[backstop]

Those who assume that the development of Agri-Biofuels is a really great idea need to to read this article carefully.


"Biodiesel is projected as a business in which everybody wins. The European emissions of CO2 decreases, and third world countries increase their exports and improve the quality of life of their rural populations.

The reality is something else. It is said that during the growth of the crop, the plants absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. This is true of what was growing before the plantation was established. As the industry has plans of expanding exponentially, it is likely that they will begin to occupy primary or secondary forested areas, as has already happened with the soya plantations. Soya plantations have displaced the forests of el Chaco in Argentina and the forests in Pantanal, Atlantic and Chaco areas in Paraguay. Even more dramatically the Amazon, Pantanal, and Atlantic forests in Brazil have all been cut down for soya. The net CO2 balance is therefore strongly negative.

Additionally, other greenhouse gases are generated as a product of the crop itself, the processing, refining, transport and distribution of the fuel. It looks increasingly likely that biofuels is a net contributor of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

As regards the benefits to the producers of the biofuel crops, these can be extremely negative.

First, the destruction of forest and other original vegetation has already happened; and if these crops were to expand as intended, they could threaten food security and food sovereignty of the local populations, because farmers would stop producing food crops for the population and instead concentrate on producing “clean fuels” for Europe.

The production of soya in Argentina could increase to 100 million tonnes, which involves a huge environmental and social cost to the Argentinean people, such as the displacement of rural populations, growing deforestation and desertification of soils and hence greater hunger and social inequity."


The trade in Agri-Biofuels is not only counter-productive in carbon emissions' control, in boidiversity loss,
in raising social inequity and degrading food security -

it is also liable to generate very dangerous reactions by the disposessed against the already widely hated US culture of callous complacency.

It is also worth noting that tropical biofuel crops tend to burn like tinder if people are willing to strike a match,
leaving heavy capital plant investment lacking their feedstock.

Article here : http://www.energybulletin.net/13656.html


regards,

Backstop

[lorenzo]

Interesting, but very much a one-sided article.
Doesn't look at energy crops that are used to fight desertification and erosion, or at others that explicitly don't grow in forest areas. Finally, the FAO has calculated that for tropical energy crops, on average 15 to 20 jobs are created for the poorest.
As with all things, you can use them in a good or a bad way. Energy farming in the South is not going to be different.

The writer of the article should also stop eating meat, stop using a computer and stop driving a car, else, he remains the main culprit of the destruction of the rainforests.

[backstop]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lorenzo', 'I')nteresting, but very much a one-sided article.
Doesn't look at energy crops that are used to fight desertification and erosion, or at others that explicitly don't grow in forest areas. Finally, the FAO has calculated that for tropical energy crops, on average 15 to 20 jobs are created for the poorest.
As with all things, you can use them in a good or a bad way. Energy farming in the South is not going to be different.

The writer of the article should also stop eating meat, stop using a computer and stop driving a car, else, he remains the main culprit of the destruction of the rainforests.

[lorenzo]

The FAO is a reputable organisation, is it not?

Bioenergy, key to the fight against hunger.

The FAO's bioenergy strategy paper on Bioenergy for Development.

I read the number of 15 to 20 direct jobs per hectare somewhere, but can't find the source now. Obviously anyone interested in bioenergy knows that it's a net employment provider. There are countless documents out there proving this.
A good overview: Bioenergy: a key environmental and developmental factor.

700 000 new jobs in Brazil's bioethanol industry: Biofuels Are Helping Build Rural Economies. From China to South Africa, biofuels are helping to boost farmer incomes.

Moreover, if a country uses biofuels, it is now gaining economically as it can reduce its oil imports, adding to the great social benefit (more state income to spend on social development).


I really don't understand why you are against fighting climate change, fighting erosion and desertification and lifting millions of poor out of poverty. Why are you so vehemently against this?

[evilgenius]

Some people don't believe that the world is in the pickle that it is.

I have a suggestion for the agri-bio problem that the underdeveloped face. Perhaps genetic (yes, we have to be careful) engineering can manipulate a bio-fuel plant that can grow in a salt water environment. Man can reclaim shallow delta and too used river land from its unproductive state. It wouldn't do it all but it might replace a few million bbls a day. It might be enough to power public transport for instance.

[evilgenius]

Some people don't believe that the world is in the pickle that it is.

I have a suggestion for the agri-bio problem that the underdeveloped face. Perhaps genetic (yes, we have to be careful) engineering can manipulate a bio-fuel plant that can grow in a salt water environment. Man can reclaim shallow delta and too used river land from its unproductive state. It wouldn't do it all but it might replace a few million bbls a day. It might be enough to power public transport for instance.

[lorenzo]

Pstarr, you don't even read what I write.

I see things the realistic way, you see them the utopian way. But in the end, my realism (to create wealth for the world's poorest by helping them sell biofuels to you) is probably more utopian than your idealism!

You don't put your money where your mouth is, I do. If you want to make sure that the people in the developing world don't cut their forests, then please pay them. Now. Please take all your money from your bank, and sell your house, and transfer the funds to Kinshasa. Now, please.

[smallpoxgirl]

Lorenzo will not turn loose of his car until it sucks up the last remaining molecule of oxygen as he drives at breakneck speed across the dessert that use to be the world's ecosystems.

Deforestation does not improve the environment.
Affluence promotes exponentially incresing resource use and exponentially increasing waste production. It does not promote environmental responsibility.
You can not eat dollar bills. Neither can you breathe them nor drink them.
Motor vehicles are not usefull if you have no food to eat, no air to breathe, and no ecosystem to live in.
Your endless pedantic obsfucation is not convincing anyone.

[Ludi]

"Our challenges are great: Africa faces continued deforestation and increasing poverty. Yet, we know that there are many good practices going on in Africa, both by governments and civil society. It is critical that these be scaled up so that we expand our reach and effectiveness. The GBMI offers that way."

http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/

[lorenzo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', '
')Deforestation does not improve the environment.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lorenzo', 'T')hat's logical, because bourgeois don't need convincing, they just consume. They criticize on the one hand, but they keep consuming on the other. And you, smallpoxgirl, are the prototype of it.

[lorenzo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lorenzo', 'T')hat's logical, because bourgeois don't need convincing, they just consume. They criticize on the one hand, but they keep consuming on the other. And you, smallpoxgirl, are the prototype of it.

[lorenzo]

at backstop:
How about, for example, groundnuts? You know the peanuts Rudolf Diesel thought were going to power all cars. They can't stand forests and moist. They prefer the Sahel.

Check this database for crops and look where groundnuts prefer to grow, you'll get a great map:
Land Suitability Maps for Rainfed Cropping

Then check the current land use in these Sahelian countries in the Terrastat database.

Finally, check the demographic projections for those countries at the UN's POPIN database.

You will be able to deduce some interesting facts.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lorenzo', 'Y')our line of thinking is thoroughly bourgeois. Just look at your view of Africans: you buy your food with dollar bills. But you want them to be self-sufficient food farmers.

[eric_b]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lorenzo', 'I')nteresting, but very much a one-sided article.
Doesn't look at energy crops that are used to fight desertification and erosion, or at others that explicitly don't grow in forest areas. Finally, the FAO has calculated that for tropical energy crops, on average 15 to 20 jobs are created for the poorest.
As with all things, you can use them in a good or a bad way. Energy farming in the South is not going to be different.

The writer of the article should also stop eating meat, stop using a computer and stop driving a car, else, he remains the main culprit of the destruction of the rainforests.

[green_achers]

I think there probably are places and situations where certain crops could be used to fight desertification and erosion, and to give some poor countries a bit of exchange assets that they need in this world. I also think, however, that the crops will be grown where market forces dictate they be grown, not where any of us think they should be grown. They will be grown wherever the labor force is cheap and docile, and where the political leaders give the most rewards to the rich buyers. If soil could not be depleted and the world had millenia to let all of this balance out and reach economic equilibrium, it would probably reach an acceptable state in the long run. That's an unlikely scenario, however.

[lorenzo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lorenzo', 'Y')our line of thinking is thoroughly bourgeois. Just look at your view of Africans: you buy your food with dollar bills. But you want them to be self-sufficient food farmers.