alt.energy.renewable

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news:7661e355-b6e6-43e2-a2d2-1619f9d3ba64@e10g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> NEWS - "Egyptian government urges end to biofuel subsidies"
>
> "The U.S. and Europe should stop encouraging the growth of maize and
> other crops for the production of biofuels, a practice that is pushing
> up food prices and hitting the world's poorest people, Egyptian
> Minister of Investment Mahmoud Mohieldin said Wednesday."
>
> http://www.checkbiotech.org/green_News_Biofuels.aspx?infoId=17306
>
> ----
> Parallels - Biofuels and Mao's "Great Leap Forward"
>
> An essential economic point that political leaders and the media have
> missed about the world food crisis is that rising oil prices have not
> shrunk the human food supply, but biofuel production has! Higher oil
> prices naturally raise the cost of everything that takes energy to
> produce, but in addition to that United States and European Union
> policies have actually shrunk the human food supply by artificially
> mandating a shift of agricultural resources to biofuel production.
> President Bush's 2007 "Energy Independence and Security Act" turns our
> food into fuel, and is reminiscent of Chairman Mao Tse Tung's 1958
> Five Year Plan, known as "The Great Leap Forward," in which China's
> agricultural based economy was forcefully shifted to greater
> industrial output.
>
> The higher food prices of 2008 cannot easily lead to increased food
> production, as would normally be the case, because of Bush's
> government mandated shift of land, water, fertilizer, farm equipment,
> and manpower resources to biofuel production. With biofuels out of
> the equation, farmers could have easily passed higher energy costs on
> to consumers without shrinking food production, and they could have
> increased food output to meet the greater demands of an expanding
> world population. Higher prices normally give producers a strong
> incentive signal to make more of a product so they can make more
> money. Now those incentive signals are confused and ineffective
> because of forced government biofuel mandates. Farmers must now
> produce for the automotive biofuel market as well as for the human
> food market.
>
> Chairman Mao Tse Tung banned private farms in 1958 in his shift to
> communes and greater industrial output at the expense of agriculture.
> This led to a 15% drop in grain production in 1959 and another 10%
> reduction in 1960. Biofuel production has consumed an estimated 33%
> to 38% of America's corn crop, depending of whose statistics you
> believe, and has caused many farmers to grow corn to make ethanol
> instead of wheat to make bread. Bush's 2007 biofuel mandates have
> called for even more of our food to be turned into fuel in the name of
> "energy independence," but at the tragic cost of global food supply
> security. Mao's top-down meddling in agricultural production was
> compounded by droughts and storms, just as Bush's top-down meddling in
> agriculture has been compounded by a drought in Australia which
> reduced wheat production, and a winter storm in China which caused
> major crop failures. A convergence of forces turned Mao's well
> meaning 1958 plan into the greatest famine in history, and resulted in
> the death by starvation of tens of millions of Chinese people. Bush's
> well meaning 2007 "Energy Independence and Security Act" may
> eventually take even more lives worldwide.
>
> MORE FACTS ABOUT BIOFUELS -
http://home.att.net/~meditation/bio-fuel-hoax.html
>
> Christopher Calder
*****
I disapprove of likening President Bush to Mousie Dung, but do agree using
crop grains as biofuels is unwise; there is other vegetation that may be
suitable. Beyond that, the whole rationale for biofuels is flimsy.

Dennis
>