Is the damage caused to the poor as a result of rising food prices worth turning the fields into sources of biofuel?
Over the past few years, I have published several lists on the subject of fuel from biological sources - from plant waste, animal excrement, wild plants and especially plant development in the "intensive" cultivation of plants whose purpose is to produce fuel. In the body of the lists I repeated and clarified that "it is not right to grow fuel instead of food", that is, it is immoral and, in the long-term, uneconomical to grow plants whose sole purpose is the production of fuel in a place and under conditions where edible plants can be grown.
I am not the only one and this is not the only opinion, all over the world Hamas is crying out for diverting resources, areas and crops from food to fuel, a diversion that causes the prices of basic foodstuffs to rise: corn, oil, sunflowers and the like.
After the publication of the article on jatropha, I received a number of inquiries from entrepreneurs who "discovered" an economic possibility and thought of trying to grow jatropha in Israel and even in Europe, I forwarded the data known to me to an economist/agronomist and received a clear and unequivocal answer, there is no economic/environmental viability to grow fuel Biological in Western countries in general and certainly not in areas where food can be grown.
Referring to jatropha, it is important and appropriate to note that the plant grows in semi-desert conditions, that is, in a place where it is difficult to grow food. The picking of the fruit is manual and therefore worthwhile only in places where the labor cost is minimal, despite this it is clear that intensive cultivation will require regular irrigation. Organized irrigation will allow food/vegetable crops between the rows of trees and thus increase the economic viability.
To demonstrate the above two examples - negative and positive: Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world, the Ethiopian authorities are looking for ways to improve the situation of the population by giving
Concessions for Western companies to open agricultural / economic ventures. A German company - Flora EcoPower Holding AG = under the guidance of an Israeli consultant (Alon Hovav), received a concession to grow civet for fuel production. The area the company received borders one of the most important reserves in Ethiopia, a forest reserve with species of birds and animals, elephants and especially lions (black-maned) which are the symbol of Ethiopia . According to the nature conservation authorities in Ethiopia, the company's employees destroyed/cut down extensive forest plots and caused heavy damage to the unique reserve. The entrepreneur may profit, nature, the environment have already been damaged/lost.
On the other hand, a friend told me about a project that is gaining momentum: the entrepreneurs will receive an area of about one million dunams which they will inherit with an irrigation system, and in which they will plant jatropha trees, the entire area will be given to local farmers to cultivate, they will grow food crops (vegetables) between the jatropha trees, when trees The jatropha will bear fruit, the farmers will have to pick the fruit, the fruit will be bought by the entrepreneur and will be transferred to a "manfta" where the fuel will be produced and sold on the free market. The waste from the fuel production process will be given to farmers who will use it as fuel and as fertilizer for the fields. This way the local farmers will grow their own food and earn money in the same field, the entrepreneur will profit from selling fuel. A positive process for all parties.
Charitable organizations that try to support the poor around the world launched an unprecedented attack against the expanding trend of developing biofuel production from food, sugar beet, corn, sugar cane, soy, oil palm and many other plants cultivated and grown for the purpose of fuel production. The crops are subsidized by the governments of Europe and the USA, with the "justification" for this being the attempt to stop global warming: the crops absorb carbon dioxide and the fuel produced from them is clean compared to mineral fuel. However, environmental and charity organizations claim that the social and environmental damage resulting from these crops is great From the profit in preventing the emission of greenhouse gases, since it is important to remember that one of the causes of global warming is mechanized agriculture (cultivation of fields with the help of machines that emit pollutants, fertilization, plowing that exposes nitrogen, etc.).
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the drive to grow fuel causes the price of basic food to rise in poor countries.
In order to clear areas for fuel cultivation, hundreds of thousands of farmers are pushed out and evicted from their land, the Indian government "cleared" 140,000 square kilometers, to plant jatropha, Brazil grows fuel on about 120,000 square kilometers, in about 15 countries in Africa, almost 400,000 square kilometers are designated for fuel planting. Most of the territories were inhabited by natives who were evicted. Popular media sees fuel crops as a partial solution to the global warming problem and thus pushes for "bio-fuel" crops while ignoring the negative aspects.
According to the European Union: by 2020 biofuel will make up 10% of vehicle fuel. To reach this goal, it would be correct not to rely on fuel that grows instead of food, but on agricultural waste, by developing enzymes that will break down straw, straw and any other material
Dry (or moist) waste, enzymes that will produce fuel from waste, the process of producing fuel from waste is given the name "second-generation biological fuel" (second-generation biological fuel). Biofuel can also be in solid form for heating or electricity generation and not necessarily liquid fuel, the problem It is because the calculation of biofuel production does not include competition with fuel produced from food, fuel that is available and immediate, the biofuel policy "runs" and promotes scientific development in the production of fuel, a situation in which many populations are harmed, a situation in which the environmental advantage is not clear.
Is it worth producing ethanol from plants?
Dr. Assaf Rosenthal,
Tour guide/leader in Africa and South America.
For details: Tel. 0505640309 / 077-6172298,
Email: assaf@eilatcity.co.il
7 תגובות
Biofuel is not an effective solution to fuel prices
Nir,
The Nell trees will be more successful as Christmas trees than as lighting that requires high and focused power
Haha, I've never heard such an idea... trees that light up at night!
Nir, although the idea is funny at first glance, but if you think about it in depth it has tremendous economic potential - night lighting in cities at zero costs!
Who knows, maybe it's time to raise a new Israeli start-up.
In my opinion, trees that light up at night should be developed by changing and adding animal DNA.
This development will result in significant energy savings.
Especially at night in the big cities.
And will also benefit the environment and global warming.
Brazil: slavery in the ethanol industry and the deforestation of the Amazon forests.
Authorities in Brazil raided a sugar cane plantation in the Amazon, finding more than 1,000 people employed in slave-like conditions cutting sugar cane.
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3421039,00.html
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3421466,00.html
Two more articles on the matter straight from the oven.
A joint report by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the OECD says that the growing global demand for organic fuels, especially ethanol and biodiesel, will lead to significant increases in food prices on international markets, and will mainly affect poor countries that import food.
Another article in a series of good articles about bio fuel. I'm glad that the issue is getting a platform, but I regret that we only hear Dr. Rosenthal's opinion.
I completely agree with the last paragraph in which Dr. Rosenthal wisely and rightly says that the investment in second generation fuels will be a wise investment on an ecological level (even if somewhat problematic on an economic level). I wonder about the growing process in which the sun's energy is taken, fixed into sugar and burned as fuel for energy needs: isn't the large amount of time, the area, the resources in irrigation, the working hands, the direct environmental pollution, etc. Don't all these make the price of the biofuel more expensive compared to the direct harvesting of light through cells Photoelectric? It is known that solar cells do not currently compete with burning fuel for reasons of technology. But I wonder if the comparison between the cost of holding solar cells against the global cost of burning an equivalent unit of energy will indeed be more expensive. I do not know. On the face of it, it seems to me that there is an insistence on using low-tech forcefully and unnecessarily.
I must point out a certain matter that Dr. Rosenthal overlooks in the ecological aspect: all those discounted crops that he wants to let the third world buy cheaply, all those energetic carbohydrates - is this really the food that should be fed to humans? Right! When you are hungry you eat everything. When you die of hunger then bread is a blessing. But what goal are we trying to achieve when we provide more and more carbohydrates to the masses? We are actually supporting population growth and more and more generations of hungry fairies with a short life cycle and a very poor quality of life (see third world countries entry).
It is unacceptable to treat the human population as an ecological population whose growth must be controlled and certainly not to treat the human population in terms of R or K as is customary in mathematical models that try to predict the rate of change of a population in relation to its living conditions. But at the same time, in the situation we are in now, in a world where resources are being used up to the limit and where water is beginning to be a limiting factor as well as hundreds of millions of people who are suffering from hunger and disease - is it correct, on an ecological level, to count back the areas where more sugar can be grown and fed the crowd?
I hope my words are not interpreted as if I oppose Dr. Rosenthal's words - oh, no!
His ecological approach is commendable and hopefully many of his ideas will be implemented. At the same time, I feel that this ecological evidence is incomplete and that too much weight is given to this species called "humans" at the expense of acute ecological principles. We human beings have to take care of ourselves and it is not appropriate to allow the poor and the hungry to starve to death just because in the West their cheap resources are stolen and exploited. At the same time, it is appropriate to find a real ecological solution for the proper utilization of natural resources so that future generations will not have to face again and again the same acute problems that arise from human excess on the planet. Earth is human, too human…
Ami Bachar
ami_bachar@hotmail.com