This link has been bookmarked by 2 people . It was first bookmarked on 16 Feb 2008, by Brian G. Dowling.
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01 Dec 11
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If all the scores of factories under construction or planned go into operation, fuel will gobble up no less than half of the entire corn harvest by 2008.
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a massive expansion of biofuels is the one policy that has support from Democrats and Republicans and from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
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In his Jan. 23 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush called for 35 billion gallons of renewable fuels per year within 10 years, enough to replace 15% of gasoline burned in American cars and trucks. Congress is considering measures that would require 60 billion gallons by 2030. And the fervor for greener fuels isn't just a U.S. phenomenon. Europe is requiring that 5.75% of diesel fuel come from plants by 2010, while Japan and others line up contracts to buy biofuels to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions
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The consequences, while still uncertain, are impossible to ignore. According to the most optimistic estimates, which involve a switch to still-unproven energy crops, replacing U.S. consumption of gasoline with biofuels would take at least 50 million more acres of American cropland. Some put the figure far higher. Meeting Bush's mandate with corn ethanol alone isn't even feasible, because it would mean an additional 80 million acres of corn. Eliminating gasoline entirely could require more than double today's 430 million acres of cropland, by some calculations. Bioenergy threatens to eclipse food, livestock feed, and all other uses "as the major driver of American agriculture," testified Iowa farmer John Sellers at a recent Senate Agriculture Committee hearing.
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enveloped in choking haze from forest fires
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Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute. He warns of a coming "epic competition between 800 million people with automobiles and the 2 billion poorest people," and predicts that shortages and higher food prices will lead to starvation and urban riots
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There's only so much biologically based stuff around,
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Why are we burning our forests to plant something that we have been told will be clean, environmentally friendly fuel?" asks S.M. Idris, chairman of environmental group Sahabat Alam Malaysia (Friends of the Earth). "This is technology gone mad."
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lifting prices for soybeans and other crops, and products like tortillas. Next could be meat, poultry, and even soft drinks.
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If Americans reduce our input of sugar, we could make 2 billion more gal. of ethanol and help overcome our obesity problem," he says.
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federal government is getting a break. In 2006, Uncle Sam gave corn farmers $8.8 billion in subsidies. Thanks to high corn prices, subsidies are expected to drop to $2.1 billion in 2007.
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Higher incomes for farmers also mean healthier rural economies and more jobs in the U.S. and around the world
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Corn is just the first step. It's a lousy raw material for fuel because producing 10 gallons of ethanol consumes the energy equivalent of about 7 gallons of gasoline, and greenhouse gas reductions are minuscule.
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Farmers will be better off, the world will be less dangerously dependent on the Mideast, and we will take a giant step in greenhouse gas reductions," he argues. "There is little downside."
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16 Feb 08
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Corn is caught in a tug-of-war between ethanol plants and food, one of the first signs of a coming agricultural transformation and a global economic shift. Ever since our ancestors in the Fertile Crescent first figured out how to grow grains, crops have been used mainly to feed people and livestock. But now that's changing in response to the high price of oil, the cost in lives and dollars of ensuring a supply of petroleum imports, and limits on climate-warming emissions of fossil fuels.
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