[Gasification] BIOFUELS THREATEN

Mon Mar 10 11:44:36 CDT 2008

Benjamin,

Look to the source of the worry, people who only deal with food - of course 
they are going to complain when they can not give away food for free. 
They can never remember that food is never free.

Most of the time I never even see these folks supply creditable numbers, 
that back up their fear mongering - and when I do they rarely take into 
account that in many cases biomass for energy CAN come from sources that 
grow in area's that are inhospitable to farming.

The rest of the time, all they are looking at is modern conventional crops - 
wheat, corn, potatoes ect, with no regard for more unconventional crops like 
millet, amaranth, sorghum ect for human consumption.

Unconventional crops can also provide energy as well as food ( at least for 
animals that we can then eat ) -

Example:

Calliandra ( 
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/duke_energy/Calliandra_calothyrsus.html ) 
is an excellent example - it can provide forage for animals - In Indonesia, 
annual yields of 7-10 MT of dry fodder (22% crude protein) per ha have been 
recorded, and makes good to high quality charcoal ( 34% conversion in one 
test with a fuel value of about 7,200 kcal/kg ) and regeneration ability 
that is said to allow 14 tons of charcoal every year from 2.5 acres ( 1 
hectare ).

Cattails - can provide food and/or fuel depending on how it's used, and can 
do so from land unsuitable for any conventional crop.

Honey Locust - the pods on some trees can reach better than 30% simple 
sugars that can be used to make ethanol and wildlife relish them as food - 
yet enough light filters through, that other crops or pasture can be grown 
underneath.    Unfortunately little genetic selection has been done to 
improve sugar content or yields of individual trees.

These people can scream all they want, but in a nut shell, they have little 
to no idea what they are talking about, because they can't see beyond the 
corn stalks.

Greg H.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Benjamin Domingo Bof" <benjaminbof at yahoo.com.ar>
To: "Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification" 
<gasification at listserv.repp.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2008 13:39
Subject: [Gasification] BIOFUELS THREATEN

            From The Times

  March 7, 2008

  Rush for biofuels threatens starvation on a global scale
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By 2030 the world population will have increased to such an extent that a 50 
per cent increase in food production will be needed, it is claimed

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Lewis Smith and Francis Elliott

  The rush towards biofuels is theatening world food production and the 
lives of billions of people, the Government's Chief Scientific Adviser said 
yesterday.
  Professor John Beddington put himself at odds with ministers who have 
committed Britain to large increases in the use of biofuels over the coming 
decades. In his first important public speech since he was appointed, he 
described the potential impacts of food shortages as the "elephant in the 
room" and a problem which rivalled that of climate change.
  "It's very hard to imagine how we can see the world growing enough crops 
to produce renewable energy and at the same time meet the enormous demand 
for food," he told a conference on sustainability in London yesterday.
  "The supply of food really isn't keeping up."
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   Price rises feed through to shopping basket

   Is this the sign of things to come?

   Biofuels cannot save the planet

  By 2030, he said, the world population would have increased to such an 
extent that a 50 per cent increase in food production would be needed. By 
2080 it would need to double. But the rush to biofuels - allegedly 
environmentally friendly - meant that increasing amount of arable land had 
been given over to fuel rather than food.
  The world's population is forecast to increase from the six billion at the 
start of the millennium to nine billion by 2050. Already biofuels have 
contributed to the rapid rise in international wheat prices and Professor 
Beddington cautioned that it was likely to be only a matter of time before 
shoppers in the United Kingdom faced big price rises because of the soaring 
cost of feeding livestock.
  His comments come just a month after the Government welcomed a European 
Commission target requiring 10 per cent of all fuel sold in British service 
stations to be derived from plants within 12 years. Already biofuels attract 
a 20p per litre reduction in duty to encourage their uptake. Hilary Benn, 
the Environment Secretary, recently announced additional funding for biofuel 
research and farmers can claim subsidies to grow crops for energy.
  Last year President Bush called for a massive increase in the use of 
ethanol in America over the next decade. The US now devotes more acreage to 
growing corn than at any time since 1944. Farmers planted 90.5 million acres 
in 2007, 15 per cent more than a year before. If White House efforts to 
double ethanol production this year are achieved, and in due course 40 per 
cent of that corn ends up in petrol tanks, the world will face a harder and 
costlier time feeding itself.
  A spokesman for Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, insisted that the 
Government was well aware of the possible negative effects of biofuels. "We 
take this issue very seriously and we are not prepared to go beyond current 
target levels for biofuels until we are satisfied it can be done 
sustainably."
  Professor Beddington said that the prospect of food shortages over the 
next 20 years was so acute that politicians, scientists and farmers must 
begin to tackle it immediately.
  "Climate change is a real issue and is rightly being dealt with by major 
global investment," he said afterwards. "However, I am concerned there is 
another major issue along a similar time-scale, an elephant in the room - 
that of food and energy security. This is giving me and many of my 
scientific colleagues much concern."
  Population levels are growing so fast already that an extra six million 
people are born every month. Growing enough food for everyone was further 
challenged, he said, because of climate change, which was likely to lead to 
a shortage of water.
  Scientists say that intense dry spells will become more frequent over the 
next century. The supply of water will be put under further pressure because 
of the increased number of people who need it, not only to drink but to keep 
their crops alive. The production of a tonne of wheat, for example, requires 
50 tonnes of water.
  Because it was almost impossible to control the population increase in the 
short term, Professor Beddington told the conference, other measures would 
need to be taken. "Agriculture has been doing pretty well against the 
population size but things are changing now and they are changing quite 
dramatically," he said.
  "Don't we need to do something about food? Demand has grown enormously, 
particularly in China and India, where much of the driving force is 
increased demand. By 2030 energy demand is going to be up by 50 per cent and 
demand for food is going to be up by 50 per cent."
  The increase in demand has been reflected by the rapid rise in the prices 
of basic commodities, including wheat, over the past two years.
  Biofuels have been put forward as a means of reducing the greenhouse gas 
emissions pumped out by fossil fuels but recent studies have questioned 
their impact when all factors, such as the use of fertilisers on the crops, 
are taken into account. Critics have been angered by the loss of tropical 
rainforests, which have been cleared to allow farmers to grow biofuel crops.
  Deforestation has been calculated to account for about 18 per cent of 
world greenhouse gas emissions and Professor Beddington said that to destroy 
rainforests in order to grow biofuel crops was "insane". He added: "Some of 
the biofuels are hopeless, in the sense that the idea that you cut down 
rainforest to actually grow biofuels seems profoundly stupid." He said that 
human ingenuity was extraordinary and he was confident that food production 
could be boosted, including by growing genetically modified crops.
  Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Programme, told the 
European Parliament in Brussels yesterday: "The shift to biofuels production 
has diverted lands out of the food chain. Food prices such as palm oil in 
Africa are now set at fuel prices. It may be a bonanza for farmers - I hope 
it is true - but in the short term, the world's poorest are hit hard."

---------------------------------

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