Making fuel out of food = criminal

[WadeFulp]

If there is already a topic about this, please link me.

For those who are not aware there is a global food shortage. People in other parts of the world are starving from a lack of food. Droughts and rising oil prices are part of the problem, but one of the problems is using food crops to make fuel. This is something that can be changed. We can't stop a drought, and it maybe hard to control the price of oil, but damn it, we don't have to turn food into bio-fuel!

Fuel made from corn and other food crops has to be the most idiotic idea ever! The higher costs of corn makes it more expensive to buy corn to feed live stock. Farmers are planting corn over other food crops so they can sell it for bio-fuel which makes the price of the food items they stop growing go up. This has a chain reaction and it is making many foods more expensive and this hurts the poor.

I think the US Government should have a federal ban on turning food into fuel. FOOD shouldn't be used to power our cars, it should be used to FEED people.

[Garandman]

dont forget farm subsidies. the government pays farmers not to grow crops to keep the prices up. i think we should stop that and start selling any excess corn on the global market for a fraction of the current cost. they'll lose quality but gain quantity and it will help to feed the worlds poor and if they still have trouble keep giving them the subsidies for grown crops. that way it won't cost us any more than it currently does and we get more out of it.

[MattBlackguard]

I agree with the idea of using food for fuel is stupid.

As for famine, it is tragic but nonetheless unavoidable.

Ironically, the best thing to do would to either allow those who are starving to just die off or as humanly possible to assist in their inevitable destruction.

The planet would be alot better off because of such an act seeing as how it is already vastly overpopulated.

[LadyGrace]

What's the most criminal aspect is the fact that they already have the technology and patents for hydro powered cars, and yet oil companies buy them up and don't do anything with them in order to ensure their continued monopoly on the automobile market. Considering the fact that hydro powered cars use less water (it takes two gallons of water to produce one gallon of gas) and don't emit pollutants, it's really disgusting that hybrids, electronic cars, and ethanol are the "solutions". Whereas, in the long term, they're only going to be depleting different resources while continuing to do damage to the environment and the world population.

[Cuppa-LettuceNog]

At 5/6/08 01:54 AM, WadeFulp wrote:

I think the US Government should have a federal ban on turning food into fuel. FOOD shouldn't be used to power our cars, it should be used to FEED people.

I think it's amazing how Republicans are as bad as Democrats in expanding government regulation and power.

The US Government should not, under any circumstance, ever be allowed to tell me what I can and can not turn my food into.

[AapoJoki]

As the oil gets more expensive, biofuel gets more expensive and more lucrative to cultivate. One of the biggest problems is that rainforests are being cleared to make room for palm oil plantations, because "economically friendly" fuel can be made from palm oil. Which isn't helping the global climate crisis one bit.

As far as I know, there's no alternative fuel that doesn't have any disadvantegous environmental side-effects, although obviously some of them are better alternatives than oil. Whatever fuel we'll use in the future, one thing's for sure: we'll have to consume it a lot less than we consume oil nowadays. Stabilizing the consumption or at the very least slowing down its growth is the immediate thing to do. The economic growth of China and India isn't exactly helping. If the Chinese and Indians began driving cars as much as Americans, we'll have a fucking disaster at our hands.

If the market maintains a high demand for fuel, then once oil prices skyrocket to intolerable levels, the demand for biofuels will greatly exceed the demand for food. Why would any farmer sell his crops to the starving poor, if the giant fuel companies are going to pay good money to turn that food into fuel? That's the way the market is going to roll, and hundreds of millions of people could die as a result.

[ThePretenders]

I wrote a topic a few weeks ago about food riots and I talked about biofuels.

Quote:

A third of the United States maize harvest will be converted into biofuel. According to a scientic study, biofuels are making climate worse because of the production of CO2 in agriculture. The U.S., a leading producer of maize, produced 282.3 metric tons of it, or 44%, double that of China's, the next biggest producer. 13-15% of the maize harvest is being converted into biofuels and this will reduce the supply of maize and will have a detremential effect to people all over the third world.

Although ethanol production is a small part of the problem of high prices (the rest being bad weather), it could be relieved by stopping the production of biofuels and instead producing 100% of it for human comsumption.

Another link.

It's downright despicable that we should be turning a vital crop into fuel. We should be focusing our energies into producing electric battery cars to make the oil market more elastic (more substitutes means that oil companies can't raise prices by a significant amount because consumers would switch to cheaper alternatives). Biofuels need to be banned so that more wheat could be in the market for comsumption, lowering prices.

[Elfer]

At 5/6/08 01:54 AM, WadeFulp wrote: Fuel made from corn and other food crops has to be the most idiotic idea ever! The higher costs of corn makes it more expensive to buy corn to feed live stock. Farmers are planting corn over other food crops so they can sell it for bio-fuel which makes the price of the food items they stop growing go up. This has a chain reaction and it is making many foods more expensive and this hurts the poor.

Actually, it's not a chain reaction, since the additional corn production will drive the price of corn back down. All that'll happen is we'll reach a new equilibrium where food is more expensive and biofuel is cheaper.

Of course, seeing as corn ethanol is already a losing battle thermodynamically, there's really no reason to do it.

[Earfetish]

At 5/6/08 04:27 AM, Cuppa-LettuceNog wrote: The US Government should not, under any circumstance, ever be allowed to tell me what I can and can not turn my food into.

Amen.

Anyway, switchgrass is the only biofuel worth the effort. I'm sure in time we'll stop it with the corn and start using switchgrass. And I'll wait a few months until I decide whether this global food shortage is actually a global food shortage or a brief anomaly.

Furthermore, I've not once witnessed a biofuel pumping station or anything that uses biofuels. Are they all over the place in the States?

[Earfetish]

At 5/6/08 08:53 AM, Earfetish wrote: Furthermore, I've not once witnessed a biofuel pumping station or anything that uses biofuels. Are they all over the place in the States?

Apparently if an area the size of Maryland was devoted to growing biofuels, the US would be completely self-sufficient.

[morefngdbs]

At 5/6/08 08:53 AM, Earfetish wrote: Anyway, switchgrass is the only biofuel worth the effort. I'm sure in time we'll stop it with the corn and start using switchgrass.

;
Check out National Geographic Magazine issue October 2007 (It may still be up on their site).
I'm lookin g at my copy right now.

Here's some highlites:
Near Pradopolis, Brazil, Usina Sao Martinho is one of the largest ethanol refineries in the world.
Producing 300 million liters annually -WITHOUT RELYING ON FOSSIL FUEL OR ELECTRICITY FROM THE GRID. For heat & power the plant burns the sugar cane waste it produces , making the ethanol.

Another thing no one seems to be talking about is the American company GreenFuel Technologies has
developed a process that takes algae (pond scum) & putting it in plastic bags it is first used to filter carbondioxide from smokestack emissions.
Some Algae's produce starches (which can be turned into etanol) others produce tiny droplets of oil that can be turned into biodiesel or even jet fuel.

To answer the complaint of to little return in fuel for to much input of resources ( ie; oil & or electricity)
Algae with the right conditions can double in mass within hours. Meaning that an acre of algae can theoritically turn out 5000 gallons of diesel a year.
Compared to corn which is about 300 gallons a year of ethanol or soybeans around 60 gallons of biodiesel.
So they have something, we don't eat, that uses pollution to feed it & it out produces any food to fuel process hands down.

I don't understand why more information/ progress hasn't been put out about this.

Anyway if you have the ability to check out a copy of this story it's called "Growing Fuel , The Wrong Way, The Right Way " October 2007 National Geographic.

[ABsoldier17]

At 5/6/08 08:53 AM, Earfetish wrote: Furthermore, I've not once witnessed a biofuel pumping station or anything that uses biofuels. Are they all over the place in the States?

Nah. There about as scarce as nuclear power plants

[Malachy]

At 5/6/08 04:27 AM, Cuppa-LettuceNog wrote: The US Government should not, under any circumstance, ever be allowed to tell me what I can and can not turn my food into.

I agree..BUT,

If you are taking money in the form of subsidies from the government, you need to realize that there will be strings attached to that money.

If you aren't taking any money from the government, you should be allowed to do whatever the fuck you want with the land, but if you take money from the government, you will have to follow the government's rules. So, if the government says "you can have this money, but you can't sell your corn for biofuel" you have the choice to not take the money, but by taking the money you also agree to follow what they say.

[fli]

It is not criminal because, first of all, the crops used for that process I'm sure are inedible for human consumption since they're being hybridized not for human use.

And second, there's no food shortage. What's wrong here is that food is not being distributed through out the world. I remember hearing that the amount we waste here in the United States, and this is only perfectly good food, could feed Africa for a few weeks.

Right now, we ought to invest in this technology because, eventually, we gotta find another resource to fuel our transportation vehicles. In fact, just about any technology we ought to invest in will be good because gas will run out. And this isn't about greeness or anythig like that-- it's about not getting stranded.

If we're TRULY concerned about feeding the hungry, we would take pratical means to feed them. The most immediate thing we could do is to redistribute food. However, the only ways to aid the hungry to provide them means to support themselves. And to do that, we need to help develop jobs and fix infostructure.

But that's a fat chance, really...

[Prinzy2]

Fidel Castro wrote something about how inefficient corn-based bio-fuel was.
I couldn't find his article, but I found another article that basically said the same thing as Castro.
Sugarcane alternative.

Zing!

[Idiot-Finder]

At 5/6/08 12:57 PM, MickTheChampion wrote: Pfft, you think that's bad?

The European Union had farmers producing food just to be destroyed, now THAT is fucking criminal.

Waste of food.

[JackPhantasm]

I think the US. goverment should stop paying farmers to not grow their crops to keep supply down.

We have enough land to grow the fuel and food for the majority of africa. But we don't.

It has nothing to do with Bio fuel. That's a pawn issue.

[stafffighter]

Has anyone stopped to wonder why this was allowed to develop instead of the other alternative fuels? It's simple. It's the perfect tool to fight political climate change.
It's an expendable, controlable and pricable resource, which pleases one side.
It does all this while burning cleanly, which pleases the other.
This isn't envromental. It's political. And it's all about standing still.

[Sentio]

There is a lot of research going on at the moment into using algae to produce oil. This has the benefit of a) not being a source that could otherwise be used as food, and b) not using up precious land that could be used for agriculture. Unfortunately there are problems with the technology at the moment due to the exposure it has to receive to water and the air, which increases the risk of disease in algal crops with poor genetic diversity. This is being researched currently for an economically viable solution.

Google search (not read any of them so some may be more useful than others).

Should that come through there will be no problem with using other crops solely as food sources.

[SmilezRoyale]

i would think that the united states would be focusing on trying to develope liquid coal, Since we are the Saudi Arabia when it comes to coal.

[stafffighter]

At 5/6/08 04:42 PM, Sentio wrote: There is a lot of research going on at the moment into using algae to produce oil. This has the benefit of a) not being a source that could otherwise be used as food, and b) not using up precious land that could be used for agriculture. Unfortunately there are problems with the technology at the moment due to the exposure it has to receive to water and the air, which increases the risk of disease in algal crops with poor genetic diversity. This is being researched currently for an economically viable solution.

Wonderful, people will feel like they can use oil more freely, and they will, expanding on every enviromental effect of oil useage.

[hippl5]

Starving people are a burden. Why should the farmers/farming companies lose profit by feeding the starving, who contribute nothing in return?

[Earfetish]

Everyone who has filled me in with new information has convinced me further that biofuel research is the way ahead.

I don't even care much about the environment. I try to, but I don't. I don't even care about global catastrophes. But I do think that, if the world loses its reliance on foreign oil, that can only be a good thing. If countries are more self-sustaining, that will be brilliant for the global economy.

[Prinzy2]

At 5/6/08 05:40 PM, Earfetish wrote: \If countries are more self-sustaining, that will be brilliant for the global economy.

Speaking of which, what do you think would happen to the 'global' economy if countries became self-sustaining?

[Earfetish]

At 5/6/08 05:46 PM, Prinzy2 wrote:

At 5/6/08 05:40 PM, Earfetish wrote: \If countries are more self-sustaining, that will be brilliant for the global economy.

Speaking of which, what do you think would happen to the 'global' economy if countries became self-sustaining?

Developing countries will already have the tools and resources to develop. Developed countries will develop very quickly. The US will lose all interest in the Middle East, or all interest in maintaining the oil flowing.

And I'm sure we wont grow our own tea or rice or mine our own gold. I'm sure there'll still be a global trade. But oil is totally the life-blood of a developed nation, and it'd surely be better if we had our own bone marrow (to continue the metaphor).

[MrFlopz]

I agree. Stop sticking corn in you gas tank and eat it!

[RydiaLockheart]

At 5/6/08 04:04 PM, Prinzy2 wrote: Fidel Castro wrote something about how inefficient corn-based bio-fuel was.
I couldn't find his article, but I found another article that basically said the same thing as Castro.
Sugarcane alternative.

Zing!

You beat me to it. I was gonna post about sugarcane ethanol. It produces more fuel than corn ethanol does, but you can't grow sugarcane very many places. It would work for the Brazilians, but then we may be indebted to them or another country the way we are to the Middle East. The only place in the US that sugarcane can be produced is Hawaii. The money and resources that would be needed to ship it to the mainland would be astronomical, making it impractical there. Sugarcane may work for other countries, though.

[FUNKbrs]

All other solutions to the energy crisis that aren't nuclear are a waste of time.

NOTHING has a higher yeild to fuel payload ratio. Until we stop using coal for electricity, the whole "OMFG CARS POLLUTE" argument is a pile of crap. And as we all know, the price of oil is artificially high because while the US pratically floats on the stuff, we REFUSE to pump our own until every last country on the planet has been drained dry.

[Prinzy2]

The problem with corn, is that it has to be fermented to release the sugar.
Sugarcane has no/little fermentation period, making it much more efficient.

I don't really know much about bio-fuel or what is needed to make it.
But if it's sugar they need, Canada could utilize sugar beets.

[GrammerNaziElite]

Food isn't in short supply, it just needs to be redistributed.