"Unethical Biodiesel" and the Human Food Chain
Depletion of World Grain Reserve & a Growing Global Carbon Signature Present Serious Ethics Concerns
Those of you who know me well know that I am a big proponent of home biodiesel production. It's a way to shameless cost savings, justifiably smug self-accomplishment, as well as a genuinely concerned way of helping lessen the impact on the environment and our limited petroleum resources. Used this way, biodiesel is great. It¡¦s a wonderfully greasy way of life.
Aside from this, I get people coming up to me saying, ¡§Hey, you¡¦re that biodiesel guy! Wow! I think biodiesel is so cool!" I have to grimace, because the way biodiesel manufacturing is going now is actually not cool at all.
I have to qualify this statement.
It has to do with the dark side of biodiesel. The issue is ethics. Specifically the issue is: where is the raw biodiesel oil stock coming from?
If you think biodiesel is cool and you care for the environment, then this is actually somethingyou need to know. So¡K
TWO MODES OF PRODUCTION: GOOD & EVIL
From an ethical perspective, there are two modes of biodiesel production. I call them quite simply ¡§ethical biodiesel production¡¨ and ¡§unethical biodiesel production¡¨. I explain them below.
- Ethical Biodiesel Production - This refers toproduction of biodiesel using a recovered oil stock that would have otherwise been wasted or carted away for disposal through some unknown means.
That¡¦s it. If you really want simpler words: Go to an oil dumpster, suck that dirty oil up, take it home and convert it into fuel. Drive the kids to swimming lessons on veggie.
- Unethical Biodiesel Production - This refers to the production of biodiesel in such as way as to cause any manner of detriment.
Simpler words: Good grain eaten by cars and not humans. Results in shortages of human food, or food at ridiculously high prices.
WHAT¡¦S THE MATTER? NO CORN FOR TORTILLAS!
A very important and sad by-product of the new national love affair with bio-diesel (and ethanol for that matter) is that it is severely impacting, and going to increasingly impact, our ability to feed the existing human population. For six of the previous seven years farmers have produced less crops than the world has eaten. The volume of seed crop being harvested has gone down for each of the last three years. The world's emergency grain supplies have dwindled from a 119 day reserve to a level well below the danger rating, right now at 57 days.
These are just statistics. How about on the streets? Do an internet search on the words ¡§food shortage¡¨ and ¡§Mexico¡¨ (or ¡§food shortage¡¨ and ¡§biodiesel/ethanol¡¨) in the news and see what you come up with. Food¡¦s getting short, folks.
WHAT TO DO?
Unfortunately, uneducated politicos and just-as-uneducated capital investors are jumping onto a happy bandwagon and dumping loads of money into biodiesel technology derived from food grains.
What we need now is a reality check.
We need to show all the cards: gross facts and figures such those mentioned above. Then follow up by an education plan on a mass scale - propaganda if you will - that will let the general public (investors included) know that there are plenty of alternatives to food stock as a primary fuel source. For example, research is being done to extract biodiesel from corn stover (stalks and leaves), algae, hemp, and common wild grasses.
Next step: Reinvest into energy elsewhere. But leave the food alone.
IT¡¦S NOT JUST FUEL - IT'S THE WORLD
Best yet, let¡¦s increase the scope of our concern.
According to some estimates, we must recapture 30 gigatons of carbon from the earth¡¦s atmosphere to have a decent shot at reversing the damage we have done already. At a recent speech given in Colorado, former Vice President Al Gore states we have a window of less than 10. His own words, "It is a race."
In order to reduce our atmospheric carbon signature it would be best to get off the combustible fuel thing altogether, including the eventual abolishment of combustible fuels, including biodiesel. Honestly folks, with the way things are going, at the most we can only see biodiesel as a transitional fuel to carry us over to something that will not produce adverse effects. Let us rely on fuel from outside our world, such as solar or lunar (tidal) sources of power.
TWO SENTENCES
Biodiesel (and ethanol) as transitional fuels only. Fuel from outside our world is best.
Sources:
- Aspen Daily News 07/18/2007 article ¡§Gore: human species in a race for its life¡¨
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Published by John Melendez
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6 Comments
Post a CommentI appreciate your opinions on this matter, you are correct that using food supplies to drive cars while 1/3 of the world is hungry IS WRONG. However, I must disagree with your myopic overview. There are many sources of suitable oil for the production of Biodiesel. Waste oil is a good one in that it eliminates waste & lowers carbon footprints. Food grain is not a good one because there are still hungry humans out there & especially with soy there are contamination issues. The third option is, in my opinion, the best; inedible organic oil producing plants like algae. Algae is 300% more effective at producing oil per acre. The oil it produces is clean & basically ready to be processed. I do agree with the fact that any fuel production, no matter how green it appears, must be completely evaluated for environmental, social & economic impact. I look forward to reading your other writings on Associated Content. Look for mine in the coming weeks.
Curt, thanks for the comments, and your premise that more needs to be looked into this rings true amidst a maze of facts and fiction being thrown around in the media. Re your comment
"If we were to "grow" these grains for fuel, the leftover food would flood the market and dramatically REDUCE food prices since the amount would swamp current food consumption. "
If there's money to be made on this "food" - then why don't we see the flood of this stock into the market, thus sending rising food prices down? This all ties into the ethics I spoke of originally in my article.
While your comments on food vs. fuel do apply to corn, they do not for mass produced biodiesel. Soy and Canola account for about 90% of US biodiesel supply. Both grains when pressed for oil leave 55-80% of the grain left over. This is the high quality protein part, full of complete amino acids, isoflavones and other important nutrients. Soy and Canola protein are used for both human and animal consumption. If we were to "grow" these grains for fuel, the leftover food would flood the market and dramatically REDUCE food prices since the amount would swamp current food consumption.
When making ethanol, it is the corn, namely the sugars which are fermented for ethanol. This process is very energy intensive and largely consumes the corn (very little of value, left over).
Be careful about generalizations on this topic and look further into the farming and science.
Read the home-brewed biodiesel article at: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/257618/homebrewed_biodiesel_yep_it_can_be.html
Wow, what is going to happen to our world? Already there are food shortages. Darla is right, we have to elect the right officials who will start watching out for our planet
We must elect leaders and congress personnel with the spines to enact legislation which costs auto makers more to continue with gasoline and diesel engines than it would cost them to manufacture alternate ways of moving our autos, buses, trucks and trains than with the gasoline/diesel engines. Ten years is a blink in time. We must do this and do it in 2008. Demand every candidate to speak out loudly and firmly as to where they stand on this vital issue. Then put your x on election day to the one who most nearly understands and will act on this vital situation. The world is waiting for those kind of leaders.....Take a stand for planet earth!