The grain required to make enough ethanol to fill an SUV tank is enough to feed a person for a whole year.
The boom in the biofuel industry is impacting the whole world significantly. Brazil, the most impressive success story in biofuel production so far, is using 50% of its yearly sugarcane production to satisfy its 40% of automobile fuel needs while fast felling down trees to grow more soybeans and sugarcane.
Indonesian and Malaysian rainforests are being destroyed for the plantation of oil palms, proving life-threatening to endangered rhinos, tigers, orangutans, and innumerable other species to serve the burgeoning European market for biodiesel.
A recent report of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) for the International Energy Agency (IEA) raises serious concerns about this new approach to achieve energy liberalization in future. It has been found that 80% if the greenhouse emissions in Brazil come not from vehicles, but, shockingly, from deforestation the release of embedded carbon dioxide during deforestation and burning of forests. [Biotech.org]
Bio-Fuel?
Humans can be incredibly stupid when it comes to being taken for a ride by a consumer oriented society run by big corporations and their puppet-governments. There is nothing Bio about ethanol. To get ethanol or any bio-fuel, you have to process wood, or grain, or corn... and you have to turn this organic substance into ethanol.
What do you need to grow the grain, food crops or the corn? You need oil in the form of petrol (gas). Non-organic farms require fertilisers and pesticides (petroleum products). The reason we have the intensive food production that we have in the world today is due to petroleum products: that black substance everyone is so dependant on - and for good reason.
An MSU scientist is claiming that, with cellulosic ethanol, there is no food vs. fuel debate. -- As more and more corn grain is diverted to make ethanol, there have been public concerns about food shortages. However, ethanol made from cellulosic materials instead of corn grain, renders the food vs. fuel debate moot, according to research by a Michigan State University ethanol expert.
The problem with this is the demand. The demand supply curve is the most basic form of economics. Really, most people are not paying attention to this, although it is the number one factor behind everything we see happening in the world today. In many ways the problem is not actually oil, or oil based fuels. The problem is demand. If people can begin to understand this simple fact then maybe we can begin to find solutions. Everywhere I look I see the trees and forests being cut down. The trees are already providing humans with more than the planet can afford, how on earth are they going to provide fuel on top of the already increasing demand for wood?
There is growing evidence that the oil problem is not so much that the reserves of oil are depleted over time. There is growing evidence that the earth actually produces oil in fields that are not being over-pumped. In other words, the oil-field problem is the demand. The fields are being pumped dry at a much faster rate than they are being replenished. In that respect free-energy is not the solution either unless human beings evolve onto a level where they transcend greed. More-and-more-and-more is not healthy, and it is not natural. In terms of greed and more the human race is mentally (spiritually) ill. In the ancient world the mind and the spirit are one and the same.
To make this clear, lets say that we just discovered that it is possible to convert earth (soil) into fuel. You just look out your window and you are sitting on it. The trees are growing in the soil outside your appartment, it's everywhere. Your house is built on it. Your food comes from the earth. The oceans cover the ocean floor (earth). Just for fun let's add sand (desert) to this marvelous technology. You don't need to convert plants and trees into ethanol, because you have found a way to convert earth and sand into fuel. That is how you will power your society, your world, your transport system...
Now you understand the problem. If only ten people on the planet are interested in your invention the impact wont be so large. You and ten other people convert earth and sand into fuel and you have energy to power your homes and cars. But if the whole planet is interested in your invention - you have a problem. It's called: DEMAND. All of a sudden, everywhere you look, people are digging up earth and sand. It is the same with corn, grains, trees, stalks... the problem is the extremely high demand. Just imagine in Africa, in the Middle East, in China, India, Russia, American and in Europe everyone is digging up the earth and they are converting it into fuel. The whole world is suddenly rich!
Out in the desert you have billions of people digging up the sand to convert it to fuel. The technology is easy, the convertion is cheap. The resource is plentiful, and the world has a problem... The problem exists because of the demand. Too many people - and the numbers are growing - are drawing on this resource. The more societies have access to this cheap fuel, the more the populations grow. The more the populations grow, the more demand increases. Very soon you have no earth (soil) and no sand. That is our current problem. Humans cannot feed the growing populations and now into the demand equation comes this very badly named "bio-fuel".
I am a purist in the traditional sense. To me "bio" is the energy from the sun, or free magnetic energy, the power of light or the amazing force that moves the unverse. When you have to go to so much trouble to produce fuel - and you need oil to do this (as in growing and harvesting the food), how can you call it bio? This is an international scam created by vested interests to make money. What is bio? Sun energy, wind energy, water or wave energy, magnetic force. The moment I have to dig up sand from the sahara and convert it into fuel - that is not bio, it is processed. I have to process the substance to get the fuel. The new bio-fuel.
Is The Problem Supply Or Demand?
How are human populations going to feed the demand of growing world populations for fuel? The human race is totally out of balance. The more the planet gives us, the more we want. The human race is breeding at such a rate that if we were rabbits governments would be killing us. Personally, I live a very simple life. I walk everywhere, and I eat a lettuce and some tomatoes during the day. But all around me the demand for energy (fun) is killing this planet. It is this senseless demand that is the real problem, and most of what humans do is senseless. Just stop and look at how we power our world. At night it is called light pollution.
World societies are not addicted to oil, they are addicted to demand (give-me-more). People no longer know how to live a simple life. The more one has the more one wants. Maybe we should create fuel-quotas? Those of us who use less than our yearly quota get a bonus at the end of the year, and those who use more than their quota must pay. The quotas are the same for everyone, and the quotas are based on need (and not on current self-gratification values). Why not?
Saying that Ethanol is not the answer is like saying: "The king has no clothes."
There is another reason that food-for-fuel is not the answer to the worlds energy problems. The limits of a Green Revolution?
How are we going to feed a world population that will rise from 6.6 billion today to more than nine billion people by 2050, when we cannot feed the people in the world today? There are more important factors to growing food for fuel. One of those factors is climate change. At the moment the world can still grow the food it needs without too much difficulty. When dramatic climate changes hit the food producing areas, reducing grain production, then you have a nightmare situation.
The potential future is a world where increasing demands of food-for-fuel pushes up the price people pay for food, as with the rising corn prices in Mexico. The demand for food to produce fuel is vulnerable to a global fall in production due to climate change and/or unrest in the Middle East (increase in the price for oil). In many ways the bio-fuel industry is like putting faith in a sinking ship that is so full of holes that the sinking of the ship is inevitable. If people go for this scam, then people get what they deserve in terms of what hits them later.
The way I see this is you have a road sign that reads "motorway ahead", when in fact the road you are driving on is leading to a dead-end. The drivers put their foot on the gas, and around the next curve is a wall. I wonder if the drivers will have time to break before they hit the wall (it's a short curve).
Biofuels Spurring Deforestation
The boom in the biofuel industry is impacting the whole world significantly. Brazil, the most impressive success story in biofuel production so far, is using 50% of its yearly sugarcane production to satisfy its 40% of automobile fuel needs while fast felling down trees to grow more soybeans and sugarcane.
Indonesian and Malaysian rainforests are being destroyed for the plantation of oil palms, proving life-threatening to endangered rhinos, tigers, orangutans, and innumerable other species to serve the burgeoning European market for biodiesel.
A recent report of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) for the International Energy Agency (IEA) raises serious concerns about this new approach to achieve energy liberalization in future. It has been found that 80% if the greenhouse emissions in Brazil come not from vehicles, but, shockingly, from deforestation the release of embedded carbon dioxide during deforestation and burning of forests. [Biotech.org]
Bio-Fuel?
Humans can be incredibly stupid when it comes to being taken for a ride by a consumer oriented society run by big corporations and their puppet-governments. There is nothing Bio about ethanol. To get ethanol or any bio-fuel, you have to process wood, or grain, or corn... and you have to turn this organic substance into ethanol.
What do you need to grow the grain, food crops or the corn? You need oil in the form of petrol (gas). Non-organic farms require fertilisers and pesticides (petroleum products). The reason we have the intensive food production that we have in the world today is due to petroleum products: that black substance everyone is so dependant on - and for good reason.
An MSU scientist is claiming that, with cellulosic ethanol, there is no food vs. fuel debate. -- As more and more corn grain is diverted to make ethanol, there have been public concerns about food shortages. However, ethanol made from cellulosic materials instead of corn grain, renders the food vs. fuel debate moot, according to research by a Michigan State University ethanol expert.
The problem with this is the demand. The demand supply curve is the most basic form of economics. Really, most people are not paying attention to this, although it is the number one factor behind everything we see happening in the world today. In many ways the problem is not actually oil, or oil based fuels. The problem is demand. If people can begin to understand this simple fact then maybe we can begin to find solutions. Everywhere I look I see the trees and forests being cut down. The trees are already providing humans with more than the planet can afford, how on earth are they going to provide fuel on top of the already increasing demand for wood?
There is growing evidence that the oil problem is not so much that the reserves of oil are depleted over time. There is growing evidence that the earth actually produces oil in fields that are not being over-pumped. In other words, the oil-field problem is the demand. The fields are being pumped dry at a much faster rate than they are being replenished. In that respect free-energy is not the solution either unless human beings evolve onto a level where they transcend greed. More-and-more-and-more is not healthy, and it is not natural. In terms of greed and more the human race is mentally (spiritually) ill. In the ancient world the mind and the spirit are one and the same.
To make this clear, lets say that we just discovered that it is possible to convert earth (soil) into fuel. You just look out your window and you are sitting on it. The trees are growing in the soil outside your appartment, it's everywhere. Your house is built on it. Your food comes from the earth. The oceans cover the ocean floor (earth). Just for fun let's add sand (desert) to this marvelous technology. You don't need to convert plants and trees into ethanol, because you have found a way to convert earth and sand into fuel. That is how you will power your society, your world, your transport system...
Now you understand the problem. If only ten people on the planet are interested in your invention the impact wont be so large. You and ten other people convert earth and sand into fuel and you have energy to power your homes and cars. But if the whole planet is interested in your invention - you have a problem. It's called: DEMAND. All of a sudden, everywhere you look, people are digging up earth and sand. It is the same with corn, grains, trees, stalks... the problem is the extremely high demand. Just imagine in Africa, in the Middle East, in China, India, Russia, American and in Europe everyone is digging up the earth and they are converting it into fuel. The whole world is suddenly rich!
Out in the desert you have billions of people digging up the sand to convert it to fuel. The technology is easy, the convertion is cheap. The resource is plentiful, and the world has a problem... The problem exists because of the demand. Too many people - and the numbers are growing - are drawing on this resource. The more societies have access to this cheap fuel, the more the populations grow. The more the populations grow, the more demand increases. Very soon you have no earth (soil) and no sand. That is our current problem. Humans cannot feed the growing populations and now into the demand equation comes this very badly named "bio-fuel".
I am a purist in the traditional sense. To me "bio" is the energy from the sun, or free magnetic energy, the power of light or the amazing force that moves the unverse. When you have to go to so much trouble to produce fuel - and you need oil to do this (as in growing and harvesting the food), how can you call it bio? This is an international scam created by vested interests to make money. What is bio? Sun energy, wind energy, water or wave energy, magnetic force. The moment I have to dig up sand from the sahara and convert it into fuel - that is not bio, it is processed. I have to process the substance to get the fuel. The new bio-fuel.
Is The Problem Supply Or Demand?
How are human populations going to feed the demand of growing world populations for fuel? The human race is totally out of balance. The more the planet gives us, the more we want. The human race is breeding at such a rate that if we were rabbits governments would be killing us. Personally, I live a very simple life. I walk everywhere, and I eat a lettuce and some tomatoes during the day. But all around me the demand for energy (fun) is killing this planet. It is this senseless demand that is the real problem, and most of what humans do is senseless. Just stop and look at how we power our world. At night it is called light pollution.
World societies are not addicted to oil, they are addicted to demand (give-me-more). People no longer know how to live a simple life. The more one has the more one wants. Maybe we should create fuel-quotas? Those of us who use less than our yearly quota get a bonus at the end of the year, and those who use more than their quota must pay. The quotas are the same for everyone, and the quotas are based on need (and not on current self-gratification values). Why not?
Saying that Ethanol is not the answer is like saying: "The king has no clothes."
There is another reason that food-for-fuel is not the answer to the worlds energy problems. The limits of a Green Revolution?
How are we going to feed a world population that will rise from 6.6 billion today to more than nine billion people by 2050, when we cannot feed the people in the world today? There are more important factors to growing food for fuel. One of those factors is climate change. At the moment the world can still grow the food it needs without too much difficulty. When dramatic climate changes hit the food producing areas, reducing grain production, then you have a nightmare situation.
The potential future is a world where increasing demands of food-for-fuel pushes up the price people pay for food, as with the rising corn prices in Mexico. The demand for food to produce fuel is vulnerable to a global fall in production due to climate change and/or unrest in the Middle East (increase in the price for oil). In many ways the bio-fuel industry is like putting faith in a sinking ship that is so full of holes that the sinking of the ship is inevitable. If people go for this scam, then people get what they deserve in terms of what hits them later.
The way I see this is you have a road sign that reads "motorway ahead", when in fact the road you are driving on is leading to a dead-end. The drivers put their foot on the gas, and around the next curve is a wall. I wonder if the drivers will have time to break before they hit the wall (it's a short curve).
Biofuels Spurring Deforestation
