If you look at the yields from oil bearing algae compared to soybean or rape, that is the best area to throw the technology at rather than "improving" current crop yields,and pushing bio-diesel further into the clutches of M--s--t- and Ca-g--l and the like Oil,grain,soybeans, it's all the same to them. The beauty of bio-diesel as I see it is that it doesn't need large corporations to make it work. It can be produced locally and sold locally. "Economies of scale" is usually a euphemism for larger profits for the few. It doesn't have to be that way with boid. With petro diesel you can't just go out and drill for it. You have to invest billions in exploration, so the oil companies keep telling us when asked to justify their 3 million pounds a hour or whatever. This may be true ,but their motivation is profit for their shareholders, not "can I take less from the enviroment " This does not strike me as a sustainable system. If you don't think this is true just ask anyone in Southern Nigeria or Columbia. cheers bob golding
----- Original Message ----- From: "Keith Addison" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <biofuel@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2001 5:47 PM Subject: [biofuel] GE oilseeds - was RE: Palm and coconut oil > Joseph Martelle wrote: > > >http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html > > > >Vegetable oil yields tables: Journey to Forever > > > > > > >>>What about that Jerusalem artichoke I've read about? Fairly high yielding? > > Not even on the table - loads of carbohydrates (not starch), but not > a lot of oil. Good for ethanol though. > > >What we need is for those genetic engineers to to start looking at soybean, > >rapeseed, peanut, or other oil producing plant and modifying the genome to > >produce more oil than fruit.Can you imagine doubling or tripling the oil yeild > >from rapeseed or soybeans? Has anyone even considered research in this area? > > Dunno, maybe. But most of it so far seems tied either to securing a > market sector or to securing sales of associated products (eg > herbicides). One looks hard for success stories. RR (Roundup-Ready) > herbicide-resistant soybeans are losing their resistance (leading to > increased use of herbicides, up to 30% more than with non-GE soy, > instead of the decreased use we were promised) as well as their > yields - yields are sagging badly. One doesn't have to look too hard > for outright failures (Starlink), and for side-effects we were > promised and assured were impossible but they're now happening > anyway. And of course the whole technology as it applies to food has > lost its consumer acceptance - I don't think it's the technology > itself people don't trust, it's the companies doing it. These folks > don't have a good record with this kind of stuff, nor with anything > else much. > > So I'm sure what you suggest is possible (what isn't these days?) but > would it work out right? And with what unforeseen costs? Anyway, if > you look through the amazing history of crop development over the > last four millenia or so, you end up very impressed with the > capabilities of traditional plant breeding through selection. It > works, it's safe, and the benefits are widespread and permanent. > "Modern plant-breeding has produced nothing to equal the banana," > said a modern plant-breeder. The banana is a man-made hybrid, > produced a couple of thousand years ago, by all accounts. It can't > reproduce itself, all bananas are propagated by hand and always have > been. Wherever Europeans went "discovering" new (to them) parts of > the world, the banana was there before them. It's of immense benefit > to billions of people. Really first-class science. > > I'm not knocking GE, it's an immensely promising field, it's a huge > pity (?) that its development is in the hands of these wisdomless > dumbos who've given us so much else to be less than thankful for. > > A frequent question on the list (but recently, regarding newspapers) > is ethanol production from cellulose, a technology that it seems just > isn't there yet, despite all sorts of promising start-ups and so on. > More info here: Ethanol resources on the Web - see Ethanol from > cellulose: http://journeytoforever.org/ethanol_link.html > > It seems the perfect case for a GE organism. Well, it was tried. Do a > message archive search for message #2887 at the list website to see > the results - Alcohol-producing GM bacteria "could destroy all life > on earth", 22 Feb 2001. > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuel/messages > > "Wisdomless dumbos" isn't an exaggeration. The precautionary > principle is sacrosanct, but it's been widely ignored, and instead of > the fruits of GE's great promise we seem to be getting instead a > whole new and worse kind of pollution. If only it were being used for > real benefit in such fields as biofuels. Or to make something as > useful as a banana. > > By the way, RAFI and the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation have published a > booklet called "The ETC Century", on the technological challenges of > the 21st Century. It's very good, covers GE, nanotech and more - pdf > here: > http://rafi.org/web/allpub-display.shtml?pfl=others-list-en.param > RAFI - Rural Advancement Foundation International > > Best > > Keith Addison > Journey to Forever > Handmade Projects > Tokyo > http://journeytoforever.org/ > > > > > Just my wild musings. > > Joe. > > > Biofuel at Journey to Forever: > http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > To unsubscribe, send an email to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > > > > Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
