Biofuels...food prices and political unrest....
 

A Quick Fix to the Food Crisis: Scientific American

The problem is therefore one of rapidly rising demand. Conventional wisdom points to Asia as the source, but that’s not so. China has contributed somewhat to tighter markets in recent years by importing more soybeans and cutting back on grain exports to build up its stocks, which should serve as a warning to policy makers for the future. But consumption in China and India is rising no faster than it has in previous decades. In general, Asia’s higher incomes have not triggered the surge in demand for food.

That starring role belongs to biofuels. Since 2004 biofuels from crops have almost doubled the rate of growth in global demand for grain and sugar and pushed up the yearly growth in demand for vegetable oil by around 40 percent. Even cassava is edging out other crops in Thailand because China uses it to make ethanol.

So every time you drive your car...someone else goes hungry? Don't you feel guilty?

So every time somebody eats...I have to pay more for gas? Don't they feel guilty?

Yes. And they should really just kill themselves so we can drive around more. Americans (and Europeans...etc) are really special people...after all. :cool:

You're not exactly being the horses mouth nor the horses hooves here..

Nobody is asking for people to kill themselves - but a few fewer children here and there would help. Haiti for example, they had food riots, but what people always fail to mention is that their population has grown more than 40% in 20 years. Who in right mind expects food production to keep up with that?

Wow. So you can't make biofuel out of anything else. Man, Brazil must be starving.

You might think about food imports. If a country has to import staple food items - not luxuries or seasonal fruits & vetetables - isn't the real problem that that country is overpopulated?

Might also think of the waste of scarce fossil fuel resources used to transport these foods.

Contraceptives are a beautiful thing. Maybe we should focus on making them available to more people. No matter where you look in the world there is a clear inverse correlation between number of children and quality of life. Some of the religious folks might not like it but facts is facts.

Is there a reason you used Haiti as an example?

It happened to be at the top of my head.

There is some ACTUAL news about biofuels today.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2011/...imes&seid=auto

I saw that blurb about the subsidies, so the question is does this mean that ethanol will be eliminated from gasoline or is it just the subsidy only.

The article explains it. They're eliminating both the subsidy for US grown corn ethanol (45c/gallon) and the tarrif on imported ethanol (54c/gallon). The E10 and E15 rules are not changed. Chances are the bill will be changed before it goes into law. It will probably end up as a reduction of the tarrif/subsidy system rather than an outright elimination.

Saw that, was going to do an edit.

You should see the local yocal comments on the ethanol subsidy- 99% misinformed. :rolleyes: The REQUIREMENTS for ethanol blending are unchanged, so the fuel will be unchanged, so there will probably be some combination of higher prices at the pump and/or lower cost imported ethanol being used.

Oh, and Haiti is a prime example of people allowing their gonads to completely disregard the local reality of resource supply. 12 kids/ea and they literally eat dirt... :rolleyes:

It will only make a 4.5 cent rise in E10 prices, E85 will go up 38 cents per gallon. E85 sales will go down, E10 users won't even notice.

As if most of us can even find E85.

There is no shortage of food on the planet, there is probably close to a billion people on this planet though that have no money to buy food. If food prices were high enough there would be no food resources diverted to energy sources, its economics 101.

I just wanted to get a thanks from Frank, LOL.

I wonder how alcohol would work in one of Mazdas SKYACTIV engines with 14 to 1 compression ratio.

regards
Mech

Doesn't bother me. I never put alcohol in my vehicles.

Hey BD, you're about to break 1000 posts!:thumbup: