Re: Interesting Though On Biofuel

Mich wrote:

"Kirk Gordon" <kg1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:460C8BB2.5010407@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mich wrote:
In an article Fidel Castro pointed out that diverting agricultural
resources away from food will have some serious repercussions on world
food supplies. Obviously, there are so many people who are having trouble
even affording food that any change in the market can have very serious
effects.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6505881.stm


Just out of curiosity, when did Fidel Castro become a good source of
realistic predictions about the state of the world? One of the reasons
that food costs as much as it does is because of the energy costs of
growing it, transporting it, packaging it, refregerating it, and more. If
fuel costs were to go down, food prices would go with them.

Someone who's spent nearly five decades living in his own isolated
little non-economy, and who's had no reason to pay attention to how
markets and resources actually work, might imagine that food and bio-fuel
could come to compete with one another for scarce real estate. But that
doesn't mean he's right.

First, there isn't going to be any significant amount of bio-fuel,
ever. We'll play with it, and governments will waste trillions of dollars
on it, and a tiny percentage of fuel users will embrace temporarily, and
for all the wrong reasons. But none of that will make any difference at
all in the overall way that fuel supplies work.

The reason is that, with current crops and technology, there isn't
enough acreage on the whole planet to produce fuel at the same rate we
currently use it, even if we quit making food altoghether, and switch
exclusively to farming for fuels.

Fossil fuels work because they were able to accumulate for millions and
millions of years before we started using them. We simply aren't able, by
any current (or forseeable near-future) means, to produce what we consume
in real time.

Plants are just collectors of solar energy - and not terribly efficient
collectors, actually. So they won't supply what we use, any more than
solar panels will. And solar panels won't - at least not if we build them
on the surface of the Earth. Consider too that most farming of all kinds
is done in places that don't get huge amounts of intense sunlight to start
with. Good farmland includes clouds and rainfall. So until we invent an
enormously efficient kind of plant that can grow in the deserts, bio-fuel
will never contribute even a tiny percentage of total global fuel needs.
I'd be surprised if it ever fuels even tiny farming villages that are
designed for it.

Bio-fuel is foolshness, promoted by those who are totally ignorant of
what energy really is, or by those who hope to make money off of others'
ignorance.

My "tortilla plan" makes more sense than Castro does.

Biofuel is successful in places like Bresil. In the US it is failing because
of the government who is using it as an excuse to divert more money to
farmers.

Big Farmers..... ADM... Cosgill.....

The small farmer doesn't see much of the money.

John
.

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: Interesting Though On Biofuel
    ... away from food will have some serious repercussions on world food supplies. ... One of the reasons that food costs as much as it does is because of the energy costs of growing it, transporting it, packaging it, refregerating it, and more. ... Someone who's spent nearly five decades living in his own isolated little non-economy, and who's had no reason to pay attention to how markets and resources actually work, might imagine that food and bio-fuel could come to compete with one another for scarce real estate. ... We'll play with it, and governments will waste trillions of dollars on it, and a tiny percentage of fuel users will embrace temporarily, and for all the wrong reasons. ...
    (alt.machines.cnc)
  • Re: Interesting Though On Biofuel
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  • Re: Interesting Though On Biofuel
    ... food supplies. ... fuel costs were to go down, food prices would go with them. ... of the government who is using it as an excuse to divert more money to ...
    (alt.machines.cnc)