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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Bring On the Biofuels

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  • From: Marimike6@cs.com
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Bring On the Biofuels
  • Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:37:57 EDT

Interesting article, Harmon. I think the author is doing some very careful
flag-waving, though.

He likes sugar cane over corn, maintaining that cane doesn't displace
anything of value even when grown on a massive scale. As a matter of fact,
palm oil
is a far better fuel crop than any of the other twenty or so species people
have examined, from the standpoint of calories available per acre. It's way
ahead
of everything else as an efficient converter of land area to fuel.

As a result, tropical forest cover across the globe is being cleared as fast
as can be accomplished, to start fresh plantations. It's a very lucrative
business, and one that is desperately needed by the world's fuel customers.
So
long as there are more people, and more of them have money in their pockets,
the
need for more palm oil is inexorable.

What we don't particularly need, from an economic viewpoint, is orangutans.
Or chimpanzees. The tropical forests are over-- that writing's on the wall
already. They contribute nothing directly to our economic well being, and are
as
of 2008 still a not quite fully exploited economic resource.

If you accept this logic, by all means, yes, let's bring on the biofuels.




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