BBC

Rising world food prices

Wheat prices have risen 83%% in a year
The price of wheat has doubled in the past year - and it is not the
only foodstuff trading at a high price on the international commodity
market.

Things have got so bad that aid agencies are having to rethink their
programmes.

In the UK, pig farmers are protesting at Downing Street over the price
of feed.

BBC science correspondent Tom Feilden looks at the reasons why the era
of cheap food may be coming to an end.

What is going on?

Prices are increasing sharply for some of the most basic foodstuffs
traded on international commodity markets.

The price of wheat has doubled in less than a year, while other
staples such as corn and soya are trading at well above their 1990s
averages.

On Mar 4, 11:14 am, tg earthlink.net> wrote:

On Mar 4, 11:14 am, tg earthlink.net> wrote:

On Mar 4, 11:37 am, ta nc.rr.com> wrote:

You missed the $1/gallon post last month.

With a two stage process, part chemical reactor - part biological
reactor, some GM sponsored start up claims they can process _any_
organic matter, _any_ bio waste into ethanol.

Untreated sludge, garbage, trash, corn stalks, weeds . . .

A gallon of EtOH has the energy of about 0.6 gallons of gasoline so
it's like getting gas for $1.70 gallon.

You can run a higher compression ratio higher with alcohol or E-85
than gas so the efficiency and mileage may be somewhat better than the
numbers above in a high compression ratio engine.

As for air travel, the planes are going to have to land more often.
It's not like putting a bigger tank on a motor vehicle.

Bret Cahill

You get colon cancer eating red meat more than once a week.

I've got a potato boiling right now and I'm as happy as a maggot in
his own barf.

Bret Cahill

On Mar 4, 12:43 pm, BretCah...@peoplepc.com wrote:

Some guy from DoE seemed pretty optimistic.

Maybe GM is trying to delay the inevitable takeover by EVs.

It's an interesting article.

The've tried reactors and they've tried yeast but they never tried
both.

By Chuck Squatriglia
WIRED
http://www.wired.com
Thursday, January 24, 2008

Startup Says It Can Make Ethanol for $1 a Gallon, and
Without Corn

A biofuel startup in Illinois can make ethanol from just
about anything organic for less than $1 per gallon, and it
wouldn't interfere with food supplies, company officials
said.

On Mar 4, 12:43 pm, BretCah...@peoplepc.com wrote:

And I pointed out the problem with this kind of thing. Just to kill
two birds, there was also a recent article about using bacteria to
generate fuel directly from CO2. All we have to do, they said, is
figure out how to concentrate the CO2...

On Mar 4, 12:28 pm, tg earthlink.net> wrote: