Today in Biofuels Opinion: “Who’s going to build infrastructure or build a company to market and utilize camelina products unless we know that we’re going to have production.”
Stephen Guy, Washington State University: “Who’s going to build infrastructure or build a company to market and utilize camelina products unless we know that we’re going to have production? One of the things that I’ve observed, and I’ve been growing camelina for five years now, is that it tends to have better yield stability year to year, and environment to environment, than canola does. Camelina seems to be well adapted, as far as our environment is concerned, and less susceptible to climatic difficulties like freezing and high temperatures during flowering…We’re also not as successful growing canola here – if we want to have an oilseed crop, then camelina fits better than canola. … Per pound of oil produced, camelina can produce that oil cheaper. Those are the attractions now.”
Tom Philpott, in Grist: “The whole sorry spectacle got me thinking of the global food system, the juggernaut that feeds billions every day. It’s not hard to make analogies with the financial sector whose rubble now lays scattered about, ready to be cleaned up on the public’s dime…Just last year, the U.S. policy of diverting massive amounts of corn to biofuel—in concert with similar European Union policy on soybeans—sparked steep increases in food prices worldwide, pushing hundreds of millions of people into hunger. In essence, decisions made in Washington and Brussels reduced Haiti’s urban poor to eating mud cakes…These giant entities behave as if soil is an easily renewable resource, that the climate can absorb endless amounts of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (a synthetic fertilizer byproduct), and that communities and the biosphere can endlessly bear the toxic footprint of industrial meat production. And just as in the financial world circa 2006, signs of imminent trouble abound, discernible by anyone who dares look. Consider just a few of the most obvious ones: Industrial corn and soy are the lifeblood of the industrial food system… Large doses [of] antibiotics are fundamental to the industrial livestock model…Industrial-scale vegetable and fruit production relies heavily on domesticated honey bees for pollination—and commercial beekeepers have been haunted since 2006 by large die-offs.”
Free Subscription to the Daily Biofuels Digest e-newsletter
Subscribe FREE to the world's most-widely read biofuels daily. Enter your email in the box below,
Related Stories
Hot Topics
The Hottest 50 Companies in Bioenergy
Latest algae-to-energy news
Latest jatropha news
Latest Waste-to-energy news
Entry Information
Filed Under: Opinion
Post a Comment | Trackback URL
You must be logged in to post a comment.
