The end of cheap food?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by David Floyd

Of course, the Catholic Church could also show some compassion, and end its opposition to birth control - not even abortion, just basic birth control like condoms. I'm not holding my breath, though.

It's not just Catholics. Most Imams also preach not using birth control so they can out breed the nonMuslims. It's the same crap as the Catholics.

[Kidlicious]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The end of cheap food?

Originally posted by Oerdin


Bio fuels can be done smartly. Brazil is an excellent example since it went from a big importer of oil to a net exporter of oil based upon bio fuels. Brazil is very luck though because it has large tracks of land in the tropics ideal for growing sugar cane; which is one of the only bio fuels which produces more fuel then it consumes. Making ethanol out of grains or bio diesel out of vegetable oil almost always uses more oil (in the form of oil based fertilizers and pesticides) then it off sets. It consumes more oil then it saves. Sugar cane actually makes more fuel then it consumes ergo it is good and the others are a waste of time.

E85 works for Brazil and could work most other places though we'd have to give up the protectionism and allow imports of sugar or even *gasp* finished ethanol instead of trying to do everything domestically at a net lose.

It's still going to cause higher food prices though.

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I want to be a not farmer. That way I can get paid by the government to not farm.

Have you any idea how hard it is to grow nots?

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Fish and poultry are subsitute goods. Does that mean you believe that more farm land has been used because of farm subsidies?

edit: not that i think fish subsidies lower the price of fish

Let me rephrase, what has that to do with the price of tea in China?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_of_tea_in_China

[Patroklos]

Switching to sugar cane would solve the price problem for corn and would be a more efficient to make ethanol out of.

Sugar beats are better. Greater yeild than corn and you can grow them pretty much anywhere, or in other words we can avoid slashing and burning more rainforest.

[Dinner]

If they're more efficent then sugar cane then how come sugar beet farming virtually died out in Europe once the EU cut the subsidy? Still, it would have to be better then corn. That's the dumbest way to make ethanol.

[Patroklos]

If they're more efficent then sugar cane then how come sugar beet farming virtually died out in Europe once the EU cut the subsidy? Still, it would have to be better then corn. That's the dumbest way to make ethanol.

I didn't say it was more efficient that sugarcane, I said it was more efficient than corn. The benefit of sugar beats is that it won't encourage further deforestation, which is exaclty how Brazil generated enough sugarcane to pull off its "miracle."

I am willing to sacrifice a little efficiency to avoid another ecological disaster (or mitigate it a bit since it is already a disaster).

But I think we are in agreement that whatever is done moving away from corn is required

[Dinner]

True, true.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Dauphin


Let me rephrase, what has that to do with the price of tea in China?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_of_tea_in_China

Farming takes time. That's why prices can fluctuate wildly for agricultural goods. If the subsidies encouraged more land to be used for farming in the recent past then prices would be higher today without subsidies.

[Dauphin]

Prices would be higher without subsidies? My god that's genius!!!

I say again, what has that to do with my point that subsidies cost more (to taxpayers) than they save (for consumers).

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Farming takes time. That's why prices can fluctuate wildly for agricultural goods. If the subsidies encouraged more land to be used for farming in the recent past then prices would be higher today without subsidies.

Good luck making that argument. Subsidies raise prices, not lower them, in the short term, and any long-term effect they have in one area is offset with a reverse change in another area; further, removing the subsidy would nearly instantly remove the long-term effect (within a few years). It's not hard to switch from one product to another...

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Subsidies raise prices

subsidy

In economics, a subsidy is a form of financial assistance paid, usually by the government, to keep prices below what they would be in a free market, or to keep alive businesses that would otherwise go bust, or to encourage activities that would otherwise not take place.[1]

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Dauphin
Prices would be higher without subsidies? My god that's genius!!!

I say again, what has that to do with my point that subsidies cost more (to taxpayers) than they save (for consumers).

You seem to either be in the wrong thread or arguing with an imaginary person.

[snoopy369]

I'm sorry, I meant the sort of subsidies I thought we were discussing (and I probably should have read further up). The subsidies I'm talking about are the 'burn crop' subsidies the US uses to keep prices for certain key goods (mostly grains, iirc) higher.

[The Mad Monk]

I read about this in the March 2008 issue of Scientific American.

Biofuels from Switchgrass: Greener Energy Pastures

Click here to download or view this brochure in PDF format (191 k)

The grass stretched as far as the eye could see, and hundreds more miles beyond that. An ocean of grass—deep enough to swallow a horse and rider—swaying and singing in the steady wind of the Great Plains. § The American prairie—tens of millions of acres— once looked like this. But that was centuries ago, before the coming of the white man, the railroad, and the steel plow. Today, corn and beans hold sway, and the remnants of America's tallgrass prairie are confined mostly to parks and preserves. § Now, though, in research plots and laboratories in the Plains states and even in the Deep South the seeds of change are germinating. The tall, native grasses of the prairie, so vital to our land's ecological past, may prove equally vital to its economic future. Such grasses once fed millions of bison. Soon, grown as energy crops, they may help fuel millions of cars and trucks, spin power turbines, and supply chemicals to American industries.
Switchgrass Test plots of switchgrass at Auburn University have produced up to 15 tons of dry biomass per acre, and five- year yields average 11.5 tons—enough to make 1,150 gallons of ethanol per acre each year.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) believes that biofuels—made from crops of native grasses, such as fast- growing switchgrass—could reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil, curb emissions of the "greenhouse gas" carbon dioxide, and strengthen America's farm economy. The Biofuels Feedstock Development Program (BFDP) at DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), has assembled a team of scientists ranging from economists and energy analysts to plant physiologists and geneticists to lay the groundwork for this new source of renewable energy. Included are researchers at universities, other national laboratories, and agricultural research stations around the nation. Their goal, according to ORNL physiologist Sandy McLaughlin, who leads the switchgrass research effort, is nothing short of building the foundation for a biofuels industry that will make and market ethanol and other biofuels from switchgrass and at prices competitive with fossil fuels such as gasoline and diesel.
Not the grass in your backyard

First, a distinction: switchgrass and your suburban lawn grasses—bluegrass and zoysia grass— are about as similar as a shopping-mall ficus and an old-growth redwood. Switchgrass is big and it's tough—after a good growing season, it can stand 10 feet high, with stems as thick and strong as hardwood pencils.

But what makes switchgrass bad for barefoot lawns makes it ideal for energy crops: It grows fast, capturing lots of solar energy and turning it into lots of chemical energy— cellulose—that can be liquified, gasified, or burned directly. It also reaches deep into the soil for water, and uses the water it finds very efficiently.

And because it spent millions of years evolving to thrive in climates and growing conditions spanning much of the nation, switchgrass is remarkably adaptable.

Now, to make switchgrass even more promising, researchers across the country are working to boost switchgrass hardiness and yields, adapt varieties to a wide range of growing conditions, and reduce the need for nitrogen and other chemical fertilizers. By "fingerprinting" the DNA and physiological characteristics of numerous varieties, the researchers are steadily identifying and breeding varieties of switchgrass that show great promise for the future.
Baler Bales and trees

Switchgrass can be cut and baled with standard farming equipment.
Yield of dreams

In the hard, shallow soil of southern Alabama, Dave Bransby is turning cotton fields into swatches of grassland. Some Alabama farmers joke that there's no soil in Alabama to farm—two centuries of King Cotton and steady erosion haven't left much behind. Yet Bransby, a forage scientist at Auburn University, has found a crop that thrives there: Among the 19 research sites in the Eastern and Central United States raising switchgrass for the BFDP studies, Bransby's site holds the one-year record at 15 tons per acre. Those are dry tons weighed after all the moisture's been baked out. Convert that into ethanol, an alcohol that can fuel vehicles, and it equals about 1,500 gallons per acre. Bransby's 6-year average, 11.5 tons a year, translates into about 11,500 gallons of ethanol per acre. An added bonus is the electricity that can be produced from the leftover portions of the crop that won't convert to ethanol.
Men in field of switchgrass Many farmers are already experienced at raising switchgrass for forage or to protect soil from erosion. Besides showing great promise for energy production, switchgrass also restores vital organic nutrients to farmed-out soils.

Many farmers already grow switchgrass, either as forage for livestock or as a ground cover, to control erosion. Cultivating switchgrass as an energy crop instead would require only minor changes in how it's managed and when it's harvested. Switchgrass can be cut and baled with conventional mowers and balers. And it's a hardy, adaptable perennial, so once it's established in a field, it can be harvested as a cash crop, either annually or semiannually, for 10 years or more before replanting is needed. And because it has multiple uses—as an ethanol feedstock, as forage, as ground cover—a farmer who plants switchgrass can be confident knowing that a switchgrass crop will be put to good use.

Farmers working in production mode might not match Bransby's carefully tended research plots, but if the future brings rises in oil prices—or if environmental taxes are eventually imposed on fossil fuels—energy from switchgrass could prove economically competitive with petroleum and coal, making biomass crops attractive to American farmers. And with recent advances in the technology of gasification, switchgrass could yield a variety of useful fuels—synthetic gasoline and diesel fuel, methanol, methane gas, even hydrogen—as well as chemical by-products useful for making fertilizers, solvents, and plastics.
Strong environmental roots

Annual cultivation of many agricultural crops depletes the soil's organic matter, steadily reducing fertility. But switchgrass adds organic matter—the plants extend nearly as far below ground as above. And with its network of stems and roots, switchgrass holds onto soil even in winter to prevent erosion.

Besides helping slow runoff and anchor soil, switchgrass can also filter runoff from fields planted with traditional row crops. Buffer strips of switchgrass, planted along streambanks and around wetlands, could remove soil particles, pesticides, and fertilizer residues from surface water before it reaches groundwater or streams—and could also provide energy.

And because switchgrass removes carbon dioxide (CO2 ) from the air as it grows, it has the potential to slow the buildup of this greenhouse gas in Earth's atmosphere. Unlike fossil fuels, which simply release more and more of the CO2 that's been in geologic storage for millions of years, energy crops of switchgrass "recycle" CO2 over and over again, with each year's cycle of growth and use.
The road ahead

One reason BFDP researchers are confident that switchgrass can become an important feedstock for ethanol production is the groundwork that's already been laid by corn growers. U.S. ethanol production from corn currently totals nearly 2 billion gallons a year. Some of this ethanol is blended with gasoline to make gasohol; some is further refined to make gasoline octane boosters; and some is burned, either in pure ("neat") form or mixed with a small percentage of gasoline, in fleets of research and demonstration vehicles.

Looking down the road, McLaughlin believes switchgrass offers important advantages as an energy crop. "Producing ethanol from corn requires almost as much energy to produce as it yields," he explains, "while ethanol from switchgrass can produce about five times more energy than you put in. When you factor in the energy required to make tractors, transport farm equipment, plant and harvest, and so on, the net energy output of switchgrass is about 20 times better than corn's." Switchgrass also does a far better job of protecting soil, virtually eliminating erosion. And it removes considerably more CO2 from the air, packing it away in soils and roots.
Bird in switchgrass Switchgrass offers excellent habitat for a wide variety of birds and small mammals.
Back to the future

At the turn of the last century, America's transportation system was fueled by biomass: 30 million horses and mules, give or take a few million, pulled buggies, hauled wagons, dragged plows. According to Ken Vogel, a U.S. Department of Agriculture forage geneticist helping develop and test switchgrass for the BFDP, replacing animal power with machine power freed up 80 million acres of U.S. land—land that had been used to grow grass and other feed for these millions of animals. Now, at the dawn of the next century, the wheel could begin to turn full circle. On millions of acres of farm land not needed for food crops, fast-growing energy crops of switchgrass—harvested and converted efficiently to clean-burning, affordable ethanol, methanol, or diesel—could once again supply vast amounts of horsepower.

In short, biomass could bring back a 21st-century version of the prairie. And along with the prairie, it could bring a new crop to America's farms, a boost to U.S. energy independence, and brighter prospects for a clean, sustainable future. According to BFDP and its research partners across the country, that's a future worth cultivating.
For more information, contact:
Bioenergy Feedstock Development Program

Oak Ridge National Laboratory
P.O. Box 2008
Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6422
865-576-8143 (fax) DOE logoProduced for DOE's Office of Transportation Technologies and the Office of Power Technologies within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/misc/switgrs.html