Insanity-The Only Word That Fits

A recent report, at www.townhallmail.com/raslnam_thukkjkj.html, says that corn ethanol used 6% of the US 2000 corn crop, 20% last year, and about one-quarter this year. Furthermore, congress mandates 7.5 billion gallons of corn ethanol by 2012 (no crop % estimate), and 15 billion gallons by 2022 (i.e. 36 billion gallons ethanol, with 21 billion from scrap stock such as saw grass). (Aside-saw grass technology is now yet proven, but is infinitely better than food as a feedstock. The sacrificed food will not just be corn, but includes other foods that will be left unplanted, crowded out by the corn acreage.)

The Org. for Economic Co-operation and Development says that rising food prices will threaten the nutrition and health of poor people worldwide, and that ethanol production causes greater environmental damage than fossil fuels . A Nobel Laureate, Paul Crutzen concurs; saying nitrous oxide from ethanol causes an increase in greenhouse emissions. Even worse, a Cornell professor, David Pimentel, computes that from start to finish, growing and processing the corn requires 1700 gallons of water for each gallon of ethanol. This is obviously a greater strain on the Earth, than even coal, which is simply dug up, moved, and burned in a power plant.

15 billion gallons of ethanol, equal to about 400 million barrels, is less than 20 days of US oil consumption, and could be produced more sanely by 25, one-gig nukes.

PS: A United Nations spokesman said (10/29/07), that using arable land to grow crops for biofuels is a Crime Against Humanity.

PPS: I believe corn ethanol craze will end before five, or at the most ten, years from now.

This Century Malthus Could Be Right (Part Three)

Just one week ago, I became frightened when I read that we Americans are dependent on fossil fuel for the productivity of farmers (Please read "Eating Fossil Fuel", referenced in Part One of this post.) Now today, Oct. 17, 2007, the US Agricultural Department dropped a Bombshell; US wheat stockpiles have fallen to the lowest levels in 59 years.

There are many reasons, some easy to correct, but others are scary:

Farmers harvest 40 bushels per acre now, versus 17 in WWII, but acreage is down by one-third, or 28 million acres. The extra grain was produced by fossil-fuel farming.

20% of last year's corn crop went to make ethanol-INSANITY (my opinion).
Bad harvests in the Ukraine, one of Europe's breadbaskets, was followed by poor harvests in Russia, Egypt, and Australia; Global Warming is blamed by some experts. This is not proven, but how can we blithely ignore the possibility?

USDA slashed its estimate of Australian harvest from 19 million to 13.5 million tons.

China and India are importing more and more food each year, for their growing populations and improving life styles. However, drought has withered 27 million acres in China.

Despite its rising GDP, India's food grain production has been stagnant for a decade. Also, since they produce very little oil, they plan on 35 million acres of biofuel crops. This may be a worse form of INSANITY than America's ethanol; India's people do not have surplus food.

US prices for food and beverages rose 4.2% in the 12 months through August. USDA estimates the next 12-month rise at 4.0%; but what if it is double that, as others guess? So many nations are rushing to buy our exports, since they consider them cheap.

15% of the world's food grows on depleting ground water, or rivers that are drying up.

It is time for the world to stop whistling in the dark. Thousands of nuclear plants and millions of wind turbines must be built. Worries of so-called "nuclear waste", proliferation, etc. are as nothing in comparison with the possible total collapse of world civilization.