[Digestion] Biogas conversation rates

[Steve Verhey]

Regarding subsidies in the US: here is information from Table 22.3 in Pimentel & Pimentel's book Food, Energy, and Society, 3rd edition:

energy source/subsidy (in billion $)

Oil/11.9
Nuclear/11.0
Coal/8.0
Natural gas/4.3
Energy efficiency/1.2
Ethanol/ >1.0

The oil and ethanol subsidy data are from 2001 sources; other industry data are from 1993. This makes the numbers pretty outdated, but I think the point is clear: oil companies get plenty of help to harvest "free in the ground" oil. It follows that the price of petroleum energy is artificially low (the "natural" price would be the cost of goods sold + distribution + profit margin). I don't think these numbers include the cost to taxpayers of maintaining the kind of military necessary to defend oil sources and shipping routes.

Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2011 12:15:28 -0800
From: 9watts at gmail.com
To: digestion at lists.bioenergylists.org
Subject: Re: [Digestion] Biogas conversation rates

On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 12:04 PM, bingham <bingham at zekes.com> wrote:


 


subsidized grains....under cut the production of corn ???? I would like to 
see the evidence of a subsidized grain effecting the production of corn in a third world setting. Most third world farmers, only 
cost, is the seed. Rain is free and the grass is free, to feed there beasts of burden is free. They do not use energy.
Your logic is a bit tricky to follow, but here's something to ponder in relation to your notion that agriculture in the third world is (nearly) free and does not use energy.


-----Forwarded Message-----

From: Earth Policy Release 

Sent: Jan 14, 2011 2:00 AM

To: mcat at teleport.com

Subject: Earth Policy Release -- The Great Food Crisis of 2011











    
    



  
  
    THE GREAT FOOD CRISIS OF 2011* 

    By Lester R. Brown 

    www.earth-policy.org/plan_b_updates/2011/update90




    

      
    
      Earth Policy Release          

        Plan B Update     

        January 14, 2011    

      

      
      
  As
 the new year begins, the price of wheat is setting an all-time high in 
the United Kingdom. Food riots are spreading across Algeria. Russia is 
importing grain to sustain its cattle herds until spring grazing begins.
 India is wrestling with an 18-percent annual food inflation rate, 
sparking protests. China is looking abroad for potentially massive 
quantities of wheat and corn. The Mexican government is buying corn 
futures to avoid unmanageable tortilla price rises. And on January 5, 
the U.N. Food and Agricultural organization announced that its food 
price index for December hit an all-time high.



     
But whereas in years past, it's been weather that has caused a 
spike in commodities prices, now it's trends on both sides of the food 
supply/demand equation that are driving up prices. On the demand side, 
the culprits are population growth, rising affluence, and the use of 
grain to fuel cars. On the supply side: soil erosion, aquifer depletion,
 the loss of cropland to nonfarm uses, the diversion of irrigation water
 to cities, the plateauing of crop yields in agriculturally advanced 
countries, and—due to climate change —crop-withering heat waves and 
melting mountain glaciers and ice sheets. These climate-related trends 
seem destined to take a far greater toll in the future.



 		 	   		  
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