Random thoughts on bio-fuels: * There's a a lot of promise here, but good choices need to be made:
"The biofuels boom has contributed to the recent spike in food prices that threatens the world's poor. In Brazil, home of ethanol made from sugar cane, it's had another unintended consequence: slavery. The use of forced labor to work in sugar cane plantations is "a growing trend," according to the U.S. State Department's latest report on human trafficking." ----- * Done right via non-edible plants and a well-regulated production environment you could solve world poverty. I'm just not sure why people are looking into this more. Think of spreading the wealth of, say, Saudi Arabia across Africa! ------ * My favorite (in use in India and the Philippines) is Jatropha, but there's also higher-tech alternatives in research: Aurora Biofuels, Inc., a leader in open-pond algae aquaculture technology, announced today it has completed a second round of funding, raising $20 million. Aurora Biofuels will use the funds to expand its field operations and to increase its efforts to optimize the production cycle of growing, harvesting and extracting microalgae to produce bio-oil, which can be converted into biofuels. Microalgae have several advantages over traditional biofuel crops including their ability to produce much more bio-oil per acre, and their ability to be grown on marginal land using marginal water so they do not compete with food resources. www.aurorabiofuels.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;192386516;25150098;k Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:261647 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
