Ethanol cars run on human misery

[Stori]

The head of the World Bank has said that soaring food prices are causing hardship and starvation for poor people worldwide, and implied that at least some of the blame lay with Western governments' efforts to encourage biofuel use.

"While many worry about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs," said Bank supremo Robert Zoellick, quoted in today's Guardian.

"This is not just about meals forgone today, or about increasing social unrest, it is about lost learning potential for children and adults in the future, stunted intellectual and physical growth," he added.

"We estimate that the effect of this food crisis on poverty reduction worldwide is in the order of seven lost years."

Zoellick appeared primarily to be calling for greater agricultural and food aid from the rich nations to the developing world. However, he made it clear that he considered the push toward biofuels part of the problem, saying that this tended to push up food prices.

A majority of transport biofuel schemes involve the use of varying proportions of ethyl alcohol - ethanol - in adapted internal-combustion petrol engines. Ethanol must be made from food crops at present, though its advocates hope to see it produced from non-food biomass or other sources in future. Zoellick would have been referring to ethanol biofuels.

Less mainstream types of biofuel include methanol - wood alcohol - which can be made from inedible plant matter, and biodiesel. These technologies are less controversial than food ethanol, but are usually seen as being harder to implement and have gained comparatively little traction.

Government measures thus far have tended to focus on ethanol techniques, in large part due to pressure from Western farmers seeking lucrative markets for their crops. The UK, for instance, intends to require first 5 and then 10 per cent ethanol content in motor fuel in coming years - a plan which has already drawn widespread criticism.

The Guardian also quoted Oxfam's Liz Stuart, who said:

"Europe and the US must stop adding fuel to fire by increasing crop production for biofuels. These have dubious environment benefits, and by driving up prices, are crippling the lives of the poor."
World Bank chief: Ethanol cars run on human misery | The Register

[zulu ferret]

That's a good article Stori.:

[73GTVJim]

Thought-provoking but not exactly breaking news.

It does seem that for every potential solution to a problem we create another elsewhere.

Similarly, but less publicised perhaps, is the growing development of polylactic acid (PLA) based packaging films to replace plastics such as polyester (PET). These rely on maize which has long been a staple for poor Mexicans. As PLA and other organic-based products develop prices of hitherto cheap foodstuffs begin to escalate.

[Stori]

No it's not braking news and other problem is Palm oil which is devestaing forests in Indonesia for example.....

Palm oil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


And the Lord said, go out and breed uncontrollably ...and we did and the Lord was pleased at the devastation.......

[Nev]

Ethanol from foodstock was implemented
by us.gov as a way of paying their farmers
"illegal" subsidies.

Taking food out of peoples' mouths to fuel
an inefficient SUV is just ridiculous.

[Scudetto]

another case of the fix being worse than the problem, alas...

g

[Toronto Spider]

I was just watching Bill Moyers Journal on PBS (yes to any Americans reading this I watch that lefty, pinko PBS station ). The theme today was starvation in America.

Along with the typical food bank story, there was a look at reporting done by the Washington Times (I think it was the Times) about subsidies being paid out to farmers who don't need them. There were disaster payments for lost cattle sent to people who never had a cow die (the excuse was that when the shuttle blew up and scattered debris over Texas, the area was declared a disaster site so federal investigators and funds could be used to investigate). Well as long as the area was in a disaster zone, farmers could collect payments.

Another farm bill pays farmers based on what crops their land grew ten years ago, so by simply having fallow fields these land owners were getting huge payoffs. This, the story pointed out, has led to people buying up old farms for exclusive housing, using say a tenth of the land (one acre of a ten acre plot) as the lot, and then getting payments based on the remaining acres as former rice (or corn or whatever) fields.

Governments really are getting too big to know what they're doing. That is assuming they're doing things for the right reasons to start with (and not just trying to please lobbyists, campaign contributors, etc.).

For anybody with an hour to spare, and an interest in U.S. politics or the agricultural mess the report is certainly worth watching:
Bill Moyers Journal . Home | PBS

While I know this is about the U.S. government, sadly I can't see it being much different in Canada or Australia or the U.K., and I don't know if anything can be done to fix the problems.

As for ethanol production, it is driving prices up everywhere. Farmers who used to grow wheat or other grains have now switched to corn, thereby making flour and other grain products more expensive. Bread prices have been jumping here lately as bakers are getting squeezed.

We as a society really are doing our best to destroy ourselves.
--Toronto

[Stori]

The mass diversion of the North American grain harvest into ethanol plants for fuel is reaching its political and moral limits.

The UN says it takes 232kg of corn to fill a 50-litre car tank with ethanol. That is enough to feed a child for a year. Last week, the UN predicted "massacres" unless the biofuel policy is halted.

World grain stocks have fallen to a quarter-century low of 5m tonnes, rations for eight to 12 weeks. America - the world's food superpower - will divert 18pc of its grain output for ethanol this year, chiefly to break dependency on oil imports. It has a 45pc biofuel target for corn by 2015.

Argentina, Canada, and Eastern Europe are joining the race

The world food situation is very serious: we have seen riots in Egypt, Cameroon, Haiti and Burkina Faso," said Mr Diouf. "There is a risk that this unrest will spread in countries where 50pc to 60pc of income goes to food," he said.

Haiti's government fell over the weekend following rice and bean riots. Five died.

The global food bill has risen 57pc in the last year. Soaring freight rates make it worse. The cost of food "on the table" has jumped by 74pc in poor countries that rely on imports, according to the FAO.

Roughly 100m people are tipping over the survival line. The import ratio for grains is: Eritrea (88pc), Sierra Leone (85pc), Niger (81pc), Liberia (75pc), Botswana (72pc), Haiti (67pc), and Bangladesh (65pc).

[Stori]

Of course it only takes one African leader, for example Mugabe to turn an african food exporter into a nation of where a 1/3 starving and or dying who need food aid, whilst Zambia has taken on the white farmers and boosted their food production.

[Pud237]

Look at what has happened to world populations since the discovery of cheap energy (oil)..

Places otherwise unable to support big populations have grown rich on selling expensive oil and buying cheap food. But now in the West, we can make our own 'oil' from our otherwise profit-less food. Countries need to do something to reduce their population growth. Look at Africa, even with the AIDS crisis and regular bouts of famine the population is still rising. Creating more hungry mouths will cause nothing but pain in later years.

History has shown no matter how much surplus food a poor country has, in a hungry, free market world it'll be their own people that starve first. Look at the potato famine in Ireland - while the western half of the country was starving through losing their staple, Dublin was still exporting thousands of tons of grain around the world, because an Indian or a Frenchman or a Scandinavian across the sea was willing to pay more than an Irishman could afford.

Thats the free market, folks, and if a poor country allows its population to grow out of control on the back of cheap imported food, they're no better than the man who takes on a big mortgage on the assumption interest rates won't rise. Its very sad, but globalism and free-trade is the cause of this problem, not the solution.

[howell811]

Grow more, there is so much under used land around !!

[Fraser]

Originally Posted by howell811

Grow more, there is so much under used land around !!

................and no water.

[Nev]

Exactly Frazer, cultivation on
the scale these biofuel types
are proposing will mean rapid
depletion of water resources and
the desertification of huge tracts
of land.

Climatologist: Biofuel production could lead to dust bowl in Oklahoma :: Northwest Resistance Against Genetic Engineering :: Resistance is fertile!

Dust Bowl - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[ludite]

Originally Posted by Fraser

................and no water.

Hi, Fraser

So true,
the worlds next great problem
Me thinks.

John.

[Dibby]

Some long-foreheaded boffin type worked out if we convert the whole of the uk's farmland to biofuel production there would only be enough fuel produced to run Heathrow, leaving the other airports, cars trucks and vans dry ... and nowhere to grow our own food for those of us who buy local veg instead of Tescos value imported orange crunchy tasteless vegetable sticks ... carrots to you and me!

Who said biofuels were a hippy bandwaggon people jumped on too soon? Now the government has promised by the year 20-hurumphteen at least 5% of all fuel sold at the pumps has to come from biofuels, sorry poor African farmers, uk.gov needs your land to meet their targets.

[ludite]

Just a thought.

how many years have lapsed
Since the Song
"Feed the world."

If it was not so funny
can you visualise
tractor comsuming fuel in order
too operate too plant fuel.
in order too operate etc
O.K.

I know,
What does a luddite
know of such things.
But friends,
Have we all not heard the cries of
hungery children,?
add nations to that.

John.

[howell811]

Originally Posted by Fraser

................and no water.

There's so much under used land in this country alone. Up until a few years ago farmers were getting paid to leave their land stand 'set aside'. That can't be right.

[Pud237]

Cheap energy is running out.

The only reason food has been cheap in the last 100 years is because we discovered oil. Calories of oil have been converted into calories of food through use of tractors, chemicals (fertilisers), transport (economies of scale). As the cost of oil goes up, so the cost of food goes up. And as we breed more and more people, so the demand for food goes up and the faster the oil runs out.

The price of food is going to go up, I don't really think there is anything we can do about it. Lots and lots of people are going to starve until we can effectively and quickly convert solar energy into chemical energy or potential energy this isn't going to change. There is no other source of cheap energy left but that which comes from the sun.

[ludite]

Originally Posted by howell811

There's so much under used land in this country alone. Up until a few years ago farmers were getting paid to leave their land stand 'set aside'. That can't be right.

Hi, Howell

Fair comment,
though world population
smaller,poorer then,
Now China,Asia ,
Have so many mouth too feed
along with changing diets.
add failling crops
to the list due too climate
I just think we have had
a wake up call .

John.

Still confused though,
feed the machines.
let people starve???

[howell811]

Remember the EU grain mountians of the 80's. I lived on a 2,500 acre farm back then. We grew over 1,200 acres of crops, it's now down to 300 because they don't get the same price for the crop.

We produced too much back then, weigh that one up ?

[howell811]

The government funded large woodland grants in the early 90's and farmers turned field upon field to woodland. The government paid the farmers not to grow crops any more.

[Pud237]

Originally Posted by howell811

We produced too much back then, weigh that one up ?

Unfortunately the starving people of the world cannot afford to pay British people to grow food for them.

Do you fancy growing grain for the masses for pennies an hour?

[Nev]

Originally Posted by howell811

Remember the EU grain mountians of the 80's. I lived on a 2,500 acre farm back then. We grew over 1,200 acres of crops, it's now down to 300 because they don't get the same price for the crop.

We produced too much back then, weigh that one up ?

Dude, that's F-all when it comes to ethanol production.

“To run our cars and buses and lorries on biodeisel, in other words,
would require 25.9 million hectares [of cropland]. There are 5.7 million in
the UK. Even the EU’s more modest target of 20 percent by 2020 would
consume almost all our cropland.” – George Monbiot, columnist, The
Guardian

And that's for biodesel oil, which is "better" than ethanol.
Source:
http://cei.org/pdf/5532.pdf




More:
http://www.phoenixprojectfoundation....%20Ethanol.pdf

[ludite]

Oh so true,
wine lakes
butter mountains
cheese also
sugar was in glut
I seem to recall.

Its all beyond this simple fellow.
John.

[howell811]

Originally Posted by Pud237

Unfortunately the starving people of the world cannot afford to pay British people to grow food for them. Its still cheaper to buy food from abroad than it is to buy British.

Fully agree with you Pud. My dad can't grow veg over here, because he won't make money, but It'll be grown in places like Africa and shipped over here, while people starve out there.