alt.energy.renewable

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news:09ec3b47-6c19-4228-949f-2e70f306194b@w1g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
> German Minster says biofuels are causing 30 to 70% of current food
> price inflation!
>
> Biofuels declared "nothing short of disaster!"
> - - - - -
>
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/198490,german-minister-calls-for-bio
fuel-rethink-over-rising-food-prices.html
>
> THE EARTH TIMES
>
> German minister calls for biofuel rethink over rising food prices
>
> Washington - German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul
> said Saturday in Washington ahead of a World Bank meeting that the
> world needed to reconsider the use of biofuels amid skyrocketing food
> prices. "The targets for (fuel) blends must be put to the test," she
> said ahead of the spring meeting of the World Bank and International
> Monetary Fund (IMF) in the US capital.
> Increasing production of biofuels was 30 to 70% responsible for the
> rapid rise in food prices, she said.
>
> Dearer food was "a danger for growth, combating poverty, stability and
> peace in the world," she said.
> High prices for food had led to riots, looting and violence in many
> mainly poor countries.
>
> - - - - -
>
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/opinion/story.html?id=7ac33c22-ff
7f-4108-a61f-a24757c61776
>
> EDMONTON JOURNAL
>
> Biofuels nothing short of disaster
>
> Environmentalists to blame as emissions worsen, world's poor starve
> Lorne Gunter, The Edmonton Journal Published: 3:01 am
>
> Note to environmentalists: Remember, you were the ones who demanded
> biofuels the loudest.
> It turns out the production of biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel
> is likely to cause far more environmental damage than it prevents, not
> to mention triggering widespread famine and eating up more rainforest
> and grassland than beef production ever could.
>
> The production and consumption of biofuels releases far more carbon
> emissions than are prevented when ordinary gasoline and diesel are
> burned without first being mixed with corn or sugar cane derivatives.
>
> Even the world's first tentative steps towards increasing biofuel
> production has caused a doubling of annual deforestation rates in the
> Amazon.
>
> According to Wetlands International, Indonesia has razed so much
> wilderness to grow palm oil trees for biodiesel that it has moved from
> the world's 21st-biggest greenhouse gas emitter to third in just the
> past three years. Only China and the United States -- in that order --
> generate more carbon emissions.
> With its rapid conversion of rainforest to cane production for fuel,
> Brazil has slipped into fourth place.
> Turns out the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere by
> chopping down rainforests and switching grassland to corn, cane,
> soybean or palm oil production far exceeds that released by burning
> oil pumped from the ground or extracted from oilsands. The original
> environmental studies advocating biofuels as a way of curbing
> greenhouse emissions and cleaning the air hadn't taken this into
> consideration.
>
> Corn-based biofuels are particularly ineffective. After the ethanol is
> made, the stocks must be destroyed, thereby releasing all the carbon
> they took up during their growth.
> Then there is the biofuel revolution's impact on world food supplies.
> According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), "37
> countries are currently facing food crises." The reasons are complex,
> ranging from rising fuel costs to floods and droughts.
> Still, the great biofuel rush has been a major contributor, as well.
>
> In just the last month, Haiti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia and
> Madagascar have suffered food riots. Even Pakistan and Mexico have
> witnessed unrest over food prices -- Mexico City had tortilla riots --
> as grains, oilseeds and corn that once went solely to the food market
> are now being bid on by fuel suppliers, too. The Philippines,
> Uzbekistan, Bolivia and Cameroon have also had protests or street
> violence over food.
> Again according to the FAO, the price of food staples such as rice and
> corn has risen 57 per cent in just the past year, driven as much as
> anything by the need to find feedstock for biofuel production.
> In the developed world, where diets are much richer and more varied,
> the effect of these increases has been minimal -- maybe five to 10 per
> cent on a family's grocery bill. That's not easily absorbed by
> everyone, yet since food makes up less than a third of average family
> spending in industrialized countries, even a 10-per-cent increase in
> food would add less than three per cent to most families' cost of
> living.
>
> But in the developing and underdeveloped worlds, the competition for
> crops from the biofuel industry has increased family food tabs by as
> much as half, pricing a traditional basic diet out of some families'
> grasp. Hence the growing number of countries with food crises. And we
> have only just begun to see what stresses the biofuel craze will
> create.
>
> In Europe and North America, bio-fuels make up less than five per cent
> of energy consumed. However, either through government edict or the
> desire of corporations to appear "green," biofuel consumption is
> projected to double or triple by 2020.
>
> Thanks to biofuel, the World Bank projects global food costs will stay
> above 2004 levels until at least 2015. Expect more millions to go
> hungry just to satisfy the desire of industrial-world
> environmentalists to be seen to be saving the planet.
>
> The sad irony, of course, is that not only is the developed world's
> green conscience starving the rest of the world, it's creating more
> environmental harm -- not less -- in the process.
>
> Talk about the road to hell being paved with good intentions. But
> watch, in typical liberal fashion, green crusaders will look to blame
> someone else for their colossal error, in this case, likely, greedy
> corporations and conservative politicians. Indeed, the revisionism has
> already begun.
> Time magazine, long a champion of environmentalism, recently called
> the biofuel craze "the clean energy scam." But who did it blame for
> the fraud?
>
> Al Gore, David Suzuki and the Sierra Club? No. Biofuels, according to
> Time, have become "the trendy way for politicians and corporations to
> show they're serious about finding alternative sources of energy and
> in the process slowing global warming." In other words, George Bush
> and Big Oil are to blame.
> It's true corporations are pouring $100 billion or more a year into
> biofuel development. Even our own federal Tories have committed $2
> billion to the cause.
>
> But whose hectoring, lobbying, advertising and scaremongering created
> the political pressure that has compelled politicians and executives
> to go "green?" The environmental movement. That's who's behind the
> disaster of biofuels.
> - - - - - - - -
>
> For the full story on the biofuel disaster, see -
> http://home.att.net/~meditation/bio-fuel-hoax.html
>
> For biofuel disaster news, see -
http://home.att.net/~meditation/biofuel-news.html
>
> Christopher Calder

Pure baloney. Biofuels don't cause the run-up in metals, the run up in
concrete, the run up wood, the run up in transpiration and 1000 other things
experiencing runaway inflation. Biofuels are a convenient whipping boy of
those petroleum oil barons and their apologists who want to see them killed.