Posted on 07/18/2012 2:03:37 PM PDT by CutePuppy
The head of the world's largest food producer believes high prices are due to the growing of crops for biofuels.
"The time of cheap food prices is over," says Nestle chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe.
He is highly critical of the rise in the production of bio-diesel, saying this puts pressure on food supplies by using land and water that would otherwise be used to grow crops for human or animal consumption.
"If no food was used for fuel, the prices would come down again - that is very clear," he says.
"We are now in a new world with a completely different level of food prices because of the direct link with fuel," he says.
He says biofuels are only affordable because of the high subsidies they receive, particularly in the US.
"It is absolutely unacceptable and cannot be justified," he says.
"There is one demand that I have, and that is not to use food for fuel."
Water crisis
Mr Brabeck-Letmathe says politicians have not understood that the food market and the oil market are the same - they are both calorific markets.
"The only difference is that with the food market you need 2,500 calories per person per day, whereas in the energy market you need 50,000 calories per person," he says.
When politicians said they wanted to replace 20% of fossil fuels with biofuels, it meant increasing the production of crops threefold, according to Mr Brabeck-Letmathe.
< snip > .....
Agriculture uses 70% of world's water consumption and the public must be made aware of the inefficient usage of this precious resource, Mr Brabeck-Letmathe adds.
"It takes about 4,600 litres of water to produce one litre of pure ethane oil if it comes from sugar, and it takes 1,900 litres of water if it comes from palm oil," he says.
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(Excerpt) Read more at m.bbc.co.uk ...
Here’s what I got that’s at least 20 yrs old run its whole life on Indiana E10 (FWIW all our gas comes from BP Whiting):
John Deere tractor (Kawasaki)
Wheel Horse tractor (Kohler)
Sears mower (Tecumseh)
MTD mower (Briggs)
MTD trimmer (Mitsubishi)
Sears gen set (Briggs)
Troy-Bilt tiller (Briggs)
Unkn power washer (Honda)
Polaris ATV (Subaru)
67 Camaro
I haven’t seen any of the problems you seem to have. Maybe we got better alky here in corn country.
All of those (except maybe the Camaro and Polaris) are low RPM low power low heat engines. These seem to be less prone to the problem - but it’s a huge problem for motorcycles and boats for sure, and it’s not unknown even with lawn equipment.
Just because you’re not having problems doesn’t mean that problems aren’t widespread. Also, when was the last time you checked inside the Camaro’s fuel bowls?
I’ll let you know when stuff starts breaking down.
Or maybe I’ll die first.
All my stuff and me is old and getting older.
Well except my other street cars.
More info re: the corn shit gas damaging stuff:
http://www.wind-sun.com/ForumVB/showthread.php?4315-EU2000-Honda-generator-troubleshooting
Why don’t you folks just buy E0 if your having all these problems?
http://pure-gas.org/
I sure would if I was having all the headaches, or maybe avgas like 100LL which is 5 bucks but has some nice lead in it.
I have to drive over 60 miles to get to the nearest station selling E0. The economics start not making sense real fast.
Hit post too soon - E0 is not available within economical radius of most people in the US thanks to EPA mandates.
I don’t understand it either. I finally went to the new high dollar low VOC pass thru jacketed line to see if I can get some durability.
I would think it would be cracking from the inside out if it was the diesel fuel. What I see is fine checking on the outside jacket followed by cracks on the end of the hose that progress further inside over time. I have split the line and don’t see checks in the middle of inner line. I don’t see where (max) 10% waste engine oil (mostly) or mineral based hydraulic fluid (rarely) should wipe it out. It lasts a few months.
It wouldn’t be so bad but the tank switch valve is even with the front of the side tank and so you can hardly get to the lines.
I should have said newer cars with fancier engines — my 2001 Saturn with 172,000 miles doesn’t seem to care what I feed it.
Yeah but if you’re having all these problems, wouldn’t it make sense to put in bulk storage or have a jumbo tank in the back of a pickup to fuel out of?
Ask hispanics how much corn toritlllas cost since ethenol.
I’m retired so I don’t have access to any of the suppliers any more. You might try emailing the mfgr tech service if you can find an address off the net, and maybe include some pics.
If you can get past the gatekeeper and actually find an engineer or service guy they usually are interested in looking at failures.
Your 2001 Saturn was designed with an eye towards potentially running on E85 (though it was never certified for it) and many GM corporate parts were rated for E85 as they were intended to be used in FFVs, so your Saturn is at least in part prepped for higher levels of ethanol in its fuel than most other vehicles.
Can’t do either without permitting and storage safety issues around here. There is also the matter of how much I go through - in a busy week, I will easily empty a 55 gallon drum before the week is out, even with the motorcycle.
Basically, I have no idea what I am talking about, and you just made me feel better that my car isn’t going to crap out if they put more corn in my tank. Aren’t there other biofuels we could be mass producing that won’t price food out of people’s reach?
There was an "honorable mention" by Paul Conway, COB of Cargill, who also strongly opposes mandates for biofuels, but points to other contributary factors for high food prices.
< snip > ..... "In the last five months we lost roughly 100 million tonnes of crops, largely in South America and most recently in the US grain belt, which has been dealing with 100 degree temperatures," he says. ..... < snip >
He said that these and other factors, including demographics, worldwide rise in the standards of living and the 20% reduction in agricultural investment, all have contributed to higher food prices.
He also noted that most of these crops, particularly in the U.S., are later converted into sweeteners (read corn syrup) and animal feed which then raises the prices of meat and other products.
Thanks. I was sloppy in my reading.
Yes - we can and should be (if we’re going to mandate alcohol in fuel) making alcohol from stuff like switchgrass and other such weeds that don’t replace food crops or take up food crop growing space.
As for the Saturn - well, it may crap out soon, but that’s because it’s a Saturn, not because of the fuel. :)
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