Brin: Random stuff from the blog

[Alberto Monteiro]

Brin blogged:
>
> The world's rush to embrace biofuels is causing a spike
> in the price of corn and other crops and could worsen
> water shortages and force poor communities off their land,
> according to a U.N. official. 

Ok, but this is not the consensus. What caused the spike in
the prices of vegetable food is the increase of income of
millions of chinese and indians. They got richer, they wanted
to eat less veggies and more meat, and the production of meat
takes about 7 times more vegetable than the production of
veggie food.

> But a biofuel startup in Illinois can make ethanol from
> just about anything organic for less than $1 per gallon,
> and it wouldn't interfere with food supplies... 

And if it becomes economically viable (a big if), then why
on Earth would the organic waste be priced at zero? Here
in Brazil, the price of animal fat was near zero, then
we started transesterifying it to make biodiesel. Guess what?
Now it's price is getting close to soybean oil.

Alberto Monteiro