[Greenbuilding] bio fuels and ethanol

[YankeePerm at aol.com]

I have some problems with schemes for large scale production of biofuels.   
     •   Increased use of grains to produce liquid fuels in the US has raised 
world food prices.   (See the latest Rachel newsletter.)   So in order to 
drive to the grocery store every time we want some food item, so we don't have to 
plan and don't have to convert our lawns to gardens with rabbit hutches 
around the perimeter, is causing some people to starve to death because they can no 
longer afford food.   (OK, people rarely starve to death because some disease 
takes them out in their weakened condition.   It is nature's way of getting 
the week out from consuming anything and back into the food chain.)

•   Growing switch grass for fuel because it is a nonfood item is idiotically 
self-delusional.   Food production is displaced.

•   There is a role for biofuels as in spent cooking oils, methane production 
(natural gas) from agricultural wastes, particularly manures, and on-farm as 
efficient ways to utilize crop surpluses (though livestock may be a better 
option.)*

*   Instead of specialty farms that produce only grain or only meat, mixed 
farming would allow surpluses to be converted to meat in a more dispersed 
manner, providing on-farm utilization of the manure, especially if applied after a 
trip through the methane digester, averting the pollution problems of highly 
concentrated meat production and reducing the fertilizer demands of grain and 
produce farming.   Pigs, because of their quick maturity to slaughter age, are 
ideal for mixed farming as the population can be rapidly adjusted up or down 
depending on the amount of surplus.   Pigs can also be utilized in weed and pest 
control by pasturing them on post-harvest fields.   Increased use of yearling 
calves for meat would also enable rapid adaptation, as would various 
approaches to poultry.   Remember, nitrogen fertilizer utilizes about 40 percent of 
the US natural gas supply, so any closed cycling we can achieve on-farm 
eliminates both this energy cost and the associated transport energy.   

While waste reduction should be a first goal, a close second should be 
conversion of 'waste' to energy resource through any of a number of processes.   

We just have to buck up to the fact that we can't continue to enjoy (and a 
frenzied enjoyment it is) the sort of lifestyles we have in the US and Canada 
without killing people elsewhere.   We might as well put guns to their heads.   
We have to become more individually self-reliant and more community 
self-reliant, utilize all sorts of odds and ends of resource that may be available, and 
recognize broad 'solutions' for the hoaxes that they are.

For Mother Earth



Dan Hemenway



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