May 31st, 2007 by John
A recent announcement by the U.S government shows that the ethenol industry is expected to take around 87 million tonnes of maize this year which will be 27% of the crop compared with 55 mt (20%) in 2006.
There are now about 117 distilleries working with a capacity of about 6 billion gallons per year. Within two years this is expected to double.
The Center for Agricultural and Rural Development in Iowa State University has found that U.S retail prices have already increased by $14bln annually, and could climb by $20 bln annually if crude oil and maize prices remain high.
U.S ethenol production could reach 30bln gallons by 2012, consuming over half of U.S maize, wheat and coarse grains pushing up meat and poultry prices and significantly reducing grain and meat exports.
This is plainly very bad news for those countries that depend on U.S grain imports, especially as biofuel production is also causing exportable surpluses to disappear in other areas such as the EU. They must be worrying about food security. And so they should.
With such a tight situation, any major climatic problems in the world such as widespread drought or late monsoons would cause chaos in the grain markets and panic among the public
Posted in Threats to Food Supply | 1 Comment »
With world food supplies becoming tighter each year and the West being unable to produce food without oil and gas, we should consider the effect Jihad may have on oil supplies and therefore food supplies.
Jihad or Holy War is funded by oil and is very likely to cause a shortage of oil.
Wahabism, an extreme branch of Islam is Saudi based. A strange alliance was formed between the Royal family and the clerics so that the clerics could continue to teach extremism while the royals rule the land. This may well backfire against the royals as the extremists aim for an Islamic state in Saudi, Pakistan and elsewhere.
Jihadists are focused on the destruction of the Infidel world and bringing back the Caliphate, a new superstate above the sovereignties of all Arab or Muslim countries. The oil money flowing into Saudi is allowing the clerics to spread the Jihadi doctrine throughout the world.
Many people in the West imagine that extremists are a very tiny minority in the Muslim world, but now the Madrassas (religious schools) in Saudi, Pakistan and elsewhere are brainwashing children of an impressionable age.
The Jihadists know that they cannot defeat the West by conventional warfare or even by more terrorist attacks similar to 9/11. Security is now much tighter, but in any case such acts only do superficial damage. They know too well that to bring the West to its knees they would need to deny us the oil and gas that built our wealth and on which our civilisation now depends.
As we cannot now produce food without oil and gas, any large or prolonged reduction in supplies would create chaos in the food industry which the Jihadists would welcome.
Energy supplies are bound to be the weapon of choice for these extremists and the arrest of 172 people in Saudi recently accused of planning to blow up oil installations might well have been the start of this.
Our best defence against this would be to take steps to becoming much less dependent on the Middle East by using less oil and gas and finding ways to use the abundant power of the sun in innovative and efficient ways.
