Not all biofuels are evil, you know...

Marginal areas where there is limited opportunity to grow food could be in use right now--growing alternatives to corn and soybeans and helping solve our energy problems. While these options are the whole answer, they give us something to think about now that we're seeing a growth in food prices.

Those seeking alternatives are looking to algae and cellulose-based plants, like switchgrass. These plants don't cut into with food production because they are not based on grains. In addition, they can be grown in conditions unsuitable for most crops, so they don't use needed agricultural land.

Algae and switchgrass might do what corn-based ethanol was supposed to: reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and cut CO2 emissions that could cause climate change. Some scientists in the biofuels industry promote algae as a viable alternative to gasoline because it can help curb global warming. Algae require CO2 and sunlight for photosynthesis. Since algae feed on CO2, growing algae goes hand-in-hand with reducing CO2 emissions.

Ted Aulich, a process chemist at the Energy and Environmental Research Center at the Univ. of North Dakota gives algae a glowing recommendation. "Algae represent a better feedstock than just about anything else out there in terms of its CO2 balance," he said, "and also I guess the potential for developing much more economical fuel pathways."

One reason is algae's ability to grow under conditions unsuitable for most crops, Aulich said. Algae can grow in the desert, for example. It can also grow in saline or polluted water that's unusable for anything else.

Besides algae, there's our old friend switchgrass:

Another biofuel considered to have great potential is cellulosic ethanol, made from plants with high cellulose contents -- notably switchgrass. Like algae, switchgrass isn't a food-based crop. It can also grow on marginal land.

Joachim von Braun, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute, called for an end to food-based biofuel production last week. His institute supports a move toward non-grain crops.

But questions still remain. "We have been saying that there should be a switch to using plant residues or switchgrass or whatever," said the IFPRI spokesman Michael Rubinstein, "but we can't say yet what the impact would -- be because the technology isn't there. Nobody's proven yet that these technologies work."

Yet, some firms have developed working technology to convert algae and switchgrass into fuels. As with many other green energy solutions, the major obstacle for both algae and switchgrass biofuels is not technology but cost.

"We have to figure out a better way to get high yields of algae more economically," Aulich said. He says this means developing technology that will allow more algae to be exposed to as much sunlight as possible.

As for switchgrass, Aulich says the costs of production and transportation are still too high. "It's fairly expensive to harvest and transport switchgrass," he said. "It's not a very energy-dense material. … If we're looking at crops like swichgrass and cellulose crops, what we need is a good way to densify those materials -- increase their energy density." The idea is to get more energy out of less switchgrass, increasing efficiency and cutting costs.

I'm sure there are drawbacks, but one of the things we have to change our mindset about is definitely "whether we can do this." We have to do this. We have to look at wind and solar power, and we have to look at algae and switchgrass.

Another Excellent Article

We're on a global food crisis kick this week, and here's another great source of information:

There is, however, one big problem looming ahead in the world food industry. Unless the scientists get very lucky very soon, we shall soon all be hearing a lot more about something called Ug99. This is the name of a variant of the stem rust fungus, Puccinia graminis, that attacks wheat.

It was first identified in Uganda in 1999, hence the name. But this year it spread dramatically, its spores drifting on the wind across the Red Sea to Yemen and across the Persian Gulf to Iran.

The wheat stem rust, also known as wheat black rust, is capable of causing severe losses. It can destroy entire wheat fields. The FAO estimates that as much as 80 percent of all wheat varieties planted in Asia and Africa are susceptible to this new strain.

“Global wheat yields could be at risk if the stem rust spreads to major wheat-producing countries,” warns FAO Director-General Dr Jacques Diouf. “The fungus can spread rapidly and has the potential to cause global crop epidemics and wheat harvest losses of several billion dollars. This could lead to increased wheat prices and local or regional food shortages. Developing countries that are relying on wheat and do not have access to resistant varieties will be particularly hit.”

There are two big problems here. The first is that Ug99 has defeated the two main gene complexes, Sr 31 and Sr 24, that protect most wheat strains from stem rust. It appears to resist most fungicides. Stopping it may not be a foregone conclusion.

“Of the 50 genes we know for resistance to stem rust, only 10 work even partially against Ug99,” warns Rock Ward, leading the fight against it at the international Maize and Wheat Improvement Center.

The second problem is the nightmare scenario. Having jumped the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, it is not clear how Ug99 gets stopped before it heads east into Pakistan and India, and north into Russia, Ukraine and Europe.

“This thing has immense potential for social and human destruction," says Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug, now 93 and known as the father of the Green Revolution in agriculture. "We know what to do and how to do it. All we need are the financial resources, scientific cooperation and political will to contain this threat to world food security.”

The article goes on to say that the American midwest is the likely savior of the world, in terms of what could be grown to feed people. I would tend to agree--so long as we abandon to boondoggle of ethanol and start fixing our own farm policies. I grew up with these massive fields of corn and soybeans and I know what could be done if we stopped tying the hands of the American farmer behind him and her. If we could tap into this resource and start using it to stabilize the world, we'd be better off. And, yes, I know that we should limit fertilizer and runoff, and that modern farming beats the hell out of the environment.

Anyway, the Washington Independent does a great job--follow the link and check them out. They're not paying me to say that.

Governments Will Fall

I can't help but look at stories like this and think about what comes next:

The U.N. World Food Program has flagged 30 nations confronting mounting food insecurity this year as a direct result of market forces; 22 of them are in Africa. As prices climb, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Senegal and other net food importers have been racked by civil unrest. Hunger is spiking in parts of the continent in patterns similar to past bouts of drought, floods or civil strife. In Mauritania -- a nation of 3 million straddling Arab and black Africa -- the number of people not getting enough food is up this year by 30 percent in rural areas despite a relatively good annual harvest, according to the WFP. A food emergency has been declared in broad sections of the country, with the food program rushing to roll out feeding stations.

U.N. experts, World Bank officials and aid groups fear it marks the onset of the worst food crisis in the region in decades; officials are calling for $755 million in fresh emergency food assistance from rich countries. Aid groups are already falling behind in their efforts to provide food across the continent, leaving even the poorest communities increasingly dependent on the market.

"This is the new face of hunger," said Josette Sheeran, WFP executive director.

Globalization was supposed to eliminate this kind of recurring disaster. With economists radiating confidence about the new efficiencies of the global market, the need for food self-sufficiency seemed almost archaic. In that new reality, global markets would provide the long-term cornucopia that the arid earth here could not, and at reasonable prices.

Globalization is the cause of these problems, not the solution. If you consider that having one genetic strain of seed material can lead to a lack of biodiversity, then that's globalization in a nutshell, pardon the pun. If the same seed grown in Iowa, Kenya and the Ukraine is susceptible to drought or some other type of failure, you have the makings of a global problem on your hands.

Everything has a cause and effect, and if people are starving and going without basic necessities, then the consequence of that is going to be unrest. Governments will fall. Revolutions will happen. Arable land that can sustain crops is going to increase in value, and armed men are going to protect their arable land or take it away from someone who is weaker. Flooding Africa with cheap arms and weapons means a greater chance of seeing ten or fifteen or even more regional wars could break out over scarce resources. If you don't think the issue of Ukraine trying to break away completely from Russia and become a separate entity matters, think of Russia starving while Ukraine feeds Europe. No, I don't think Putin is going to stand by and let that happen, either.

And, just in time, the Pentagon has created AFRICOM so they can "keep a handle" on all of these issues, right? Well, right now, they're temporarily based in Stuttgart, Germany.

No, that's not a joke.