Power or Food?

During the last four decades many of farmer have lost their land to the bank. It just didn't pay to farm. No one wants to pay absorbent prices for anything. I would like to believe that the farmer is making out better because of the high prices of food stuffs but seriously doubt it. I thing the farmers mind would be spinning if he could set his own price on his grain as the crude oil companys have done.

The high prices are due to shipping and speculation on grain futures. The rising cost of fuel to get it to the consumer is what has caused the price of food stuffs to soar not the use of it for biofuels. It is only because of the high price of crude that Biodiesel is being considered. At this time because of the cost of manufacturing biodeisel at lower crude level prices biodeisel would not be profitable.

So, what's so new about biofuels? Once upon a time, the measure of a horse was the relationship between the amount of oats one could put in and the amount of work that comes out.

The oil producers (Companies) do not set their own prices. The closest they get to this is regulating supply to as closely match demand as possible.

The grain farmers have similar interests. When congress got it's way and forced the increased production of ethenol on us, grain prices had nowhere but up to go. This is because more acers were put into corn to attempt to meet the increased demand to produce ethenol. Those extra acers had to come from somewhere. They came from shifting planted acerage from soybeans and wheat to corn. This in turn caused a shortage of wheat and beans which in turn caused their prices to also increase.

Corn (as well as wheat and soy) is used to feed livestock - especially when live cattle are sold to the feeder lots to be fattened up (then they become feeder cattle). Higher corn, wheat and bean costs mean higher costs to fatten the cattle which means higher beef (and hog) prices.

At the moment there is a glut of cattle on the market because demand for cattle is going down because people are watching their wallets and buying less. As a result the cost of cattle (live and feeders) is starting to go down a bit now.

Yesterday corn and bean prices (as well as coco and coffee) fell dramatically because of lower than anticipated losses due to the mid west flooding.

Fortunatly the congress has realized that ethynol from corn is NOT the panecea they made us believe and are beginning to back off of the mandates to produce ethynol. If they continue to understand that ethynol is not the answer, in another planting and growing cycle or two from now grain prices should come back down.

So you see, neither the farmer or the oil companies "set their own prices". They are both subject to the same forces of supply and demand. The only difference is the supply of oil is more dynamically controlled than it is for the grains and softs.

The question and answer that goes with it is not food for fuel, or fuel for food. The question is how to increase food production and how to increase energy production. The way to increase energy production is to open eyes and use more coal and nuclear and eat food - not try to drive it.

Travis

At this point maybe it would be a choice, but as the technology is developed one could have both.

Check out this link.

http://foodproductiondaily.com/news/ng.asp?id=85971

phoenix911

Well.It's very interesting article. I think they put their hand on the mid-point. I wish to have a good solution for this problem as i think after petroleum products vanishing it may make this technology stop.

mid point is correct, and it doesn't really announce a solution, there is only so much value in plant material, where there is still a choice that has to be made.

but utilizing every thing of value

lt's a very simple choice, Cellulose is for power, starch and sugar are for food. Keep them balanced in a food/fuel/fallow cropping cycle and the problem takes care of itself. The plant nutrients left in the cellulose processing are returned to the soil for food production fertilizers, offsetting that cost factor. And the unreacted lignin is burned to eliminate the need for coal or natural gas in the processing. There are several tropical grasses that will yield 5,000 gallons of ethanol per acre per year, and some of them will adapt fairly far North.

Please share the names of the top three tropical grasses. I find that production hard to believe. Any references would be appreciated. Tropical sorghum is the only one I know of.

You can have both, but not by using biofuels like rape seed oil, etc that replace existing valuable (and already in short supply) food stocks such as wheat. Anyone who wants a good visual display of what I mean need only hop in a plane and fly over England and Europe (I have a lot of pictures, specifically London and Germany) and look down. Every other field is yellow, you cannot miss it. I think the average person is so blind to the disastrous situation that is looming that they will only realise there is a problem when they get charged 50 pounds for a pint from their local.

<cringe>

Well I haven't seen the real answer here yet!

Population reduction. There is NO other way no matter how much wishful thinking you engage in!

This planet has too many people for sustaining its life support capacity.

Therefore you have 2 choices-

1- Have fewer children.

2- Watch your children die through famine, disease or war.

If you cannot see this then either-

1- Your brain has been disconnected through some sort of conditioning.

or-

2- You are masquerading as a human being.

As someone has very wisely said in pre fossil fuel economies animal power used food that could otherwise feed people. From memory a horse in Japan used as much food as 5 men. So cavalry was very limited.

Just today I heard that the biggest increase in fuel demand is in China and India. That I think just proves my case.

OK, I nominate you as the first candidate for extinction.

Well I am an old timer now. Already I have made arrangements that I not be kept alive unnecessarily when my quality of life is shot! We have no desire to live long enough to become useless mouths. My wife and I had 2 children. I wonder if Guest has done the same?

Most religions seem terribly afraid of Death, perhaps it is the level of guilt they encourage in their adherents.

Don't ask me about an afterlife, I don't know , but I'll find out quite soon enough, and so will religious types.

The ideal one would be another try when you remember some of the lessons you had learned in previous lives, I'm a lousy harpist, and I prefer cooler climates!
Our Hell in Asatru is a very cold place so I'll probably be OK one way or another.

The atheist was arguing with the Christian and challenged the Christian to scientifically, objectively prove that God exists. The Christian said he couldn't and challenged the atheist to scientifically, objectively prove that God does not exist. The atheist could not do that, so the Christian said that obviously belief and disbelief were matters of faith, which made atheism a religion which denies God.

So the Christian asked the atheist what would happen to him after he died. The atheist said he would just cease to exist. The Christian said he believed he would join God in Heaven and that the atheist, having heard the Word and rejected it, would go to Hell to burn for eternity. The atheist laughed. Then the Christian said, "If you are right and there is nothing after death we will both just be gone, but if I am right your punishment is sure. It is like picking a revolver that you believe is not loaded and I say it is loaded, putting it to your knee and pulling the trigger. If you are right nothing happens, if I am right you suffer agonizing pain for a long time. Which is less risky behavior, to disbelieve and suffer or to take the chance that I am telling the truth and believe in God? Your way gets you nothing, my way has a reward and if I am wrong it doesn't matter anyway."

The atheist countered that he had done so many things that the Christians said were sins, even though he tried to be a good person, that if there was a God, the guilt of his sins would cast him into Hell anyway, so he'd take his rational chances. So the Christian said, "God loves you and Jesus died for your sins. All you have to do is confess your sins and believe that Christ's sacrifice washed your sins away and stop doing those sins. Then you are forgiven by the Grace of God."

Who's an Atheist? I'm not actually, I'm Asatru.

But I guess that a Xtian from the old CSA wouldn't know what that was anyway.

<> My big objection to Xtians is that too often they KNOW that they are right, in that they just blindly obey their current guru or preacher.
They also have a great weakness vs other religions of a "divine" founder, who nice guy though he was has a divinity that is getting shakier by the year.
I'm pretty certain that God exists, the only problem for you guys is that "it" doesn't really care about the details.

That's what the "laws" of the universe are for.

So, no heaven, but probably Hell on Earth if you ignore the rules. These aren't all in the Bible they are simply how things work. You don't like it? Tough!

Big Daddy God isn't going to suddenly and miraculously make it better.

If you breed beyond your capacity, in the end you watch your children die. In the end that's the rule, like it or not.

I believe the way I do and you believe the way you do. I will defend your right to believe in your old Viking gods if you want, but I can always try to persuade you differently. By the way your spelling of Christian is insulting and offensive, but I won't come after you with a sword, I will only use the love of God. LOL

You are speaking the truth that almost no one is willing to contemplate. It is simple really. We land on a desert island with a boat of men and women. How many people can we accomodate before someone says we have to consciously control our population.

If humans want to rise above the rest of the animal kingdom, we must use the technology that we have developed to plan our population. Mother nature doesnt care how many people die of starvation.

we need to no longer make excuses for war, we found one here.

This is what our neo-conservative corporatist masters are on aboutThere is nothing wrong with a planet of six-point-five billion people that getting rid of six billion of them wouldn't fix--it's just that the warsand such don't clear the excess population fast enough...

What is needed is something to promote suicideamong the middle class...

incite religious warfare

and control access to information

Unless your first name is Hypo perhaps you would volunteer for "Population reduction". Perhaps you are one of the "too many people" and perhaps "You are masquerading as a human being".

There needs to be some varieties of plants, perhaps even genetically engineered, that are used solely for making fuels and that also will grow in marginal soil. Sorghum is an excellent choice, but I'll bet the government won't subsidize that like they do corn.

Hi TAGANAN!

Human population will never be reduced, except when we have a nuclear war, which is the constant menace to us but will probably never happen. We know that will kill the initiators to.

Also, we are very smart, not very often but still able to improve everything around us and this will be the same when we have no more fossile fuel. We will be able to produce our energy needs with genetically modified plants or other organic materials which is not available today. We have to remember that all humens follow the path of least resistance but when there is not other solution, we accept to do what is necessary to get out of trouble. All wars, and most significantly the last two, WW1 and WW2, produced miracles in science, medicine, biology, psychology, and other science directed industries. We have jet engines, we have plastics, we have emulsions of water insoluble resins, we liberated Fleming and use extensibly his innovation, pennicilline and other anti-biotics, marketing and other social and psychological advancement get most of valuables and less important things in the hands of people. Money direct people!

We, all the time, get what we need. For sure, never supplied all those things to everyone, we don't want to eliminate jalousy, greed, and other life enjoyments.

Developing your influence (on others), identify and know who is out there and what they are doing, and produce and deliver what they want. POS or "point of sale" came out after WW2 and became important in the 50s. This was, is, and will be the motto of progress, Gil.

The answer is to produce more of both. The problem involves several factors:

1. Are you looking for nutrition, or traditional food, regardless of healthfulness?

2. Are you willing to go vegetarian, or at least reduce flesh consumption.

3. Prime agricultural soil should be used for growing food.

4. Subprime soil should be used for grassland and forestry. The grassland can be used for cellulosic ethanol, as can trees.

5. Poor soil should be used for windmills, solar power, algae production, industry, housing, etc.

6. Coastal areas should be used for aquaculture, wind and tide power, etc.

7. Some marshes could be used for growing salt water reeds, and harvesting it. Same with mangrove swamps. Parts of the everglades should be harvested also.

Soil science must be used to maintain and improve all soils. Especially where harvesting is intense. Soil is very precious. We are contaminating it, and sending millions of tons into the Gulf of Mexico yearly. We are creating dead zones in areas. Over use of nitrogen is the largest contaminant. There is no shortage of land in North America. There is a terrible shortage of wisdom in using and preserving it.

Sorry ronwagn! You make many good points but the problem is they are "surface answers" and don't face the reality of the situation. Recently I read an article by a NZ economist who had travelled through Africa by motorbike.

In Tanzania (if I remember correctly) he came across villages which he had helped through aid several years ago to improve their water supply. After those years the villages were still short of water. With clean water and less disease the population had increased from ~ 4 children per family to 8. That is exactly what your well intentioned plans would create on a Global scale.

Hi CRITE40!

You get the point! See human history. Chinese, around 100 years ago were definitely and completely un-educated. Mao Ze Tung has the idea to populate China and create a powerhouse after WW2 in the confusion. He succeeded, and today China is a powerhouse economicly and militarly (forget the last because China never unvaded any country during their history). However, the big difference between China and, let say Africa, the level of education of this excessive people. Chineses are well educated and African put the accent on differences (religious and regional) and domination of their people by army and guns. Chinese put people to work and told them if they perform they will get something and they got it. North of Africa is the same. After the end of the colonization, the new governments get richer and richer by pressing people to respect differences. Young and old people have different view of the world, differently educated or not educated at all. These ideological leading people conducted nations to become poor, and by telling them to go against other nations and attack them because they are richer.

Same things happen in Canada. We have aborigens with Kalatchnikovs and barricading highways to get what they forgot and claming lands and other properties which never were theirs. They were here before but before them other people were here without asking the ownership of something. They are not educated, they just ask and cost us billions to working Canadians. The best example is, actually Fantino, chief of the police is attacked by the media to be too rough with armed and barricading people. If the actual chief of police need to resign, the future chief will never protect Canadians from terrorist or other who attacks the Canadian standard of living established by hard working Canadians. England is the paradise of people who can do everything they want without respecting the established rules. Canada became the same by following the Endlish way to accept and handle people.

It is hard to help because the understanding and the use of help is different from sender to receiver. I would like to know how much money the world receive as helping money? Why? Because this amount of money, I am sure, could feed the poor people all around the world. Another observation: those poor countries are well armed but badly fed. I hope the world turn better and we have peace at place of wars which never solved any nutrition problems. Respect for any opinion, during it is not kill someone, Gil.

You would think that would be an easy question to answer.

Look at the people that smoke cigarettes.

They might tell you food but they choose cigarettes over food all the time.

Their intellect will tell you one thing but habits communicate the opposite.

why u r talking about smoking? iam smoker but cant live without food.

smoking is secondary for me . We r talking about this world future. where does this world go?

war?

harvesting?

go back to stone decades?

Actually Mr.ronwagn told a good solution.

But this world needs more.

I have witnessed it already.

I have seen people who smoke that are experiencing financial hardship make it a priority to get their cigarettes over gas and food.

It doesn't apply to everyone. Some people can stop smoking and walk away but there are others that can't, they just can't.

The same applies to power and food. There are people that are so dependent on power that they will starve to death because they don't know what to do if they should have power no more.

We can all say what we would do on an intellectual level but habits speak louder then words.

yep u r right. But i think after we know the technology for that we must make rules that control our habits.

Hi JANISSARIES!

A well educated intellectual don't have any word, she/he just lissens. People cannot quite smoking because they tell you all the time: I cannot quite smoking! I was a smoker for around 15 years. When I have 3 cigarettes burned at the same time, I realized that I don't control something, and I decided to quite. I stop to smoke 30 days later. I did! Someone else can do it to! Another observation: Most of poor people eat 60 to 70% of a slice of bread and trow in the garbage the rest. Rich people will reuse the rest of the slice of bread for the next meal. It's education and discipline to achieve something in life.

The difference is day and night between educated and intellectual person. One knows what to do in most of the occasion, and the other, the educated just follows its instenct.

Rich don't think about food but poor does, and end of the day the poor is hungry but the rich is filled, sometimes overfilled.

EDUCATE YOURSELF TO BE RICH AND YOU WILL BE! But have attitude of a winner and forget your ego, from Gil.

very good point,

people with addictions lose the sense of reason.

but because I agree to your point, I cannot give you a good answer because it is only a good point

Aw Shucks.

I have just read a report by the Word Bank, the have conducted research into this problem, they came up with the answer last week. They said that food prices were rocketing because about 37% of farmers were cultivating bio-fuel crops instead of food crops.

Another Univerity group found that bio-fuel crops were producing more CO2 than would normally be allowed here in Europe. I myself have always said that this would happen one day, but I was told I was an idiot for thinking that, now at last I have the last laugh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spencer.

Hello ENGMONI433!

When you open your eyes, you get the answer. First, Africa, a few have the power and many don't have the food. Second, USA or other similar nations, have the power on many and many have the food.

There is no middle solution! Confucius said 2,500 years ago, there is intelligent person and and the other end you have the stupid who never becomes intelligent. Why this stupid cannot be intelligent? Simple. They want to ask and ask again, because it's easy to ask and get something. The Arab world, they have problem with definitions and believes. Who is right or who is wrong? It doesn't matter. The majority intelligent and the majority of stupid are right for themselves. The problem is that we intelligent, we have problem with the stupids. Someone already suggested that let the stupid alone and they will disappear and the smart people stay to create two class of people again. So, we will return to the original problem. You see, this is a cycle with time in between. Enjoy your time to reflect what I am saying, Gil.

why do u think like that about arab country?

well, sorry i cant do a comment about ur reply, but i want to tell u that when the fossil energy is vanished , wat we r going to do? eat or make power?

Hi the same!

You have difficulties to put together the world. In present time, the Arabs have large part of the oil. They sell it because they need money like everyone. But, only some people get the larger part of the pie. Again, we have rich and poor, powerfull and hungry people. This is the life in the moment. You or I, we cannot change the supply or even to influence the supply of this oil. Also, we can redirect the money to everyone equally or "honestly". Look, I am Canadian, in Alberta, our oil producing province is polluting all the fresh water. They will have no drinking water within a few years, but nobody cares because is instant gratification for someone and lots of trouble for other. Chinese people become sick because the pollution. Imagine, when you don't see the next red-light from where you are and it's at 75 metres from you. I was there, and I cried becuase my eyes were attacked by the pollution and the bad smell. I live in Toronto, the best town on Earth. Here, we have no flood, earthquack, and any other calamities, including our winters are shorter and warmer than before, and we have no mosquitoes but we advise everyone to use some chemicals to kill them to not get Nilus sickness. If my town become, never will be, a town like SI-AN in China, I quite the town for another but better. In SI-AN, North-Central China, the ancien capital, is to visit by everyone on the Earth to understand atmospheric and real pollution. All this is because we have low price oil to make gasoline and we burn it in our cars. Between you and me, I don't have a car, I use public transportation. I don't accuse them doing wrong, just they participate what you initiated, and it's worsth in their country than in ours. Here, in my country, we pay higher price for 1 litre of water ($2 to $2.50) than for the same amount of gasoline (around $1.37), thank you.

Don't be sorry, but you have to eat and have a little power to not have empty stomach you and yours. Capice! I hope someone else have some solution which is different, I want to learn. All the best, Gil

Hello again!

Don't be upset with my sentences. I just saying what I am seeing. Definition? I don't define who is "sunnite" and who is "shiite", they do. I don't attack any country(ies) like you want to tell. I see things that way because it's presented to my eyes that way. I see dead people in Baghdad or in Kandahar. Someone kill someone else, and this is what I see. This is fact.

Don't be sorry and tell people like me what you think and reply. Words are not hurting people, just the understanding of words can create problems. Like when I written Arabs, after you I made an error, an error for you because you understand thing your way which creates problem to you.

When fissile energy will be out of service, we human, we will find another way to cook and refresh ourselves. Don't worry, we are all smart enough to survive but we are lazy to do immediately. When is necessary, we do things fast and well. Look around, during wartime, we innovate on many important things. During calm (we still in war all the time but not fully, just locally, here and there) and easy times, we are doing stupid things to correct later on. The Russian abandonned communism as was practized, Khadafi became friends of his ennemy to do global business because this is the way to live today. The Chinese opened the door to foreigners and I can mention other changes.

I have a black friend who calls me "white comrade" and I call him "fat black". He never was upset with my definition of his colour and I was not upset with his way to name me. However, his friends are really upset when they see how we hug each other. Again, only the observer's understanding could create problems, my friend and me, we never have any problem with our definitions. When you accept my opinion, good or bad, you will be good to talk with unknown people like me. Again, I don't attack people, I see what is made by people. This called observation.

Finally, when the energy mentioned by you totally disappeared we will continue to eat well because we will have enough power to cook our food and can give to others. I wish you a nice weekend and wait to hear from you on Monday, Gil.

Mr Gil. I think u r right but u may have money to pay for food. maybe all ur country have money to provide food for people there. maybe ur country have the way to pay for power& food. i'm talking about the majority of world countries. food or power?????

also for the other part of world, maybe the great countries will not find it easy at sometime as finally will meet the same point(food or power?)

also wat about all these technologies? discovering the space &...&...&...???????

it's so hard to find a solution but it must be a solution for this future problems.

i'm not talking about this period of time. i'm talking about next years..

wish to find any solution

finally ,sorry for my english...

Hi ENGMONI433!

Don't call me Mr. Call me Gil, it's more friendly and more respectfull. Every country on Earth have enough money to provide its people a honest living. But, there is the problem! You could remember communism? Stalin said that people own the land and make agriculture. They taked away from a few people the land and disributed to many others. The person who lost his land was pissed off the communist operation. In the other hand, the poor bolsivicks get the land. Ther are my questions: Who knows how to work on the land? Who knows how to organize the work? Poor people don't have education. Not because they cannot learn, no, they don't want to learn because they don't wnat to become like rich people. However, a few succeed and become more rich than the rich before, and the way they do is more direct and hurt more. In the kolkhoses, certain people are healthy can and want to work, and they produce what need to everyone. Another people are unhealthy, they are in hospitals. Someone else need to work to produce what nedd for everyone. This was the difference between successful agriculture seen by Kruschtchev when he visited the Americans. This was the end of the communism.

There is similarities in the Arab world. Dubai have people with filled stomach every day, however, in Morrocco half of the population don't have two meals a day, sometimes not one. Why there is this unbalanced world.

In my country, we have rich and we have poor. However, here, every poor has the same chance to succeed as a rich can but the volonty and motivation is not there for the poor people. Why? Because people understand a situation a certain way and another people catch differently. This is the majour difference. The sender of a message wants to say something, and the receiver will understand his way which is not the correct understanding of the message. You want to change that? We cannot! And this wrong or good understanding of the message will create problems or successes.

Don't worry, everyone has a chance to understand the correct way but don't tell to nobody what is the correct way because they are not believer in you.

Many times in my life, I was treated us a liar. Will be again? Good undrestanding of the message from Gil.

Hello ENGMONI433!

I am not hassling, I just want to add to your words some point to clarify things. Yes, countries, every country has money to supply enough food to its people to live confortably. Look Nigeria. Rich country in oil but large part of its population is starving and/or die. They buy arms and don't want to buy food. This is the problem. Countries have, and will have money but distribution of this money is not correct. During the last 5000 years, we want to eliminate prostitution. Every powerful king or other chief said: I will eliminate. Nobody eliminated and the oldest profession still frorishing, including a harshly governed China.

All these bad things, habits, and power will stay. However, we have to survive, eat and have some power, on our children or wife but we use all of them, not necessarily at the same time. I am hungry and I will eat for two, Believe me, Gil.

Zimbabwe is a prime example of what you say. It went from providing Africa with food to having its people starve, because of political and racial stupidity. The greatest cause of starvation in the world is bad government, bad politics and greedy politicians.

Well I see things are as usual. In any event neither I nor anyone else will decide what happens. Only the natural laws of the Universe will decide that.

Perhaps some of those who have commented here could look up the events on Easter Island after its colonisation by Polynesian navigators centuries ago. There on a tiny scale is the same problem and the results do NOT look good for us as long as we refuse to face the facts.

Robert Heinlein the late American Science fiction author put it rather well.

Natural laws have NO pity.

Stupidity is the only universal capital crime.

One can deny the problem with all your might. But it won't go away. Neither will some deity suddenly and magically make everything right!

Population control is a major part of the overall problem. Any nation that allows overpopulation must deal with the environmental degradation that tends to come with it. And not being able to feed its citizens.

China is trying to control its population, but is doing a terrible job taking care of their air, and water pollution. Its dams are creating problems for other nations downstream. Some are suffering from very diminished water, and polluted water coming their way.

Nations that do not preserve their environment will eventually pay the price. Possibly enduring the fate of Easter Island. Haiti is the worst example I can think of, but some African nations may be even worse off. We are sending some of our best soil, and lots of pollution into the Gulf of Mexico, creating dead zones. Our reservoirs are full of silt from erosion due to non sustainable agriculture. The fish in them are unsafe to eat more than once a week.

I still believe that North America has plenty of land to produce a surplus of food and lots of biomass for fuel. One example is using the brush in California and preventing the wildfires that it is continuously allowing by poor prevention practices. All of that brush could have created a lot of electricity, or heated a lot of homes with pellets. We are not even beginning to think about the ways in which we could better utilize and enhance our environment. The government has a mandate to use all public land, aside from natural parks, for multiple use. Instead, it neglects the land, and does not protect it or use it.