romunov’s blog et al

Another report on the usability of crops to be converted to biofuel (visit the blog to check the participants). Earth2Tech has a list from one report on why biofuels from corn could not displace the current fuel demand.

Further more, these guys need to get an ecologist into their lines, mmmkay? I’m happy to read that at least one of the commentators mentioned the environmental problems associated with growing crops.

Growing monocultures is no small business. First, you need a bucket load of land that is easily cultivated (check). Then, you need a favorable climate (half check). You need a A LOT of fertilizer (check) and of course, a way to ward of parasites. This creates a few problems. Fertilizer doesn’t get used up 100%, but it leaks to adjacent ground, eventually making their way to groundwater, rivers and finally the sea. This contributes to various blooms and sometimes anoxia, which is bad, as it kills everything that doesn’t move fast enough. Clearly, the quality of living in those areas falls like a turd into the toilet with free fall speed. Then you need a method to keep your crops “healthy”. You might think that with current molecular techniques you can grow a GM crop resistant to this or that parasite, but this is farther from that truth than you can imagine. Most of the crops are made resistant to a certain type of herbicide/pesticide, and when farmer sprays his crop with this particular substance, the crop stands to see another day, but everything else around it takes a beating. This can in turn, in combination of various environmental events, like wind, rain, leaking to the ground, create health problems for the human (and animal) population. Monocultures grown over and over again on the same ground enable more parasites to complete their life cycles.

Bottom line, you fuck everything up.

It might seem harmless to an untrained eye, but I’ve been following the slow but sure degradation of meadows in my vicinity (or anywhere I go, for that matter) and they’re devoid of life and diversity compared to healthy meadows.

I even did an experiment. I haven’t cut crass for two months, and the damn thing grew and grew to about 75 cm. At least butterfly population and diversity increased. I noticed a lot more animals wandering around than now that we use a lawn mower. This is all already known to educated circles, but the information is not getting though, because people who advise farmers have little or no training in these sorts of things - or, don’t give a hoot about it.

In the end, biofuels are not the answer. They might be a temporary solution, but it will never hold H₂O.