Biofuels Cause 75% Increase in Food Prices
By Bill Dupray Posted in Energy — Comments (10) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Now the environmental morons can take credit for world hunger and the destruction of worldwide economies, all in the name of the hoax of adjusting the planet's thermostat. According to the World Bank.
Biofuels have caused world food prices to increase by 75 percent, according to the findings of an unpublished World Bank report published in The Guardian newspaper on Friday.
Note that the thrust of the article, however, is not to highlight the folly of the leftist policies of mandating the use of biofuels, it is of course, to bash the Bush Administration.
The daily said the report was finished in April but was not published to avoid embarrassing the US government, which has claimed plant-derived fuels have pushed up prices by only three percent.
Biofuels, which supporters claim are a "greener" alternative to using fossil fuel and cut greenhouse gas emissions, and rising food prices will be on the agenda when G8 leaders meet in Japan next week for their annual summit.
The report's author, a senior World Bank economist, assessed that contrary to claims by US President George W. Bush, increased demand from India and China has not been the cause of rising food prices.
"Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases," the report said.
And?
Last time I checked, Bush is not in the Enviro-kook camp, so it's not like he's trying to cover for Barack Obama, Al Gore, and their minions, who want to use more biofuels as an alternative to oil.
It might be a good idea, in response to this report, to lower or eliminate biofuel requirements, and drill for some freakin' oil. Then maybe Americans and the rest of the world can afford to eat.
Then again, Bush would be blamed for that move too.
H/T Rabid Liberal
Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room.
deserves all the bashing it can get on this subject. GWB supports the increased production of corn based ethanol and the attendant corn subsidies. He also made no effort to strongarm R congresscritters to sustain his veto.
His name goes right up there with Algore on this one.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
That is exactly what I was thinking as I read the diary. 5's all around.
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but that is essentially what he did.
Corn-based ethanol is a disgrace and he fully embraced it.
along with support for corporate welfare for ADM and you have a bipartisan disaster in both the energy and food markets.
And they are a monster that won't go away. Even if we eliminate all subsidies gasoline prices are high enough to continue driving corn ethanol forward. The money spent building the plants is sunk, so they will continue consuming corn and natural gas as long as they are profitable on a cash basis.
By the way, the energy output in the form of ethanol is only marginally greater than the energy input, mostly in the form of natural gas. So you can also blame the biofuel industry for driving up the price of winter heating.
What the ethanol policy has achieved is to link the cost of food to the cost of energy, so Americans get hit with high prices at the supermarket as well as at the gas pump.
However, what is an inconvenience for Americans spells doom for the undernourished people estimated to number 854 million by the World Food Program. It spells dire consequences for the estimated 1.1 billion people who live on less than $1 a day.
The Natural Resources Defense Council and it's Hollywood supporters have been big supporters of biofuels. There is also environmentalist Amory Lovins who wrote a paper "Winning the Oil Endgame" in which he touted ethanol as part of the solution to our energy problems. These people deserve full credit for the millions who are likely to starve as a result of higher food prices.
Finally, higher fuel prices will lead to an expansion in farmland. Some say that converting rainforest to farmland leads to CO2 emmissions that greatly outweigh the savings from biofuels. When the soil is wet and contains a lot of peat, as is often the case in palm oil growing regions, then the peat will oxidize. The resulting CO2 emmissions are vast.
The whole snafu is a good example of why hippies should never be put in charge of anything important. And yes, Bush should take a lot of blame for this as well.
Congress needs to pass a law that will shut down ethanol production if corn prices get too high. Starving people to feed our cars is just obscene.
of one pocket and putting them in the other. Without cellulosic ethanol and use of co generative/waste energy for distilling, the cost of producing ethanol will rise with other drilled energy sources. ERROR: "Unresolved Circular Reference." In the meantime, the poor souls that get no benefit (perceived) from the use of ethanol fuels still must pay for higher food costs. Conservation of energy laws can't be ignored, beating physics is like beating Vegas. You can't plant, fertilize, harvest, transport, cook, distill, and distribute without massive fuel usage. Saying nothing of acreage that is pulled from edible corn and wheat crops. ADM:1, consumer:0
please read my latest post at The Minority Report entitled Energy Independence in our Lifetime> Hell No! Energy Independence Now! in which I explore the new technology of algae based biofuels.
More later -- being glared at -- must go do family things!
You could make it from a few other crops and get anywhere from 3.5 to 7 times the yield of energy than corn. Corn ethanol was never more than a taxpayer rip off for the midwest states.
Now might be a good time to reprint my report on agriculture subsidies.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
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“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan