Tuesday, January 27, 2009

bolivia on biodiesel... oblivious

A news report out this morning exemplified the state of bass-akwards thinking, perpetuated by bureaucratic and political stagnation (fueled most likely by fear of loss of power, money or other "stuff"), that is suppressing both environmental balance and long term global economic sustainability.

Specifically, Bolivia.

It is currently illegal to use oil from soybean crops as a feedstock for biodiesel. The reason? Because it's a food crop.

OK, fair enough. People have to eat. And don't forget soybeans aren't just for feeding people. They feed livestock... which feeds people. And so the food chain continues.

But, the food needs to be planted, grown, harvested, shipped, and ultimately "processed" as food for it to actually become consumable.

At what point does the inability or failure of the afore mentioned to be achieved (harvesting and shipping), do we have a driver for common sense to take over?

Ironically, the reason the crops cannot be harvested or shipped is because of the lack of FUEL available to run the necessary equipment. This fuel, historically and typically petroleum diesel, has been on a roller coaster ride in terms of both price and availability over the last year.

So rather than allowing a portion of the soy beans to be crushed, and the oil to be used as FUEL, the Bolivian authorities are willing to allow the crops to rot in the fields and become completely wasted.

I suppose this is par for the course. This comes from country that 30 years ago began devastating the global ecological balance by deforesting hundreds of thousands of acres of rain forest and jungles in order to clear the way for industrial mega-farms. If the fact that this area is no longer being utilized for its original, natural, and dare I say, "evolved" purpose of carbon scrubbing isn't bad enough, the fact that these renewable crops cannot be used to produce a clean burning renewable fuel is simply criminal.

Soy oil isn't the only thing to make biodiesel out of. But when its available, abundant and inexpensive, it makes darn good fuel.

Using a portion of a crop to sustain the crop is just common sense!

The alternative is simply this: If there is no fuel to power the equipment to harvest and ship the crop, and there is no alternative equipment that can do the job, then the crop stays in the field, rots, and NO ONE get it for food, fuel or any other purpose. BRILLIANT!

In fact, the environmental damage caused by this exercise is truly exponentially multiplied at this point because all of the investment that originally went into planting the crops in the first place (time, energy and money) produces absolutely no return on investment- a down stream effect that is truly immeasurable because we can only estimate:

(1) how much carbon scrubbing the original rain forests would have been naturally occurring,
(2) how much financial loss is realized by not bringing crops to market,
(3) how much petroleum fuel was consumed and exhausted in the clearing of the rain forests,
(4) how much petroleum fuel was consumed and exhausted in the planting of the crops,
(5) how much environmental (land, water, etc) damage is being done by use of pesticides, chemicals, erosion, etc.,
(6) how much ecosystem damage is caused by loss of balance among all the inhabitants (great and small) of the land,
(7) and on and on...

Common sense says this is beyond dumb. It's galactically stupid!

Bolivia, President Evo Morales, Vice Minister of Environmental Affairs Juan Pablo Ramos... open your eyes and get a clue! Arguing that using soy for biodiesel "cuts into food supplies and harms the environment", yet promoting/perpetuating destruction of rain forest/deforestation, land erosion, elimination of natural carbon scrubbers, use of pesticides, chemicals and petroleum based infrastructure is both ignorant, immoral and insane.

Either you're padding your pockets with kickbacks from industry, or you have a serious lack of usable gray matter between your ears.

Do the world a favor... rethink your positions and policy, or get out of the way of reasonable people with better, more sustainable ideas.

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/01/27/bolivian_soybeans/

Friday, January 2, 2009

Exerpts from planet.betterplace.com conversations...

I recently befriended an entrepreneur, environmental activist and truly innovative person through my association with planet.betterplace.com- a California start-up trying to rewrite the book on adoption of EV culture.

My new friend, Jeannie, it turns out is quite the forward thinker. She operates on a grass-roots level, and can be found in Santa Cruz running a startup called The Scooter Stop (http://www.scooterstop.org/index.htm) promoting electric cycle/scooter transportation.

Here's a little bit of what we've discussed of late...

As for thoughts on consumer behavior, you'll agree there's no substitute for the sheepish nature of consumerism. We've proven time and again that we'll buy just about anything, junk or not, if everyone else is doing it AND if the seller makes it easy enough. Take a typical Ford, GM or Chrysler... given the right incentive, we happily purchase a vehicle with low buyer satisfaction rates, high recall and service bulletin rates, and poor safety ratings. I'm not saying I think it's smart, or even necessarily right, but it is what it is. Basically, no one likes being left behind. Truthfully, this is really part of the problem as well. In our quest for more stuff, we've leveraged our spending power to the brink of implosion (and some say we've already imploded). This behavior also fuels the race for cheap knock-offs, driving down the value, true quality and perceived quality of a group of products. Of course, this represents just the profit "p" of the triple bottom line. Consider the planet and people "p"s as well in terms of the environmental impact of the entire "materials economy"- see www.storyofstuff.com

Where does more, new stuff fit into the picture. I think it needs to be new "smart" stuff, where smart is defined by being initially designed and built knowing that it will ultimately be reabsorbed (recycled) into the system. Reduce, reuse, recycle, restore.

Where do free markets fit in to all this. They are the driver. But the evil byproducts, (namely greed and fear of losing our "stuff") cause acts of desperation. That desperate behavior, unfortunately, leads us down the path we've been traveling.

And free markets aren't necessarily allowed to freely operate in our society. Take government "incentives" (call it "welfare" if you want to put it in a negative light, and "tax credits or breaks" if you want to put it in a positive light") for instance... both of these cause markets to act irrationally, leading to an unsustainable feeding frenzy. Ethanol and biodiesel are prime examples. The production incentives drove investment in infrastructure, but not in sustainable process/operation. 90% of plants were built to operate on the easy money- corn or soy. Very few made any effort to invest in new feedstock technology. Now at the mercy of commodity markets, farmers (there's a whole other can of worms) went hog-wild on corn, when the price skyrocketed, plowing under soy fields to do so, leading to a shortage of soy, and causing the price of soy go up and out of control as well. Greed all around.

Another example, energy markets- California is all too familiar with the Enron fallout. Who wins? The trader. Who loses? The rest of us.

Free markets always go for the easy profits, the path of least resistance. That's their nature, and their shortfall. Greed. Now you can argue that this actually works, where the strong survive and the weak fall aside. But the wake, the contrail, the aftermath is the real measure of success/failure and whether or not something is really a "good" or "smart" idea. Just because we can do something doesn't necessarily necessitate that we should do that something.

The more people learn to act smart (taking initiative to research, learn and make smart decision rather than blindly accepting the status quo), take responsibility for those actions, and hold our elected leaders accountable for their part, the closer we'll come to having truly free markets.

Happy New Year

Welcome to 2009. It's gonna' be a great one!