[FRIAM] My biggest complaint about ethanol as automobile fuel

[Bill Eldridge]

Malthus sighting reported, airport lounge, talking to Elvis.

1) Food shortages currently have much more to do with barriers to
transportation, including wars and corrupt governments, as well as
breakdowns of markets - inability to trade profitably for various
reasons.

2) Land availability isn't really a problem - efficiency in agriculture, 
including
genetically modified plants improves crop yield and sustainability,
while there are still vast areas of land open to cultivation. Water supply
is a more pressing problem, however, as is the oil required to take care
of growing these plants. Where the race is for improving land and desert
reclamation, water desalinization, faster growing crops, ocean-based
crops, etc. I would guess that we'll manage the race on this front,
aside from the oil issue.

3) As a vegetarian, I can complain that all these crops go to feed a cow as
the "middle man" on the way to a steak dinner - as inefficient as 
growing crops
for a tank of gas. However, we have to be a little historic - nature was
converting crops and biomatter into oil for millions of years just for our
spoiled little selves to exhaust, so just because we now get to see the 
process
accelerated doesn't make it less moral. After all, a number of now extinct
dinosaurs could have used those veggie burgers if they hadn't been 
turned into our oil.

4) While I'm not impressed with ethanol as a fuel replacement, it does 2 
important
things. First, it focuses us on vastly improving agricultural 
efficiency, which means
as a side-effect we're liable to get some cheaper foods where cost of 
food really
is a problem (okay, it also exacerbates water problems. Sigh). Secondly, 
it's at least
a step towards getting us away from the oil-only paradigm, and hopefully 
that means
other steps will follow. This includes moving past the Middle 
East-dominated energy
cartel as a political issue, as well as opening up the positive 
Pandora's Box of once you
start taking alternative fuels as serious, economically sound options, 
versus the ridiculous
naysaying of the 2000 election, then there's less market resistance to 
actually deploying
these solutions.

So I guess I feel at this point that any movement is better than none, 
and that it's peripheral
to the starvation issue despite seeming closely related.

Cheers,
Bill



Douglas Roberts wrote:
> At some point in time it will be possible to divide all the the bodies 
> in the world by all the food in the world, and discover that there is 
> not enough to go around, political boundaries notwithstanding.  I 
> don't know when that particular point in time will arrive, but I am 
> convinced that in the absence a large population die-off (as compared 
> to the current exponential global population growth that we are 
> witnessing), arriving sooner or later at that point in time is a 
> certainty.
>
> Given that, trading off a full year's worth of food for one person for 
> a f*cking tank of gas galls me.
>
> --Doug
>
> On 8/16/06, *Martin C. Martin* <martin at martincmartin.com 
> <mailto:martin at martincmartin.com>> wrote:
>
>     Aren't the main causes of hunger political rather than supply or
>     technological?  I think we have the technology and resources to
>     feed the
>     world population many times over.  The poorest countries seem to
>     be run
>     by despots that use food as a weapon.  Although, I'm not sure how
>     tightening supply and creating new markets would help/hurt things.
>
>     - Martin
>
>     Douglas Roberts wrote:
>     > It is nicely described here:
>     >
>     >
>     http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/08/21/8383659/index.htm
>     >
>     > --Doug
>     >
>     > --
>     > Doug Roberts, RTI International
>     > droberts at rti.org <mailto:droberts at rti.org>
>     <mailto:droberts at rti.org <mailto:droberts at rti.org>>
>     > doug at parrot-farm.net <mailto:doug at parrot-farm.net>
>     <mailto:doug at parrot-farm.net <mailto:doug at parrot-farm.net>>
>     > 505-455-7333 - Office
>     > 505-670-8195 - Cell
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     >
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>     FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>     Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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>
>
>
> -- 
> Doug Roberts, RTI International
> droberts at rti.org <mailto:droberts at rti.org>
> doug at parrot-farm.net <mailto:doug at parrot-farm.net>
> 505-455-7333 - Office
> 505-670-8195 - Cell
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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