Don’t Eat Oil
A while back I mentioned an article entitled “The Oil We Eat” from Harper’s. Ever since then I have been thinking a lot about different alternate energy sources to get away from requiring so much pertochem in our food, and sustainable agrobusiness. One of the ways of helping out the petrochem issue is ethanol. Brazil has actually already converted, a huge number of their cars can run on either or both, and 70% of the cars sold this year run on either. Of course this comes back to the problem that we already eat fuel. So how does this help us? Well reading a bit more I discovered that (from the ethanol article) we are developing methods of extracting ethanol from the unusable parts of the plants, but what I find even more interesting is that many methods of sustainable farming are becoming mainstream even in large corporate concerns. This site is very interesting because it points out the immediate economic advantages of sustainable farming as well as the environmental ones. Perhaps there is hope for us yet.
I have to admit though, reading all those issues I have the overriding temptation to write a “Farmer” game like “Lemonade Stand” from the old Pet computers. (Ah, but you grew corn last year, with full tilled fields, choosing corn again this year is no good! Mites attack!) Ok, maybe not. I do feel strangely disconnected from my food though.
January 30th, 2006 at 10:27
I heard a discussion on public radio the other day about ethanol. It seems that there is a debate about whether or not ethanol is better for the environment than gasoline (for the purposes of fuel). When some people do a complete analysis of how much energy it takes to create ethanol, they claim it is significantly more than making gasoline. But people don’t currently agree, so the picture is fuzzy.
February 1st, 2006 at 23:32
Thanks for the update on this topic. It’s one I don’t like to think about, but it’s incredibly important to our future, so bring it on.
February 1st, 2006 at 23:33
Alain, I’ve read similar reports that the costs of ethanol-based fuels production are exaggerated. I don’t think you and I _can_ know enough to know, right now. Which is sad.
February 3rd, 2006 at 16:28
But see, I think that we actually can know, since flex cars are now available in Brazil, so they are able to have real competition. And some months gas is more, and some months ethanol is more. Actual competition for energy sources. Too cool.