[Greenbuilding] bio fuels and ethanol

[Tim Vireo Keating]

Thanks, Dan.

One more thing: biofuels like biodiesel and ethanol are driving 
deforestation in Malaysia and Brazil, respectively.

tim keating

At 10:57 AM -0400 4/8/07, YankeePerm at aol.com wrote:
>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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