UN urges biofuel investment halt

[Desertdog]

I wonder if they are really concerned about the world food supplies, or if they are afraid we just might become fuel independent.

UN urges biofuel investment halt 
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7381392.stm

The UN's new top adviser on food has urged a freeze on biofuel investment, saying the blind pursuit of the policy is "irresponsible".

Olivier de Schutter also wants curbs on investors whose speculation is, he says, driving food prices higher.

UN officials liken the rise in food prices to a silent tsunami, threatening 100 million of the world's poorest.

The use of food crops for alternative sources of energy like ethanol is one factor behind the price hike.

Mr de Schutter did not go quite as far as his predecessor in the job, Jean Ziegler, the BBC's Laura Trevelyan reports from New York.

Mr Ziegler had condemned biofuels as a "crime against humanity" and called for an immediate ban on their use.

'Predictable' crisis

But the new special rapporteur on the right to food did insist the American and European goals for biofuel production were unrealistic.

"The ambitious goals for biofuel production set by the United States and the European Union are irresponsible," he said in an interview for France's Le Monde newspaper.

"I am calling for a freeze on all investment in this sector."

The biofuel rush was, he argued, a "scandal that only serves the interests of a tiny lobby".

Calling for a special session of the UN Human Rights Council to discuss the food crisis, Mr de Schutter also said he wanted to find ways to limit the impact of speculative investments in food commodities like wheat, which had further driven up prices.

And the rapporteur, a Belgian professor of international law, said it was "unforgivable" that the international community had failed to anticipate the riots sparked last month by soaring food prices.

"Nothing was done to prevent speculation in raw materials, though it was predictable investors would turn to these markets following the stock market slowdown," the UN official said.

"We are paying for 20 years of mistakes."
 

[Gewehr98]

Screw the U.N.

They couldn't find their posteriors with both hands. 

I had a real hard time dealing with them while deployed to Bosnia, and I'll be damned if I let them take my guns and/or ethanol. 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

I wonder if they are really concerned about the world food supplies, or if they are afraid we just might become fuel independent.

There is little danger of ethanol making us fuel independent. 

We're currently diverting some 20% of our corn production to ethanol.  Yet at that rate, ethanol displace less than 3% of our gasoline usage. 

You can get about 3 gallons of ethanol from a bushel of corn.  Yearly US corn production is roughly 11 billion bushels.  If we put all of our corn into ethanol, we'd get some 33 billion gallons.  The US uses about 150 billion gallons of gas a year. 

The exact numbers are hard to come by, as both sides of the ethanol debate manage to obfuscate things.  But these are close enough to illustrate the point.

Even if we all decided not to eat for a year, we still couldn't come anywhere close to being energy independent.

[Standing Wolf]

I've got a better idea: send the U.N. to Zimbabwe.

[doc2rn]

They dont have a clue, the crap we put up with in Bosnia because of them illustrates how useless they are. The oil producing countries are scared they might have to control prices better in order to eat.

[taurusowner]

Use food for food, and oil for gas.  It's pretty simple.  Not enough oil?  Pull some more out of the ground, there's more than enough there, and the refill over time.  People who oppose drilling for more oil shouldn't exist.

[charby]

Use food for food, and oil for gas.  It's pretty simple.  Not enough oil?  Pull some more out of the ground, there's more than enough there, and the refill over time.  People who oppose drilling for more oil shouldn't exist.

Use less oil also.

Do you really need that extra piece of plastic Chinese made sh*t from WalMao-Mart? Oil to produce, oil to ship, oil to heat the store and oil so you can drive to the store.

I was talking with my parents (both are 58) over the weekend and we talked about what it was like when they were kids and when they were my current age. They basically said people did with a lot less than they have now and didn't know any better. Comforts are still the same (heat, hot water, washing machines, etc.)* are they were 50 years ago but they had a lot less stuff and you really did only go to the store(s) once or twice a week. Grocery store one of the weekdays and hardware store on Saturday AM.

*Dad had indoor plumbing, Mom had an outhouse and a pump in the kitchen, grew up on a farm in rural Iowa.

[Gewehr98]

So they're making more fossil fuel as we speak?  Interesting.

[El Tejon]

Finally, an effective war on the poor!  It's about time.

Ethanol today, ethanol forever, starve the bastards and force them to work!

[AZRedhawk44]

Finally, an effective war on the poor!  It's about time.

Ethanol today, ethanol forever, starve the bastards and force them to work!

+1 

Someone let me know when the blue helmets start parachuting into Iowa to sieze our corn crops that we are "stealing" from the poor, impoverished ethnic cleansers in the bowels of Africa.

I'll head that way with my M14.

[taurusowner]

The fossil fuel idea has never been proven.  Oil wells that were long dry decades ago have been found to be refilled. 

[jrfoxx]

I've got a better idea: send the U.N. to Zimbabwe.

Better idea. Can we turn the entire UN staff into a "Soylent" biofuel? It's the most useful any of them could ever be.
I'd pay $10 for a gallon or 2 to drive to the range on the members of their human rights comittee...
When we use them up, we go back to oil, or whatever else we have developed.

[bedlamite]

I've got a better idea: send the U.N. to Zimbabwe.

Better idea. Can we turn the entire UN staff into a "Soylent" biofuel? It's the most useful any of them could ever be.
I'd pay $10 for a gallon or 2 to drive to the range on the members of their human rights comittee...
When we use them up, we go back to oil, or whatever else we have developed.

Thermal depolymerization is what you're looking for.

[Scout26]

Yep, Mugabe turned the breadbasket of Africa into a basket case and it's all my fault.  If the UN is against it, it has to be a great idea.

Oh, and the whole "We not producing enough food" is crapola.  We have somewhere in the neighborhood 38-39 MILLION productive acres in CRP, not producing food.  Yep, that's around 60,000 square MILES of good, arable land growing weeds.  Just in the US. 

More fear and panic mongering to push the masses toward socialist solutions.

[Jamisjockey]

Yep, Mugabe turned the breadbasket of Africa into a basket case and it's all my fault.  If the UN is against it, it has to be a great idea.

Oh, and the whole "We not producing enough food" is crapola.  We have somewhere in the neighborhood 38-39 MILLION productive acres in CRP, not producing food.  Yep, that's around 60,000 square MILES of good, arable land growing weeds.  Just in the US. 

More fear and panic mongering to push the masses toward socialist solutions.

Ethanol is a socialist solution, pushed by the government.  The unintended consequences of its production are counter to a free market, and are forcing food prices around the world up.  For once, the UN might be half right on something.

[Gewehr98]

Sorry about denying you your cornflakes, JJ.  Don't worry, I filled up this morning for $2.83/gallon.  As part of my humanitarian plan over the last 2 years, I've provided some Hummer H3 owner outside the Midwest hundreds of extra gallons of fossil fuel. Life in the cornbelt is good!   

[AZRedhawk44]

EthanolCorn Ethanol is a socialistold-timey populist solution, pushed by the government.

There, fixed it for you.

The corn ethanol scam is too complicated for socialists/communists to dream up.  It also rewards agrarian types, which party bosses tend to discourage lest the plebes get too much power.

Now, if we made ethanol from sugar cane or beets, it might actually be profitable.

[Desertdog]

One thing that is being totally ignored is the fact that the "Distillers Grain" is a better animal feed than fresh grains, including corn.

Using Distillers Grains in the Dairy Ration1
Dr. David J. Schingoethe
Dairy Science Department
South Dakota State University
The feeding of distillers grains to dairy cattle is nothing new; such products have been fed cattle for more than a century. The research article by Loosli et al. (1952) referenced an 1895 Vermont Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin that reported on the feeding of distillers grains to lactating cows. In many respects, one might say that responses to feeding distillers grains today should be similar to those older studies. That may be correct except for some differences in both distillers grains and cows today versus yesterday. The distillers grains are different today, primarily containing more protein and energy, and todays cows produce much more milk than was produced by their ancestors.

Continued at
http://www.distillersgrains.com/pdf/Schingoethe-Using%20DG%20in%20Dairy%20Rations.pdf

[Scout26]

JJ,

I agree that the .gov shouldn't be subsidizing ethanol production (or farming or much less anything else for that matter).   There is a point on the energy supply/demand price curve where ethanol becomes economical.   And switch grass (when it becomes economically feasible) will be a much better choice.   And if Joe African or Charlie Asian is hungry, then maybe he ought to look at his .gov, because history has shown time and time again that famines are manmade (usually idiotic .gov policies like in Zimbabwe and Darfur), and not natural.

Even though we're turning some corn into ethanol, we're still shipping a buttload of food and grain around the world and a whole bunch of that goes for free as Food-Aid.

[El Tejon]

AZ, bring your M14 on up.  We'll be busy digging tunnels and loading magazines.

[roo_ster]

I've got a better idea: send the U.N. to Zimbabwe.

Better idea. Can we turn the entire UN staff into a "Soylent" biofuel?

I like to think of UN personnel as "Soylent Precursors."

[El Tejon]

Or biofertilizer for the crops.

[Sergeant Bob]

The fossil fuel idea has never been proven.  Oil wells that were long dry decades ago have been found to be refilled. 

Not to agree or disagree with the fossil fuel theory but, those fields might have been replenished by oil leeching in from the surrounding rock.

[charby]

Oh, and the whole "We not producing enough food" is crapola.  We have somewhere in the neighborhood 38-39 MILLION productive acres in CRP, not producing food.  Yep, that's around 60,000 square MILES of good, arable land growing weeds.  Just in the US. 

More fear and panic mongering to push the masses toward socialist solutions.

I live near some of that CRP land you're talking about. Trust me most of it is better left in CRP that into row crop production, well until farmers realize that you can get high yields of corn while having another crop like clover growing with it. Most CRP land is highly erodible land and some of it doesn't even have enough A horizon to sustain row crop production for very many years.

Just Google up The Dust Bowl and learn why if we don't study history we are doomed to repeat history.

[Jamisjockey]

The fossil fuel idea has never been proven.  Oil wells that were long dry decades ago have been found to be refilled. 

And the earth is 6,000 years old, too!!!!!