alt.energy.renewable

On Mar 23, 10:56=A0am, "no surrender" wrote:
> wrote in message
>
> 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=3D17306
>
> > ----
> > 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! =A0Higher 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. =A0With 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. =A0Higher prices normally give producers a strong
> > incentive signal to make more of a product so they can make more
> > money. =A0Now those incentive signals are confused and ineffective
> > because of forced government biofuel mandates. =A0Farmers 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. =A0Biofuel 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. =A0Bush'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. =A0Mao'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. =A0A 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. =A0Bush'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.
>

On the contrary, the *rationale* for biofuels is very strong -- in
that fossil fuels are by definition, finite, whereas the insolation
which is the ultimate energy source for biofuels is limited only by
how much of the Earth's surface you could use to raise them.

The environmental and operational *utility* of biofuels is another
matter entirely. To what extent does a given biofuel crop

a) pay back the non-renewable energy put into it or displace non-
renewable energy?
b) effect other undesirable environmental consequences?
c) impose a greater cost burden on the beneficiaries of the fuel it
replaces?


Some biofuel strategies could meet these tests well. Others would
not.

Fran