[lorenzo]

I'm just reading the fascinating but highly biased Mao biography, written by Jung Chang and her husband Jon Halliday. Mao, the man who ruled over a quarter of the world's population for over a quarter of a century. Probably the most powerful man ever to walk this earth.

In it, I discovered a set of historic actions, taken by the Chairman, that were all directed at producing massive amounts of bioethanol, with horrible consequences for millions of people. I thought it'd be nice to share it with you.

(For those who don't want to follow the entire development, scroll down to § 7)

1. Let's start at the chapter when Mao has just conquered China and ousted Chiang Kai Shek, with help of the Russians: Mao wants Stalin to offer him as many heavy arms factories as possible, so he can start to consolidate his power.

2. In order to do so, Mao uses all kinds of threats and tells Stalin that he will not hesitate to go to war with the Americans, which means the latter would also fight the Soviets. This is Stalin's worst nightmare at that time, so he caves in and starts giving Mao a large number of arms factories.

3. Mao's consolidating, but he feels he wants more. After all he's a megalomaniac. So he decides to create the Korean War. Same logic: Mao tells Stalin he can sacrifice millions of Chinese 'volunteers' to 'slaughter' thousands of Americans for years on end - which is what happens - so that Stalin doesn't have to go in and deal with the problem himself. All this, provided Stalin offers him something in return. Stalin takes the bait and keeps satisfying Mao by sending him MIGs and more heavy arms factories, to keep the war in Korea going.

4. Stalin feels he's losing too much though and orders Mao to halt the war in Korea. Mao obeys. Shortly after, Stalin dies and Mao thinks this is his chance to become the leader of the communist world, instead of Krushchev. But realistically speaking, the Soviets have much more military power, so Mao understands he needs the same amount of it, before attempting the 'coup'.

5. So he tries and succeeds in blackmailing Krushchev into helping Mao realise his "Super Power Dream". Mao wants the Bomb. And he's determined to get it. From one day to another, thousands of Chinese nuclear scientists are trained, and all skills, material resources and knowledge for Mao's Bomb are transferred from the USSR to China. Experts at that time already said China was not ready for the Bomb, that it would cost way too much. Unless of course some nuthead would find money in China where others could not. The nuthead was Mao, and he found the money.

6. Mao's main drive was to create a military superpower that could conquer the entire planet. And he was ready to sacrifice the Chinese people for it. Because after all, he didn't get a free ride and had to pay the Soviets for their technology and their arms factories. So Mao started levying incredible 'taxes', which came down to forcing millions of farmers to hand in all their agricultural production, part of which was then sold on the international market, or given away to the Soviets. Hundreds of thousands of farmers starved to death. Mao didn't care, he hated farmers.

7. Mao calculated that he might die before seeing China owning the Bomb and plenty of Missiles. So he sped up agricultural production (with which to pay the Soviets). In 1958, he launched his infamous and megalomaniacal 'Great Leap Forward', of which he said that 'half of all Chinamen may have to die' in order to reach the targets of the program.
This is where the ethanol comes in. Part of the program consisted of doubling the production of grain, in order to produce ethanol, 'which we can use to power our test rockets and to drive our cars'. [see the book, chapter 40, in the dutch version at page 549; English version I don't know, but check under footnote 22 of that chapter].
Each rocket test consumed 10 million tons of grain. Enough to feed 2 million Chinese farmers for a year. Mao preferred the rockets over the farmers.

8. The first tests were successful, so Mao wanted to convert even more grain into ethanol, while the people were starving. All the Chairman's projects that became famous for their disastrous results, fit in this secret Super Power agenda of his, part of which consisted of producing ordinary ethanol.
-Grand Canals were built by slaves, to bring water to agricultural zones. Most of those canals were badly planned and terminated before they reached their goal. Thousands died in vain building them.
-Huge water reservoirs and dams were built, thousands of which exist until this day, but are considered to be 'hazards' by the current Chinese government. One of those dams collapsed in 1975, killing over 200,000 people, the worst disaster in its kind.
-Mao ordered farmers to plant much more grain on an acre, without using fertilizer. It didn't work, harvests failed. So Mao just ordered farmers to hand in the little grain they did harvest, because he wanted to reach his ethanol target. The result: hundreds of thousands died, once more.
-We know the story: Mao ordered to kill all sparrows because sparrows steal too much grain. Sparrows are 'counter-revolutionary birds'. The result: the pests that were normally contained by the sparrows, now flourished, creating more damage than anticipated.

These are just some of the absurd sub-programs launched by the crazy Chairman. At the core of those was the goal to produce food for exports, the money of which was transferred to the Soviets, and to produce Mao's ethanol, which was used to power test rockets and cars.
Voilà. A historic tidbit of information, which I thought is interesting for us, because we talk about ethanol and mega-farming projects so often nowadays. Nowhere do we find a better illustration of how farming-for-energy at the detriment of farming-for-food can have disastrous effects and kill people.

Mao, the Unknown Story, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, 2005.

[The_Virginian]

Facinating.

Thank you for the daily lesson....you have brought proof that their is nothing new under the sun...

I too worry about the ethanol vs. crop production...

Water is an issue, even with the USA having large Lakes ("great" lakes etc.), much of the interior is too dry to sustain the masive amount needed on a yearly bassis.

[Magus]

Great read! Brought to my attention some things I didn't know about Mao and that period of Chinese history.

Just more evidence that proves that dependence on ethanol as a fuel source would be a very BAD idea.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')'m just reading the fascinating but highly biased Mao biography, written by Jung Chang and her husband Jon Halliday.

[mrflora]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')ach rocket test consumed 10 million tons of grain. Enough to feed 2 million Chinese farmers for a year. Mao preferred the rockets over the farmers.

[The_Virginian]

Just some speculation:

yes, except humans don't live on grain alone...animals (even in mao's China) for consumption and transpot/plowing take food as well.

using the land to grow ethanol instead of traditional farming means planting such higher yeild variaties with great care...specialized mono-culture.

doubtful weather the Chinese farmer got such yeilds from his land under more traditional methods....thus the high yeilds that look impressive per person.

Ok now for some Figures:

Hey look how much grain it takes to make beer in the USA!

Beer the ultimate Luxury Food....Got Beer?

492,862, 087 pounds of grain and Malt (a more proccesed grain product that conceils even MORE usage than the numbers attest) went into making just 15,359,226 pounds of beer.

Thats a 'ell of a lot of grain for my brewski's.

Beer is 3.2-6% Alcohol. kind of like just taking the fermented grain without distilling. You should be able to get 15-18% alcohol before the yeast die off with the proper strains of yeast.

In fact the Reinhietsgebot (bavarian purity law of 1516) was meant to keep grains form ending up as party drink:

"The legendary Bavarian Purity Law of 1516, known in German as the Reinheitsgebot.


The short version of this law, which was enacted on April 23, 1516 by Bavarian Duke Wilhelm IV (a.k.a. William IV), is that beer may contain only three ingredients: barley, hops, and water. Ostensibly, this makes the law one of the oldest “consumer protection” regulations, instilling confidence in purchasers that the beer they get will contain no questionable grains or additives. (Among the additives the law sought to ban were some commonly-used herbs that had hallucinogenic effects.) But in fact, the bit about beer ingredients was simply one sentence in a much longer ordinance that primarily specified beer pricing regulations. The intention of the law was not only to ensure the quality of the beer and control pricing, but also to guarantee that more valuable grains such as wheat and rye, which were needed for bread and often in short supply, were not used for beermaking. This was not actually the first law of its kind, either—similar ordinances date back as far as 1165—but it was the first to apply to all of Bavaria, and the oldest such regulation still in force today."


So the competion between bread or Alcohol is not so new... (although one must admit Beer has nutritional value, while fuel ethanol robs one of B vitamins etc.)

Final Point....those numbers may not be so far off...cetainly estimations, but possibly correct ones.

[lorenzo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mrflora', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')ach rocket test consumed 10 million tons of grain. Enough to feed 2 million Chinese farmers for a year. Mao preferred the rockets over the farmers.

[lorenzo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Magus', '
')Bias? Or truth?