[Dialogue] ENERGY DEPLETION

[vnatali]

The following are comments from Steve Natali, a geologist in petroleum
exploration.  I had asked about ethanol as a reasonable substitute for
gasoline. He also sent the Reuters article, printed below his comments.

Gini Natali

Comments from Steve Natali:

Ethanol is horrible, and will probably soon die. It can only exist through
huge subsidies, as it costs almost as much energy to create as it yields.
And corn prices have already started rising drastically. In Mexico, which
imports much corn from the US, tortilla prices have risen 30% over the past
three months, setting off a food crisis down there. People's income has not
increased, and yet the cost of their main staple has shot out of sight.
Upshot? People are eating less.

It is not a sustainable (or moral) situation to take a food crop and convert
it to something we can burn in our cars. The world needs food more than we
need to drive around in Hummers.

Ethanol production is already destabilizing our neighboring nation. This
before the several hundred ethanol plants currently on the boards get
built.. I've been watching this on Spanish-speaking television news for the
past few weeks, and this is building to a head quickly. The Mexican
government is already in an extremely fragile state, with Obrador claiming
that Calderon stole the election from him using voter fraud. This just makes
Calderon's government appear even less legitimate. With Mexico's poor
subsisting almost entirely on tortillas, and no one's income having
increased, people are being forced to eat less.
Ethanol will be shut down when it so impacts food prices in the US that only
the wealthy remain untouched.
Thousands March Over Tortilla Crisis
    Reuters
    Thursday 01 February 2007
    Tens of thousands of demonstrators have marched through Mexico's capital
to protest a surge in tortilla prices that has put President Felipe Calderon
under intense pressure.
    Soaring US demand for ethanol has sent corn prices to their highest
level in a decade, pulling up prices of Mexico's national food staple.
    Protesters held up ears of corn and complained that Mr. Calderon, a
conservative accused by leftists of stealing the July 2006 presidential
election, was failing to protect them against foreign market forces.
    "Calderon isn't just a thief, he's a murderer because he wants us to die
of hunger," Elvira Acevedo, 62, said at the march.
    Mr. Calderon's leftist election rival, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is
using the surge in tortilla prices to snipe at the government and he joined
the protest march on Wednesday.
    "The right dehumanises everything. We are living the consequences of the
imposition of a Government dominated by white-collar criminals. They are a
danger to Mexico," the firebrand former Indian rights activist told
supporters in the vast Zocalo square.
    Corn tortilla prices rose as high as 15 pesos ($1.76) for a kilogram -
roughly 35 of the flat corn patties - in recent weeks as the corn market
tightened. Mexico imports corn from the United States to top up its domestic
production.
    Mr. Calderon responded this month by persuading producers, makers and
retailers to cap their prices so tortillas would sell at no more than 8.50
pesos (99 cents) a kilogram, but local media say some vendors are still
charging up to 12 (1.40).
    Before the crisis, tortillas sold at around 5 pesos (58 cents) per
kilogram.
    Mr. Calderon has won praise at home and abroad for sending out thousands
of troops to hunt down drug cartels since he took office on December 1, but
what is being dubbed a "tortilla crisis" for the half of Mexico that lives
on $5 ($6.45) a day or less is stealing headlines.
    Mr. Lopez Obrador held massive street protests that crippled Mexico City
after the fiercely contested presidential election but Mexico's top election
court threw out his fraud allegations and Mr. Calderon was able to take
office.



-----Original Message-----
From: dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net
[mailto:dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net]On Behalf Of David & Lin Zahrt
Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 6:13 AM
To: Order Ecumenical; Dialogue ICA
Subject: [Dialogue] ENERGY DEPLETION

I have watched the "ethanol craze" build in Iowa. It is driven by the
universal awareness that we are participating globally in Energy Depletion.
I see it as a 'quick fix' being exploited by agribusiness and the oil
industry.

Ethanol will be a by-product of the corn raised in Iowa. Aside from some of
the left over by-products it is a wash--we use up as much energy as we
produce, and we use up (as in exhaust) an unbelievable and consistently
ignored amount of water and soil resources . It is an attempt to use soil
and water to turn petroleum into energy.

The local agriculturalist believes it will help him/her because it will
raise the price of a bushel of corn. At the moment the price of corn is the
recipient of a price support program which means that it is sold for less
than it costs to produce, the balance of which is made up by government
subsidy. That, of course, allows Cargill and Archer, Daniels, Midland to
purchase corn for less than it costs to produce so they can manufacture corn
syrup and corn oil, ingredients that have been coveted by the fast food
industry, and which have made a major contribution to the epidemic of
obesity in the US.

I would like to believe that I am looking at the real trends rather than
being consumed by pessimism--that I am willing to take the 'blinders' off
and face the real future we, as a society, are in the process creating. I am
constantly on the lookout for individuals, groups, movements, with whom I
could collaborate to set a new trend in motion. I belong to Practical
Farmers of Iowa--sustainable agriculture; Iowa Prairie Network--protecting
and restoring natural habitat; NW Iowa Sierra Club Group; Center for(If you
know of any please inform me)

I recently received a mailing (always suspicious of unsolicited mailings and
phone calls) from a group that calls themselves the International Energy
Depletion Institute (IEDI), located in Tennessee. I would scan the mailing
but I am under the impression that it would have to come as an attachment
and these list-serves don't accept attachments. Has anyone else received
such a mailing?

In an attempt to find out more about the IEDI I went to the internet. Google
has nothing in the first 10. Yahoo doesn't either. Does anyone have
information on the background of IEDI?

The mailing was 6-8.5x11 pages. This is the beginning of one of the pages.
Sample from one of the pages

"OIL IS FOOD
6 BILLION HUMAN BEINGS SIMPLY CANNOT SURVIVE ON THIS PLANET WITHOUT OIL. IT
IS ESTIMATED THAT THE NATURAL CARRING CAPACITY OF THE EARTH IS PROBABLY
SOMEWHERE BETWEEN ONE & TWO BILLION PEOPLE AT BEST.

            This sobering assessment does not, in our opinion, take into
consideration the environmental degradation of the Industrial Age or the
impact of future Global Warming. Fossil Fuels have magically turned the
planets depleted top soils into abundant cropland. Just take a look at the
graph below. The evidence is undisputable!! OIL IS FOOD!..."


I'm asking for feedback because I think the IEDI is on to something
important. I am suspicious of unsolicited mass mailings and the fact that I
find no background info on the internet.

David Zahrt
< chbnb at netins.net <mailto:chbnb at netins.net> >





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