The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Nice presentation, Lunkhead. I'd forgotten about that book as well, and will pick up a copy.

We have the technology and ability to grow crops in the desert for fuck sake. Plants are easily manipulated to be hybrids. There is so much land in the United States that is unused. We know we can move away from fossil fuels to bio fuels, we know that we can raise crops in conditions never imagined before. There should be no excuse for short supply.

I don't think all that stuff is necessary, personally. I think it's more a matter of distribution of food, monetary resources, and basic agricultural technology than advanced technology like genetic engineering.

Billy's Little Trip wrote:We have the technology and ability to grow crops in the desert for fuck sake. Plants are easily manipulated to be hybrids. There is so much land in the United States that is unused. We know we can move away from fossil fuels to bio fuels, we know that we can raise crops in conditions never imagined before. There should be no excuse for short supply.

Changing to biofuels really doesn't alter the carbon cycle much. It does a bit - not a lot.

Caravan Ray wrote:

Billy's Little Trip wrote:We have the technology and ability to grow crops in the desert for fuck sake. Plants are easily manipulated to be hybrids. There is so much land in the United States that is unused. We know we can move away from fossil fuels to bio fuels, we know that we can raise crops in conditions never imagined before. There should be no excuse for short supply.

Changing to biofuels really doesn't alter the carbon cycle much. It does a bit - not a lot.

True, but it decreases our dependency on foreign oil until we move completely away from it.

Billy's Little Trip wrote:We have the technology and ability to grow crops in the desert for fuck sake. Plants are easily manipulated to be hybrids. There is so much land in the United States that is unused. We know we can move away from fossil fuels to bio fuels, we know that we can raise crops in conditions never imagined before. There should be no excuse for short supply.

NO NO NO NO NO

Please read about corn ethanol and the like somewhere. It's a complete fucking scam.

It's subsidized by the government and it still costs more to use than petroleum.

Manufacturing a gallon of ethanol from corn uses much more than a gallon of gasoline worth of energy. The best part? There's about 60% as much energy in a gallon of ethanol as in one of those gallons of gas.

And thanks to all these shenanigans, wheat prices have about tripled since last year, and a bag of decent flour costs me $3-4 instead of the old $1.19 or so. Eggs are $2 a dozen instead of the $.69 or so they were when I was a kid.

YAYYY ALTERNATIVE ENERGY. Alternative energy is turning out to be much like alternative music. Before long, it was just mainstream music in a clever disguise. Alternative energy is being turned into another corporate scam. But don't get me wrong...

Wind is good. It's been used for thousands of years. When solar technology improves, it will be good. An experimental fusion power plant is underway in Europe. Let's hope that all works out. As has been said, bio-fuels from waste are a great idea. Using perfectly good food supplies as a fuel source is generally a complete fucking disaster.

Lord of Oats wrote:As has been said, bio-fuels from waste are a great idea.

One of my friends drives a veggie-car (a VW bug). It requires a small amount of diesel gas to get it warmed up and cleaned out, but it's evidently very economical and 'green.' Heck of a lot of work to get the oil in usable form etc. though, way too much work for me.
-bill

Around these hippie town parts, you can get biodiesel from a co-operative, however, biodiesel from waste vegetable oil (as is commonly used, if I recall correctly) isn't really going to scale up to mass use. There just aren't enough friers out there making french fries to fuel all our cars. But it's great for some people if they can do it.

Lunkhead wrote:. There just aren't enough friers out there making french fries to fuel all our cars. But it's great for some people if they can do it.

Heh! So I'm actually eating chips to save the world! Not just because I'm a fat bastard. Cool!