Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

The word is out, ethanol is starting to drive up food prices and grain
prices for livestock feed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/16/national/16ethanol.html?ex=1295067600&en
=0c5651f9be1414dd&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss#articleBodyLink
and
http://www.peakoil.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=23900

The effect is even expected to be felt in Australia
http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/ethanol-to-fuel-record-corn-price/200
7/03/11/1173548021489.html

Ethanol Fuel from Corn Faulted as ‘Unsustainable Subsidized Food
Burning’
http://www.healthandenergy.com/ethanol.htm
David Pimental, a leading Cornell University agricultural expert, has
calculated that powering the average U.S. automobile for one year on
ethanol (blended with gasoline) derived from corn would require 11 acres of
farmland, the same space needed to grow a year's supply of food for seven
people. Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion
into ethanol, 131,000 BTUs are needed to make one gallon of ethanol. One
gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 BTUS. Thus, 70 percent
more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is
in it. Every time you make one gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy
loss of 54,000 BTUs.

Mr. Pimentel concluded that "abusing our precious croplands to grow corn
for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuels
amounts to unsustainable subsidized food burning".

Neither increases in government subsidies to corn-based ethanol fuel nor
hikes in the price of petroleum can overcome what Cornell University
agricultural scientist, David Pimentel, calls a fundamental input-yield
problem: It takes more energy to make ethanol from grain than the
combustion of ethanol produces.
-----------------------

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 3/11/2007 at 12:22 PM Mark Nagel wrote:

>I'm not looking to UP (or to "raise") the ante, but shouldn't it really
>be driven by moral obligation to feed people?  That is, shouldn't it be
>stated that we should strive to produce what would be the greatest value
>to others?
>
>It's picking nits, but the pure "profit" angle will, at least in the
>short-run (which may have substantial consequences of the long-run), drive
>farmers to produce biofuels :-(
>
>
>-Mark Nagel
>Everett, WA
>