The Oil Drum

196 comments on Will biofuels always be hopeless?

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Seadragon on May 26, 2006 - 8:33am

I just yesterday sat down and watched Dr. Bartlett's presentation on exponential growth (for about the fifth time) and so your comments are particularly resonating for me this morning. I doubt our inventiveness (isn't that called technology or something?) will increase faster than our growth at any cost system we've set up, in light of the loss of the most energy dense source we've ever known. We can choose to control our population and energy use or let Nature choose for us--my bet's on the latter.

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Freyr on May 26, 2006 - 9:22am

During the Asian Development Bank conference Friday, it was stated that world food production must double within the next 50 years to feed the Asian population.

However the potential for expanding arable land in Asia is limited and "future expansion in food production must come largely from land already in use," said Norman Borlaug, winner of the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in expanding agricultural production.

With the challenge of feeding the worlds population being discussed, adding soil degragation, and loss of major energy inputs, I agree that nature will soon show us the limits of growth.

In other news, Earlier this week flash floods in northern Thailand destroyed a number of villages, combining both climate change and deforestation as probable factors.

"In less than a week, these provinces got 300 mm of rain,'' Tara Buakamsri, climate campaigner for the South-east Asia office of Greenpeace, the environmental lobby, told IPS. ''There are reports that this is the most rainfall in Uttaradit in 20 years, or even more.

Citing BRT research, he said the flash floods had been partially caused by a drastic change of biodiversity when uninhabited jungles were transformed into plantations and farmland.