered. No, an alternative to oil has not been discovered yet.
If people intended to ruin the American economy what would they be doing differently?
I take umbrage with your Anti-Texan rant. I’m for alternate fuels. Alternate fuels that make sense. The farm bill is another animal entirely. That has been awful for years.
Yes they are but it is getting better for a change.
What the Brit's may do or not do will have no affect here in the U.S. on the “price of beef” or any other commodity that is grain based, a derivative of, or has content. Unfortunately for we Americans the “fix is in” when it comes to ethanol production. Although it is now well documented that ethanol is produced at a net loss of energy, takes 1.25 gallons of hydrocarbon based energy to produce 1.0 gallon of ethanol - then factor this against fact that ethanol gets about 75% MPG that gasoline does, one can see the folly of this endeavor. But sadly, we have made whores of the upper-midwest farmers and any politician of either party who so much as dares whisper a negative word against ethanol/subsidies will do so at their own peril in the upcoming state and national elections. So, long story short, we are stuck with ethanol and consequential high prices of everything from corn flakes to beef. Just one more example of the consequences of government interference in the market place...
C’mon, someone, anyone make the case FOR ethanol.
Tell us why we should sit quietly by while oil is forsaken and the American economy is ruined by this alternate fuel nonsense AND the great man-made climate change hoax.
I ask the ethanol defenders to be upfront on whether they are farmers or in the ethanol industry in any capacity. There are those here involved in the building of ethanol plants that cannot be swayed by any logical discussion.
I also ask any man-made climate change defenders to be upfront on whether they are getting federal grant money to study the effects of man-made climate change from the annual $5 billion budgeted for the study. Or if they are government school educators, or anti-capitalists, communists, socialists or just simply anti-American.
Yep, the West needs to use food, medicine, water, and all the other essentials as a weapon against the Enemy Oil Monopolies...a little shared pain would be helpful.
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