Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

If you want to debate the merits of ethanol versus other fuels, it belongs
on some other list. 

paul, tradingpost@riseup.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 7/3/2006 at 12:41 PM Greg and April wrote:

>Interspaced.
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Mark Nagel" <activism98201@verizon.net>
>To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" 
><livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
>Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2006 13:34
>Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] My [unpublished] op-ed piece on ethanol
>
>
>> Well, I guess we'll just have to disagree.
>>
>> Your discussion centers around mass production.  While mass production
>is 
>> efficient, it is so at the expense of needing to promote growth.
>>
>> None of this is sustainable in a growth environment.  And seeing that
>the 
>> economic system that maintains these methods of production rely on
>growth 
>> in order to operate, it's not a workable system long-term.
>
>
>
>***************
>
>While there is something to be said about economy of scale, there is
>nothing 
>that says that it has to be big, even then there is a cap as to how big
>you 
>can get without causing more problems than you solve, in distrubution, 
>bringing in raw materials and the like.    There is nothing that says you 
>have to continue to grow, in order to thrive.
>
>
>****************
>
>
>>
>> Ethanol production (especially from corn) is going to ramp up big time. 
>> And it's not because it's a good idea, but rather because of the
>existing 
>> lobby groups.
>
>****************
>
>I disagree.    Lobbiest groups have been trying to promote ethanol ( from 
>corn and other sources ) as a fuel since the 1970's.    It's only now that

>people becoming more concerned with global warming and forigen oil issues,

>that it is being accepted, because it is a good idea, compared to the 
>alternatives.
>
>People argue that electric cars are cleaner, but, what is the price of 
>electricity?    Dirty air and contaminated soil from coal?    Currently 
>approved nuclear reactors still carry an extreamly high long term cost. 
>There is only going to be so much hydro power, the wind and sun don't work

>24 / 7 / 365 in most places.    Hydrogen is and always will be, a pipe 
>dream, from problems in current technology.
>
>There will always be a need to move things from where it is to where it 
>isn't, and a reasionaby energy dense fuel will be a part of it.
>
>*******************
>
>>
>> As to your statement "Properly processed, remaining solids could even 
>> provide direct nutrition for human consumption," there's that magic
>word- 
>> "processed."  At what cost is this production?  How much energy are we 
>> going to pump into this?
>>
>
>****************
>
>As far as processed, it could be as simple as drying the distilled solids,

>with the waste heat from the distilery.    Why do you think that primary 
>energy needs be used?    Secondary energy or waste energy would do just 
>fine.
>
>****************
>
>
>> Just because something can be done doesn't mean that it should.
>
>
>****************
>
>Funny, people say the same exact thing about what we call sustainable 
>farming.    Yet we know that that isn't true is it?
>
>You would have us believe that sinse you believe that it can't be done, 
>people don't even try to do it.
>
>Why not find ways of making it work, instead of just saying it can't be 
>done.
>
>If I believed what people have been saying about raising rabbits, I would 
>have given up last year.    I didn't.    I ignoring what people
>conventional 
>wisdom, and started putting rabbits all in one large pen, rather than in 
>individual cages, and now I have had my first sucessful litters.
>
>I spent two years trying to breed rabbits, and didn't get anywhere untill
>I 
>ignored conventional wisdom, and did it differently.
>
>I was told the same thing that you said, "Just because you can do it, 
>doesn't mean that you should do it", when I asked a couple of people about

>colony breeding of rabbits, and told them that I didn't have problems with

>the rabbits fighting.
>
>
>You know what?
>Just because you think something will not work, doen't mean it will not or

>can not work if the problem is approched differently.
>
>
>By saying " it can't be done ", people build the foundation of a prision, 
>than limits them in all they do.
>
>
>Now start telling me how ethanol can be a sustainable fuel - think outside

>the prision of "it can't be done".
>
>Greg H. 
>
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