Tuesday April 22, 2008
Tuesday April 22, 2008
I had a short break over the weekend just and read this article in the Sydney Morning Heald and it made me sit up and think. I had just driven about 200KM to an lovely beach side town north of Sydney called Shoal Bay at Port Stephens. Just think if I had used ethanol in the car it would have taken 240 kilograms of corn to produce 100 liters of ethanol, enough for my weekend or away, or that 240 kiolgrams of corn could have feed a person for a year. Interesting choice. Fuel for the car or food in someone's mouth.
Shoal Bay about 200KM north of Sydney. If I had used ethanol to travel here from Sydney and return the amout of crops needed to produce 100 L of ethanol could have feed someone for a year.
As we see the shift in the grain harvest, especially in North America into ethanol the line "we drive, they starve" is very scarey as is the title of this article "we fill our tanks while they carn't fill their stomachs."
I think the question needs to be asked. Is biofuels the answer? I think not. Converting food crops to make fuel is a short term solution to a long term problem with massive global consquences especially for developing countries. I think the solution has to be hybrid cars and electric cars.
Is biofuels the answer?
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Hybrid cars and electric cars are not the answer either. Hybrids still burn oil, unless you are suggesting that they should be electric/bio-fuel? In that case you are still in the same boat. And the electricity has to come from somewhere. If it is from oil or coal, then you haven't gained anything.
Look at it another way. Suppose bio-fuels were made from an inedible crop. Would that change your view any? Some of the more promising bio-fuel sources are grasses. In that case, the trade off would be"use the land for growing bio-fuel crops or use the land for growing food crops". This boils down to the same choice, but further up the supply chain. Then consider, this choice also applies to almost any land use other than food crops. Use the land for food crops or use the land for a park. Your local park is taking food out of the mouths of starving people.
It's always about trade offs, and local benefit usually will trump remote benefits. At least the use of bio-fuels does not globally harm the entire species.
Posted by Brian Utterback on April 24, 2008 at 02:24 AM EST #