[Gasification] [Bioenergy] Choose parity over pork

Tue May 29 13:19:01 CDT 2007

Denny 

Perennial grasses built up the richest soils in the world. Both sugar cane
and native prairie grasses such as switchgrass and big bluestem can have
generally positive impacts on soil fertility if managed sustainably. Our
work in 1991 was inspired by Wes Jackson work at the Land Institute on
perennial grain polycultures.
http://www.landinstitute.org/vnews/display.v/SEC/Publications%3E%3EScience

Jackson had the right idea but the wrong product to commercialize his
prairie restoration concept. Better to leave the prairie as a biomass
producing system and find markets for the biomass. 

Roger Samson

Executive Director

REAP-Canada

Box 125 Centennial Centre CCB13

Ste. Anne de Bellevue, QC H9X 3V9

T: (514) 398-7743

T: (514) 398-7972

E:  <mailto:rsamson at reap-canada.com> rsamson at reap-canada.com

W:  <http://www.reap-canada.com/> www.reap-canada.com 

  _____  

From: Denny Haldeman [mailto:dennyh at bellsouth.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 1:25 PM
To: Roger Samson; 'Richard Stanley'
Cc: Marimike6 at cs.com; 'Kevin Chisholm'; 'BIOENERGY at LISTSERV.REPP.ORG';
'gassification'
Subject: Re: [Bioenergy] Choose parity over pork

The temporary unintended consequence of helping developing world farmers
will be short-lived as is always the case with new technologies or scams.
Biofuel colonialism in Brazil has brought back  virtual slavery in the sugar
cane fields.  Peasants are being cleared off lands around the world as
neo-colonialists gobble up their land for plantations.  Small scale farming
always loses in the long run as farming for food or fuel becomes corporae.
Parity will work only partly in developing a sustainable system.  A land
ethic for public welfare in the future will have to be enforced by rule of
law and policy.  The corn ethanol liquidation of our remaining topsoil is
criminal, and violates any standard of human decency.  

As you work on your bio-fuels projects, demand that they leave the soil
better with each rotation.  To do less is cultural suicide.  The pulp and
paper industry and cotton industry have mined the soil to death in the
southern US.  I've little confidence that the bio-fuels industry as it
stands will do any better.   Denny

http://www.energyskeptic.com/Peak_Soil.htm

"Ethanol is an agribusiness get-rich-quick scheme that will bankrupt our
topsoil. "

"The lack of any kind of input on this by soil scientists about how we're
mining our soils is a voice that needs to be heard, because if you destroy
the soil, you can't grow biomass."

----- Original Message ----- 

From: Roger <mailto:rsamson at reap-canada.com>  Samson 

To: 'Richard <mailto:rstanley at legacyfound.org>  Stanley' 

Cc: 'Denny <mailto:dennyh at bellsouth.net>  Haldeman' ; Marimike6 at cs.com ;
'Kevin <mailto:kchisholm at ca.inter.net>  Chisholm' ;
'BIOENERGY at LISTSERV.REPP.ORG' ; 'gassification'
<mailto:gasification at listserv.repp.org>  

Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 12:53 PM

Subject: RE: [Bioenergy] Choose parity over pork

Richard 

He didn't do it by design to help farmers in developing countries it was
just a happenstance as worldwide food prices have increased about 10%. I am
not arguing for biofuel colonialism. 

What I am suggesting is that the US government and the EC and Canada should
first develop sustainable bioenergy systems at home and that has to be done
through effective policy decision making processes. We have to end the
business of government picking technology winners. This can happen when we
choose parity in incentives based on a GJ of net energy gain or CO2
mitigation. 

What we have right now is biofuel pork that is wrecking havoc with food
markets, the environment and public finances. 

Roger Samson

Executive Director

REAP-Canada

Box 125 Centennial Centre CCB13

Ste. Anne de Bellevue, QC H9X 3V9

T: (514) 398-7743

T: (514) 398-7972

E:  <mailto:rsamson at reap-canada.com> rsamson at reap-canada.com

W:  <http://www.reap-canada.com/> www.reap-canada.com 

  _____  

From: Richard Stanley [mailto:rstanley at legacyfound.org] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 12:43 PM
To: Roger Samson
Cc: Denny Haldeman; Marimike6 at cs.com; Kevin Chisholm;
BIOENERGY at LISTSERV.REPP.ORG; gassification
Subject: Re: [Bioenergy] Bushwacking of the third world 

Danny et al,

The only probelm with our alleged president's encouragement to farmers in
the developing nations is that his approach  is looking towards the import
of the raw oil from these farmers to feed our overstuffed economy. Its not
too different from what the good colonials of many ilks, did 150 years ago,
only then it was cotton grains & other raw or first-level processed
agro-products ...

Taking out the grain for our oil biodiesel or otherwise, is effectively
putting them once again at the bottom of the food chain. Instead, we should
be investing in localised production of -for now at least, ethanol- and the
butinol which will surely swallow it as the more practical and sustainable
alternative for gasoline-, and to no small degree, biodiesel. We should be
assisting the relevant institutions with the establishment of standards and
the producers with low cost field test kits for certification and quality
control over their own production.  

That, and not the continuing stripping them of their own resources to feed
the west, is what the alleged president should be doing. 

That is foreign AID.

See you in Kijungu,

Richard Stanley 

www.legacyfound.org

On May 29, 2007, at 7:11 AM, Roger Samson wrote:

Denny 

There is a good news story though. George Bush's ethanol subsidies are
helping farmers in developing countries by raising commodity prices.  Life
is getting better on  the farm in developing countries. Ethanol and
biodiesel have created the demand enhancement to bring prosperity back to
agriculture everywhere.  Farmers win, taxpayers and the environment lose. It
can be a win for all three. It's just a question if choosing parity or pork.

We need parity in the marketplace and have fairness in the way incentives
are applied to all bioenergy end products. That way we will see these first
generation biofuels collapse because taxpayers will realize that bioheat and
biogas have greater benefits in terms of energy security, greenhouse gas
mitigation and rural development. It costs $400-$1000/tonne to offset a
tonne of co2 from corn ethanol and about $150-200/tonne with biodiesel from
oilseeds. You can produce 5-10 times the net energy gain of liquid fuels
with either corn silage biogas or grass pellets. Once we move away from the
current bozo bioenergy policy the US will be on a real path to energy
security.  

Say yes to parity and no to pork for liquid fuels.

cheers

Roger Samson

Executive Director

REAP-Canada

Box 125 Centennial Centre CCB13

Ste. Anne de Bellevue, QC H9X 3V9

T: (514) 398-7743

T: (514) 398-7972

E:  <mailto:rsamson at reap-canada.com> rsamson at reap-canada.com

W:  <http://www.reap-canada.com/> www.reap-canada.com 

  _____  

From: bioenergy-bounces at listserv.repp.org
[mailto:bioenergy-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of Denny Haldeman
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 8:32 AM
To: Marimike6 at cs.com; kchisholm at ca.inter.net; bioenergy at listserv.repp.org
Subject: Re: [Bioenergy] The price of corn

The majority of Americans will not change their lifestyles to save our dumb
asses from the immenent collapse of food production, more oil wars, water
scarcity, and the anarchy that will follow one day too soon.  If we
efficiently conserved our way into the future where we could maintain some
semblence of our American Weigh, without trashing the planet, we might have
a chance in hell of avoiding the chaos.  Unfortunately, the non-negotiable
American Weigh crowd runs the media, the politicians, and the propoganda
machinery and ethanol supercedes actual solutions to keep the consumeroids
placated and feeling like something is being done.

I just completed a trip through ethanol states to return my father to the
soil  As a farmer,  it was heartbreaking for him to see so much ethanol
madness dictating the decisions of farmers up there as they replaced crop
diversity with all corn, all the time.  The price of food will continue to
rise and shortages will increase starvation, the water tables will fall
faster, the fisheries will die quicker, there will be yet more atrazine in
the tap water, the soil will be beaten to death, ethanol induced ozone
pollution levels will climb, smaller farmers will be purged, and resources
that could have been mobilized to save ourselves, will have been squandered
for a panacea.  

Keep working to find actual solutions in the hope that people will wakeup
and smell the corniness of this ethanol scam.  I talked to many folks up
there who absolutely refuse to use ethanol tainted gas because of the
mileage decline, the horrific fumes, and the fact it is ruining farming.
Denny

PS...following is our future. 

Global Grain Production Falls Behind Demand

*	Press Release 
Lowest Food Supplies in 50 or 100 Years: Global Food Crisis Emerging 
National Farmers Union of Canada, May 11, 2007 
Straight to the Source  <http://www.nfu.ca/press.html> 

National Farmers Union of Canada
National Office 
2717 Wentz Ave. 
Saskatoon, Sask., S7K 4B6 
Canada
Tel (306) 652-9465 
Fax (306) 664-6226

SASKATOON, Sask.-Today, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
released its first projections of world grain supply and demand for the
coming crop year: 2007/08. USDA predicts supplies will plunge to a 53-day
equivalent-their lowest level in the 47-year period for which data exists.

"The USDA projects global grain supplies will drop to their lowest levels on
record. Further, it is likely that, outside of wartime, global grain
supplies have not been this low in a century, perhaps longer," said NFU
Director of Research Darrin  Qualman.

Most important, 2007/08 will mark the seventh year out of the past eight in
which global grain production has fallen short of demand. This consistent
shortfall has cut supplies in half-down from a 115-day supply in 1999/00 to
the current level of 53 days. "The world is consistently failing to produce
as much grain as it uses," said Qualman. He continued: "The current low
supply levels are not the result of a transient weather event or an isolated
production problem: low supplies are the result of a persistent drawdown
trend."

In addition to falling grain supplies, global fisheries are faltering.
Reports in respected journals Science and Nature state that 1/3 of ocean
fisheries are in collapse, 2/3 will be in collapse by 2025, and our ocean
fisheries may be virtually gone by 2048. "Aquatic food systems are
collapsing, and terrestrial food systems are under tremendous stress," said
Qualman.

Demand for food is rising rapidly. There is a worldwide push to proliferate
a North American-style meat-based diet based on intensive livestock
production-turning feedgrains into meat in this way means exchanging 3 to 7
kilos of grain protein for one kilo of meat protein. Population is
rising-2.5 billion people will join the global population in the coming
decades.

"Every six years, we're adding to the world the equivalent of a North
American population. We're trying to feed those extra people, feed a growing
livestock herd, and now, feed our cars, all from a static farmland base. No
one should be surprised that food production can't keep up," said Qualman.

Qualman said that the converging problems of natural gas and fertilizer
constraints, intensifying water shortages, climate change, farmland loss and
degradation, population increases, the proliferation of livestock feeding,
and an increasing push to divert food supplies  into biofuels means that we
are in the opening phase of an intensifying food shortage.

Qualman cautioned, however, that there are no easy fixes. "If we try to do
more of the same, if we try to produce, consume, and export more food while
using more fertilizer, water, and chemicals, we will only intensify our
problems. Instead, we need to rethink our relation to food, farmers,
production, processing, and distribution. We need to create a system focused
on feeding people and creating health. We need to strengthen the food
production systems around the world. Diversity, resilience, and
sustainability are key," concluded Qualman.

For More Information: Darrin Qualman, Director of Research: 652-9465 Stewart
Wells, NFU President: 773-6852

Backgrounder to the NFU's May 11, 2007 news release

The United States Department of Agriculture reports recent grain supply and
demand numbers on its World Agriculture Sup ply and Demand Estimates (WASDE)
website at http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/MannUsda/viewDocumentInfo...
<http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/MannUsda/viewDocumentInfo.do?documentID=119
4> 

The longer-term data on world grains supply and demand is at Production,
Supply, and Demand Online (PSD) at
http://www.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/psdhome.aspx 

----- Original Message ----- 

From: Marimike6 at cs.com 

To: kchisholm at ca.inter.net ; bioenergy at listserv.repp.org 

Sent: Monday, May 28, 2007 11:26 AM

Subject: Re: [Bioenergy] The price of corn

Kevin asks

"Given that the Ethanol Subsidy is ostensibly given to displace the need 
for imported oil energy, is there any way that a similar subsidy could 
be directed to other biomass sources that are used to displace 
importation of oil into the US?

"If the cost of the Corn/Ethanol Subsidy Program was divided by "the 
millions of BTU's of avoided oil imports", would it be possible for a 
similar subsidy to be given to other forms of Biomass that accomplished 
the same goal?"

If ALL subsidies were to be removed from all products, the world market
could achieve that "level playing field" the major players all pay so much
lip service to. Everyone who had some oil, or gasohol or equivalent fuel,
and wanted to make a buck from it, could just sell it on the open market.
Buyers could bid against one another in a classic "marketplace" situation
that established price.

But no one really wants that. What they want instead is to have the
government subsidise their extravagant lifestyles, while writing scholarly
articles about welfare and the fact that they think there is way too much
"socialism" in this country.

You have to remember the way we do things around here.

In an actual market, price would dictate availability and demand. All our
problems would solve themselves, including research into new fuels as the
prices dictated.

Michael 

  _____  

_______________________________________________
Bioenergy mailing list
Bioenergy at listserv.repp.org
http://listserv.repp.org/mailman/listinfo/bioenergy_listserv.repp.org

_______________________________________________

Bioenergy mailing list

Bioenergy at listserv.repp.org

http://listserv.repp.org/mailman/listinfo/bioenergy_listserv.repp.org