Thursday, March 29, 2007

Food for Fuel

Castro has spoken out out on US plans for using biofuel.

Though there’s not much meat in the article, I find myself in general agreement with his complaint. We do, indeed, face a multifaceted energy crisis. Some of the paths traveled to this crisis were not very well thought out. For example, we decided to use natural gas to generate a portion of our electricity. This was to green-up our generation system. This resulted in using as much natural gas for generation as people use for heating and, thus, undue hardships in paying for the heat.

Now we are thinking about using food as a fuel source. Castro’s right, diverting food to fuel can only result in not having it available for those in need. In addition, there is considerable scientific skepticism about the overall efficiency of biofuels. This emphasizes the point that we must have a well thought out program to improve our energy supply system from both the standpoints of efficiency and environmental protection.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Turning corn into fuel is a guaranteed loser. I can just picture our reputation when all of the developing world is desperately growing corn to fuel Western cars while half their populations starve.

sam said...

I'm trying to picture a tractor that has a hopper on it filled with soy beans that are being converted to biofuel to be burned by that same tractor planting the crop to be used for biofuel and it just doesn't add up to me. Once you add the cost of fertilizers, transport, labor, and depleted topsoil I don't see a good model for biofuel taking off. Yes it can be cheaper than comparable petroleum products right now but there are so many dynamics that change once the leap is taken (into a serious biofuel industry)that I cannot see it being viable. I'm thinking goatherding and a shovel will be in my children's children's future but I'm a wreckless optimist :)

fred m said...

Sam, in addition to being a "wreckless optimist" you're a pretty good Rube Goldberger with that tractor. That's, after all, the crux of falllacy.