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[OM] Re: [ot] alternative fuels

Subject: [OM] Re: [ot] alternative fuels
From: Jan Steinman <Jan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2007 19:54:30 -0700
> From: "Barry B. Bean" <bbbean@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> On Thu, 5 Apr 2007 20:35:08 -0700, Jan Steinman wrote:
>
>> Grain
>> harvests have been in steady decline for five years, at about a 2%
>> rate, with no indication of change on the horizon.
>
> I believe you've been sold a bill of goods!

My statement was sufficiently vague as to be defensible. But I should  
have more precisely said that the rate of increase in world grain  
output has been declining, and is no longer keeping up with the rate  
of increase in demand. Ethanol in SUVs won't help this situation at  
all. Let them eat cake.

References:

China's rice harvest has been falling since 1997: http:// 
www.eoearth.org/article/Aquifer_depletion

"Newly harvested wheat poured into U.S. grain elevators last week,  
offsetting a decline in commercial inventories of nearly all other  
types of cash grain" http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/ 
2006/06/27/1696973.htm

"This years harvest of 1,967 million tons is falling short of the  
estimated consumption of 2,040 million tons by some 73 million tons.  
This shortfall of nearly 4 percent is one of the largest on  
record.... in six of the last seven years world grain production has  
fallen short of use" http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/ 
2006/11/exploding_us_gr.html

"we [the US] need a rise of 73 million tons just to overcome the 2006  
production shortfall. Beyond that we will need 24 million tons of  
additional output to cover the estimated annual growth in food and  
feed needs. If we then add 39 million additional tons to supply the  
54 new distilleries..." http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2006/ 
Update60.htm

"World Grain Stocks in Decline" http://technocrat.net/d/2006/6/16/4549

"the U.S. Department of Agriculture indicates that a 1-degree-Celsius  
rise in temperature (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above the optimum during  
the growing season leads to a 10 percent decline in yields of rice,  
wheat and corn. With four of the past six years being the warmest on  
record, grain harvests are suffering. High temperatures lowered  
harvests last year in India and the United States and scorched crops  
this year from France to Ukraine... falling water tables and rising  
temperatures, along with trends such as soil erosion, has led to four  
consecutive shortfalls in the world grain harvest." http://www.earth- 
policy.org/Updates/Update31.htm

:::: Real peace in a petroleum-fueled world means rejecting petroleum  
dependence in all possible ways. -- Jan Lundberg ::::
:::: Jan Steinman (a fossil-fuel-free zone) <http:// 
www.VeggieVanGogh.com> ::::



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