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dieselkitty
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11 months ago
in A Win-Win In Iraq? on The Washington Independent
"no one who leads something called Saladin's Army is an actual liberal" .. Not necessarily true. Saladin was a pretty enlightened ruler for the time - especially compared to the thugs and bandits who commanded the Christian side of the crusades. Also, although he is recognized as a great hero by Arabs, Saladin himself was a Kurd. Could this group possibly be reaching out to the de-facto Kurdish state, signaling a willingness to compromise?
1 year ago
in And They’re Really Not That Good for The Environment Either! on The Washington Independent
This kind of half-informed reporting can be really damaging. The problem is not with "biofuels". The problem (to the extent that there is one) is with one particular biofuel (ethanol) produced from one particular group of feedstocks (grains). Although the greenhouse benefits of ethanol from corn are marginal, other biofuels such as biodiesel from vegetable oils, ethanol from sugar, and ethanol from cellosic biomass (including crop waste, wood waste, and purpose-grown biomass crops) reduce net greenhouse emissions by 80% or more compared to gasoline oil-derived fuels. As ethanol-from-cellulose technology matures, grains will likely become uncompetitive as ethanol feedstocks -- instead, ethanol and corn will be co-products, with ethanol being produced from the corn stalks, leaves, and cobs rather than the grain.
While grain prices are up sharply, ethanol has less to do with that than imprudent reductions in reserve stocks, rapid growth in consumption in China and India, and bad weather. Right now, about 10 times as much grain goes to feed animals for meat as to produce ethanol (and much of the grain used to produce ethanol also produces animal feed -- distillers dried grains -- as a coproduct). If people are worried about high grain prices starving the poor, the best way to counter that would be to reduce meat consumption. Remember, too, that until recently, world grain prices were at record lows when adjusted for inflation, and had been falling steadily for thirty years -- pushing many small farmers (especially in developing countries) to the wall. Remember all the stories about poor Mexican peasants ruined by competition from U.S. corn farmers due to NAFTA? Higher grain prices are bad news for urban dwellers in poor countries, but very good news for the (frequently even poorer) people in rural areas that live by farming.
Sources: There is a large body of work looking at well-to-wheels emissions, see http://www.transportation.anl.gov/software/GREE... as a starting point)
While grain prices are up sharply, ethanol has less to do with that than imprudent reductions in reserve stocks, rapid growth in consumption in China and India, and bad weather. Right now, about 10 times as much grain goes to feed animals for meat as to produce ethanol (and much of the grain used to produce ethanol also produces animal feed -- distillers dried grains -- as a coproduct). If people are worried about high grain prices starving the poor, the best way to counter that would be to reduce meat consumption. Remember, too, that until recently, world grain prices were at record lows when adjusted for inflation, and had been falling steadily for thirty years -- pushing many small farmers (especially in developing countries) to the wall. Remember all the stories about poor Mexican peasants ruined by competition from U.S. corn farmers due to NAFTA? Higher grain prices are bad news for urban dwellers in poor countries, but very good news for the (frequently even poorer) people in rural areas that live by farming.
Sources: There is a large body of work looking at well-to-wheels emissions, see http://www.transportation.anl.gov/software/GREE... as a starting point)
