Hello Chip >Keith Addison wrote: > > Hello Chip > > > > > >>Probably, a lot of you are already familiar with the work of > >>Lester Brown. I'm not however, and was recently introduced > >>to it by a friend. > >> > >> > >>I've read a few chapters online, and have ordered to book. > > >SNIP > > > > > > Actually it's the industrialised countries' addiction to wasting > > energy that's doing that. > >Wholly agree, no arguments here. > > > "Merely replacing fossil fuels is not the answer. A rational and > > sustainable energy future requires great reductions in energy use > > (currently mostly waste), great improvements in energy use > > efficiency, and, most important, decentralisation of supply to the > > small-scale or farm-scale local-economy level, along with the use of > > all ready-to-use renewable energy technologies in combination as the > > local circumstances require." > > > > To say the world's 800 million cars will compete for food resources > > with the 1.2 billion people living on less than $1 a day shows a lack > > of understanding of how the market works. See eg.: > > http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_food.html > > Biofuels - Food or Fuel? > >No core argument, however, I think that fuel/food competition is >already happening.
But I think it's no different than the usual food competition, with people being "marginalised" from their own resources to make way for industrialised production of food and ag commodities for trade in the global market. So for instance, with the so-called Green Revolution, countries that used to be self-sufficient in rice successfully became rice exporters but with large and growing numbers of poor and hungry people at home, along with severe environmental problems (which primarily impact on the poor). Wealth extraction, poverty creation, same old story. What difference does it make if these extracted commodities include biofuels feedstock? It just adds fuel miles to food miles, but it's the same issue. Like all industrialised agriculture production it's heavily dependent on fossil-fuel inputs - dinosaur bone oil, LOL! What sort of sense does it make to produce allegedly sustainable and renewable biofuels crops if it depends on exactly the resource it's supposed to be replacing? There's nothing sustainable about industrialised agriculture, it has no future. >Currently, dinosaur bone oil costs are mostly >hidden from view, and bio-oil is under a microscope for cost >models. > >all things being equal, it's my most ignorant guess that once >you strip away all the huge subsidies that dinosaur bone oil >receives, add in the health-care costs, you start seeing gas at the pump >in the 10 to 12 dollar a gallon range, That seems to be quite a good guess, but it's probably more than that, see below. >and bio-oil is probably >something like one third to half that. With this in mind, and some of >the forest-to-farm land conversion that is happening around the world >to address local fuel needs, Local fuel needs? >and the picture is a bit more cloudy. Adding biofuel to the picture doesn't change it much. On the other hand, there's a massive worldwide swing towards sustainable farming. Eg: In the world's largest study into sustainable agriculture, Jules Pretty, professor of environment and society at the University of Essex (UK) analysed more than 200 projects in 52 countries. He found that more than four million farms were involved -- 3 per cent of fields in the Third World. And, most remarkably, average increases in crop yields were 73 per cent. Sustainable agriculture, Pretty concludes, has most to offer to small farms. Its methods are "cheap, use locally available technology and often improve the environment. Above all they most help the people who need help the most -- poor farmers and their families, who make up the majority of the world's hungry people." See: "Reducing Food Poverty with Sustainable Agriculture: A Summary of New Evidence" Centre for Environment and Society, University of Essex http://www2.essex.ac.uk/ces/ResearchProgrammes/SAFEWexecsummfinalreport.htm "47 Portraits of Sustainable Agriculture Projects and Initiatives" Centre for Environment and Society, University of Essex http://www2.essex.ac.uk/ces/ResearchProgrammes/SAFEW47casessusag.htm Update: http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/esthag/2006/40/i04/abs/es051670d.html Resource-Conserving Agriculture Increases Yields in Developing Countries December 21, 2005 "Most of the programs we are talking about happened despite the policy, instead of there being one," Pretty says. I don't believe the pressures on forests are much different, just more so. Palm oil plantations are devastating tropical forests, but they've been doing that since long before there was any interest in biodiesel. Palm oil is big biz, biodiesel or not. There's not really anything new here, these are the same issues we've been against all along. "I have a niggling feeling that 10 years from now, the environmentalists will be fighting the ethanol industry tooth and nail. anything can be done badly, and I expect the ADM's of the world will be successful in turning a clean renewable resource into a dirty unsustainable one......" - Steve Spence, Biofuel mailing list, 26 Jul 2001 Re the real cost of oil, this is from a 2000 article by economist William Rees: >... These direct and indirect subsidies seriously distort energy >markets and burden the economy with rampant inefficiency. > >Depending on the definition of the subsidies and the quality of >available data, the report found that total unaccounted cost in the >United States was as much as $1.7-trillion (U.S.) annually. A fuller >social-cost accounting for fossil fuel use would result in a >gasoline price per gallon of between $5.60 and $15.14 (as much as 10 >times what Midwest Americans currently pay after recent price >hikes). The array of subsidies to the oil industry and users of >fossil fuel in Canada is roughly comparable to that in the States, >so we can translate this into a price of roughly $2.00 (Canadian) to >$5.40 per litre of gas. > >Add in the recent escalating costs of climate change and prices >would climb considerably higher. In other words, even with the >burden of existing taxes, North Americans are paying a fraction of >the price they would pay for gas in a perfectly functioning market. > >The invariable consequence of underpricing is overuse... -- From: The True Cost of Oil - FoE Forum Wednesday, March 29, 2000 http://friends.designcommunity.com/notes/96.html Up those dollars from 2000 prices to now. Here's the report he refers to: http://www.icta.org/doc/Real%20Price%20of%20Gasoline.pdf The International Center for Technology Assessment The Real Price of Gasoline An Analysis Of The Hidden External Costs Consumers Pay To Fuel Their Automobiles "Together, these external costs total $558.7 billion to $1.69 trillion per year, which, when added to the retail price of gasoline, result in a per gallon price of $5.60 to $15.14." Don't you like the 300% approximation? LOL! Here's another estimate, made in 1997: The true cost of importing oil from the Middle East "exceeds $100 a barrel." Summing up the situation, retired Air Force General G. Lee Butler, Chief Air Planner for Operation Desert Storm, stated in the Wall Street Journal: "When externalities such as environmental and health costs, the loss of domestic jobs and basic industries, the trade deficit, commitments of military resources to ensure the free flow of oil from the Middle East, and threats to our energy and national security are included, the true cost of imports exceeds $100 a barrel, according to the General Accounting Office." >Yes, completely concurr with the overall thesis that a rational >and sustainable energy future requires great reductions in energy >use. Or, as you say, energy waste. > > > And: > > > > "Less than three-tenths of one percent of total US corn exports went > > to the 25 poorest countries in 1996. More US corn goes to make > > alcoholic beverages in the US than is exported to feed the hungry in > > the world's 25 most undernourished countries combined." > > http://journeytoforever.org/ethanol_energy.html > > Is ethanol energy-efficient? > >I read your paper and I certainly have no arguments with it at all. >And the fun part is, the new ethanol processes are not represented, >and those make the picture even more hopeful. > > > More here which should be of interest: > > > > "How much fuel can we grow? How much land will it take?" > > http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html#howmuch > >In short, we can grow enough, with existing resources, using >a 'rational and sustainable' approach. > >There are those who are going to take Lester Brown's work >as FUD. It isn't. At least not by my reading. It's just that he doesn't get it on a few counts. He doesn't seem to see that there are alternatives. He's been doing good work for a long time, though I always felt his thinking was a bit corporate - not pro-corporate, just that he sees things in the same mould, as if there's nothing intrinsically wrong with the system, it just needs a bit of tinkering. I've never been impressed with his views on energy. >There are those >who are going to say that there is no deforestation taking >place to expand sugar cane farms for fuel production. That >isn't the case, it is happening. Or rather, it has happened >in the immediate past. It's not always industrialised monocropping with all the benefits transferred elsewhere, quite a lot of the projects in Brazil for instance are small and local. Brazil isn't all rainforest anyway. >But again, this all comes around to your original point, >"it's the industrialised countries' addiction to wasting >energy that's doing that." It is indeed. And more of the >world is becoming industrialised by the second. Addiction >is the right word. > > > Best > >All the best to you, >and keep up the good work! Thankyou, and the same to you. Keith > > Keith > >==chipper _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
