Brin: Random stuff from the blog

[jon louis mann]

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. 

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

biofuel from organic waste doesn't raise food costs, but  using land
for corn, switchgrass, hemp, or sugar cane, to make ethanol, does take
land away from being used for pasture, or growing food crops.   i
understand a lot of rain forest is being burned in brazil for that, and
other reasons?

i think the consensus is that upward mobility (in formerly third world
countries) and biofuel production, along with war, population growth
and other factors, all contribute to increasing starvation in fourth
world countries.
in the same way, pollution, carbon emissions and other factors, along
with natural causes (volcanos, axial tilt, orbital wobble, termites,
etc.) all contribute to climate change.
jon mann



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