A certain UN top official has recently called our ill-conceived use of food crops as automotive fuel a crime against humanity. Would it surprise the same UN official that 50 years ago we tried to get cheap food from crude oil?
By: Vanessa Uy
Currently, the whole world is burdened by sky rocketing food prices in which our poorly planned bio-fuels program is mostly to blame. What if – in the mother of all ironic twists – we can derive food cheaply from where we get almost all of our automotive fuels, namely crude oil? But more importantly: is this even possible?
During the 1950’s through the 1960’s, a chemist working for the Société Française des Pétroles BP in Lavera, France had experimented with a process of deriving edible protein from crude oil. Chemist Alfred Champagnat added fertilizers to a batch of crude oil and air is bubbled through. This set-up resulted in a crop of yeast, which is about 50% edible protein. Though at the time other oil companies had also experimented with this method, the experiment showed very promising results. One pound of crude oil yielded about half a pound of protein. Amazingly, the process is very efficient because it creates edible protein several times faster than farm animals can synthesize protein from their feed or fodder. Though the crude oil derived protein resembled a tasteless and odorless powder in it’s raw state it can readily be turned into a meat-like concentrate and aromatic Far-Eastern style fish sauces. This crude oil derived protein has a tremendous potential as a source of low cost source of edible protein for the world’s poor during the time of the experiment. Alfred Champagnat estimated that only about 3% of the annual world output of petroleum / crude oil would be needed to produce 20 million tons of pure protein - –ore than three times the protein supplied by the world’s annual fish catch during the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Champagnat’s experiment really showed promise back then, but will it be a viable solution today to our ever increasingly difficult quest to provide low-cost food for the world’s poor?
Even though the circa 2008 price for crude oil is now teetering near the 120 US dollar-per-barrel mark, it is still considered by experts – especially scientists employed by oil companies – to be one of the cheapest natural resources available. Sadly, it’s so very true. A liter of gasoline is costs even cheaper compared to some brands of bottled water of the same volume. Even the experts working for the crude oil conglomerates continually tell us that the cause of the present sky high fuel prices is due to increased demand in China and India and not because the world’s entire supply of crude oil is running out.
Environmental concerns aside – isn’t it a disturbing thought that we might be actually using more crude oil per unit volume than we are using plant derived cooking oil? And is this might be the reason why all of the used cooking oil derived bio-diesel schemes are - at present – doomed to failure? Our current transport, electricity generation and other industrial processes are heavily dependent on crude oil and other fossil fuels. Because of this, the greatest problem of shifting to cleaner sustainable energy technologies like hydrogen and fuel cell technologies is technological infrastructure incumbency. We cannot easily –at present - adopt hydrogen-based systems because we built our industrial infrastructure around fossil fuels for almost a century that we can even produce crude oil derived fuels far more cheaply than their plant derived counterparts. It’s the hydrocarbon technology incumbency problem that tied us down. Not to mention that we have invested billions in the crude oil industry for nearly a century in making gasoline almost as cheap as bottled water.
But what if the petrochemical conglomerates manage to make edible protein more cheaply than our current farming and fishing methods by using Alfred Champagnat’s method scaled-up to industrial levels. Would this grant them absolute power since these conglomerates now control not only our energy supply, but also our food supply as well? These are profit-driven corporations and helping our planet’s hungry and poor inhabitants probably ranks last when it comes to their day to day corporate practices. It’s a brave new world.
Showing posts with label Food Shortage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food Shortage. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
The Rich Man’s Car
First it was the proverbial “rich man’s cow” that deprived the world’s poor from much needed staple grains, then came the bio-fuel industry making the “rich man’s car” the latest threat to the world’s poor. Will the injustice ever end?
By: Vanessa Uy
For over fifty years, the threat of starvation has always seemed unthinkable in affluent countries that benefited most from the post-World War II “Green Revolution”. But as more and more people manage to reach the upper echelons of the socio-economic ladder, they started to drastically affect the food supply of the entire world. As people get richer, they start to eat less grain. But they make up for this dietary paradigm shift by consuming more meat, and ironically that dietary lifestyle requires the consumption of enormous quantities of grain – by livestock.
Livestock – on average – must consume 10 kilograms of grain to produce 1 kilogram of meat. Thus the rich man consumes the equivalent of 10 kilograms of grain every time he consumes a kilogram of meat. In doing so, he disproportionately reduces the amount of grain available to feed the rest of humanity. And if there is not enough grain to go around, the rich man can easily outbid his less fortunate fellow human beings. As one United Nations food expert has succinctly put it more than thirty years ago, “The poor man’s grain is being siphoned off to feed the rich man’s cow.”
Then came the ill-conceived bio-fuel industry. Even though it is barely over three or so years old, it gained widespread acceptance with utter disregard for the ensuing environmental and social consequences. Thus the problem of the security of our global food supply has been greatly exacerbated. The rich man’s cow and the rich man’s car is now in competition – albeit unfairly when it comes to purchasing power – with the world’s poorer inhabitants when it comes to access to the world’s grain supply.
Thirty years ago when the bio-fuel industry was not yet the “logical alternative” to energy conservation measures. The world’s affluent society that embraced the American-Blue-Collar-Protestant-Work-Ethic-As-Ideology chose to harbor the perception that vegetarianism and energy conservation as a part of the Marxist-Leninist Socialism that threatens their Calvinist avarice. Even though reality seem to defy the socio-political construct of their perception like avarice should be a “God-given right”, or so it seems.
Inhabitants of underdeveloped Asian countries eat an average of 250 kilograms of grain per person per year. The average American – or anyone who can afford the “American Lifestyle” – consumes more than a metric ton of grain per person per year, and that’s before bio-fuels are added to the equation. The typical American eats 75 kilograms of grain annually as bread and breakfast cereals; The rest is fed to cattle, pigs and chickens to produce the meat, milk and eggs that serve as staples like grains do for the world’s poorer people. If we include the corn diverted to produce ethanol, our typical “American” is now consuming two metric tons of grain annually. Can all of us afford with a clear conscience the price we pay in maintaining our “American Dream” of freedom of mobility?
The recent food riots that happened in Egypt and Haiti is somewhat reminiscent to what happened back in the early 1970’s when droughts reduced global grain harvests and the oil crisis caused a sharp rise in staple food prices. It seems like our unquestioning faith to the energy intensive, chemically dependent agricultural methods of the Green Revolution has been betrayed. Even our current World Bank president Robert Zoellick has voiced alarm over spiraling prices of staple foods that could trigger more political unrest and even wars.
The impact of our current ill-conceived bio-fuel programs needs to be further examined since it is one of the main contributors to our current food shortage. Despite its touted “Green Credentials” many are finding out that the supposed “eco-friendliness” of a majority of our bio-fuel programs is a sham. What used to be a primeval tropical rainforest two years ago is now a bio-fuel plantation is more of a rule – rather than the exception when it comes to the bio-fuel industry. Will the inner environmentalist inside all of us be willing to just sit back and relax every time we’re enjoying the joyride in our bio-fueled “Sport Utility Vehicles”? Or will our policymakers be forced to fastrack bio-fuel programs that don't use staple food or the land used to grow them like India's Jatropha Bio-Fuel program which sadly is still in it's small scale / pilot stage?
The moral pressure over everyone jumping into the natural resource wasteful Western Industrial / American lifestyle has been around for over thirty years. Back then it was over increased meat consumption by both the rich man and his pet dog. Now, his car has joined into the picture. There’s even an increasing popularity being discussed on how Paris Hilton’s pet chihuahua has a bigger carbon footprint compared to the average working class Chinese. As more and more of us become affluent, will we ever adopt a less wasteful lifestyle? To me, not very likely because energy and natural resource conservation has been often touted as an anathema by those who have bought and sold the Calvinist / Protestant Work Ethic Avarice Driven ideology. They see vegetarianism and energy conservation as a very dangerous Left – Wing ideology. It looks like Conan O’Brien spoofing about Jesus Christ being a “NASCAR fan” has a kernel of truth in it. Or will it someday become part and parcel with the “Holy Scripture”?
By: Vanessa Uy
For over fifty years, the threat of starvation has always seemed unthinkable in affluent countries that benefited most from the post-World War II “Green Revolution”. But as more and more people manage to reach the upper echelons of the socio-economic ladder, they started to drastically affect the food supply of the entire world. As people get richer, they start to eat less grain. But they make up for this dietary paradigm shift by consuming more meat, and ironically that dietary lifestyle requires the consumption of enormous quantities of grain – by livestock.
Livestock – on average – must consume 10 kilograms of grain to produce 1 kilogram of meat. Thus the rich man consumes the equivalent of 10 kilograms of grain every time he consumes a kilogram of meat. In doing so, he disproportionately reduces the amount of grain available to feed the rest of humanity. And if there is not enough grain to go around, the rich man can easily outbid his less fortunate fellow human beings. As one United Nations food expert has succinctly put it more than thirty years ago, “The poor man’s grain is being siphoned off to feed the rich man’s cow.”
Then came the ill-conceived bio-fuel industry. Even though it is barely over three or so years old, it gained widespread acceptance with utter disregard for the ensuing environmental and social consequences. Thus the problem of the security of our global food supply has been greatly exacerbated. The rich man’s cow and the rich man’s car is now in competition – albeit unfairly when it comes to purchasing power – with the world’s poorer inhabitants when it comes to access to the world’s grain supply.
Thirty years ago when the bio-fuel industry was not yet the “logical alternative” to energy conservation measures. The world’s affluent society that embraced the American-Blue-Collar-Protestant-Work-Ethic-As-Ideology chose to harbor the perception that vegetarianism and energy conservation as a part of the Marxist-Leninist Socialism that threatens their Calvinist avarice. Even though reality seem to defy the socio-political construct of their perception like avarice should be a “God-given right”, or so it seems.
Inhabitants of underdeveloped Asian countries eat an average of 250 kilograms of grain per person per year. The average American – or anyone who can afford the “American Lifestyle” – consumes more than a metric ton of grain per person per year, and that’s before bio-fuels are added to the equation. The typical American eats 75 kilograms of grain annually as bread and breakfast cereals; The rest is fed to cattle, pigs and chickens to produce the meat, milk and eggs that serve as staples like grains do for the world’s poorer people. If we include the corn diverted to produce ethanol, our typical “American” is now consuming two metric tons of grain annually. Can all of us afford with a clear conscience the price we pay in maintaining our “American Dream” of freedom of mobility?
The recent food riots that happened in Egypt and Haiti is somewhat reminiscent to what happened back in the early 1970’s when droughts reduced global grain harvests and the oil crisis caused a sharp rise in staple food prices. It seems like our unquestioning faith to the energy intensive, chemically dependent agricultural methods of the Green Revolution has been betrayed. Even our current World Bank president Robert Zoellick has voiced alarm over spiraling prices of staple foods that could trigger more political unrest and even wars.
The impact of our current ill-conceived bio-fuel programs needs to be further examined since it is one of the main contributors to our current food shortage. Despite its touted “Green Credentials” many are finding out that the supposed “eco-friendliness” of a majority of our bio-fuel programs is a sham. What used to be a primeval tropical rainforest two years ago is now a bio-fuel plantation is more of a rule – rather than the exception when it comes to the bio-fuel industry. Will the inner environmentalist inside all of us be willing to just sit back and relax every time we’re enjoying the joyride in our bio-fueled “Sport Utility Vehicles”? Or will our policymakers be forced to fastrack bio-fuel programs that don't use staple food or the land used to grow them like India's Jatropha Bio-Fuel program which sadly is still in it's small scale / pilot stage?
The moral pressure over everyone jumping into the natural resource wasteful Western Industrial / American lifestyle has been around for over thirty years. Back then it was over increased meat consumption by both the rich man and his pet dog. Now, his car has joined into the picture. There’s even an increasing popularity being discussed on how Paris Hilton’s pet chihuahua has a bigger carbon footprint compared to the average working class Chinese. As more and more of us become affluent, will we ever adopt a less wasteful lifestyle? To me, not very likely because energy and natural resource conservation has been often touted as an anathema by those who have bought and sold the Calvinist / Protestant Work Ethic Avarice Driven ideology. They see vegetarianism and energy conservation as a very dangerous Left – Wing ideology. It looks like Conan O’Brien spoofing about Jesus Christ being a “NASCAR fan” has a kernel of truth in it. Or will it someday become part and parcel with the “Holy Scripture”?
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