[SGVLUG] FW: OT: food or fuel?

[David Lawyer]

Emerson, Tom (*IC) wrote:
> This is "OT" for the list it came from, and probably this one too, but
> it touches on one of the "favorite subjects" of one of our regular
> e-mail contributors.
[snip]
> 
> ----- Original Message ---- of Craig Lalley 
> 
> Let's forget about the fact that it takes fuel to plant, fertilize and
> harvest. 
> 
> Let's for get about the fact that my car takes a 15% hit in gas millage.
> 
> http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-science/20081123/Food_s.Future.Biof
> uels/
> 
> Key paragraph...
> "Right or wrong, that was when blame firmly settled on biofuels for the
> surge in food prices. The diversion of American corn from flour to fuel
> put the flat corn bread out of reach for Mexico's poorest."
> 
> Thank you Governor Kulongoski ((D) - Oregon), for making non-ethanol gas
> illegal in the state of Oregon.   I am sure it was a valiant attempt at
> reducing illegal immigration from the source. 
> 
It's not a question of food or fuel because making ethanol doesn't
create any net fuel.  So it becomes a question of food or wasting fuel
and money (by subsidizing ethanol production).  However, if population
was far less, then we could use low energy-intensity agriculture to produce
food with much less fossil fuel so that we would have both sufficient
food and fuel-from-food.  An example of this is when there were only
perhaps a few million native Americans living here before the Europeans
arrived where they essentially used no fossil fuels.