Minister abandons biofuel target as doubts grow about benefits

maidhc

ninty9er wrote: »

Miscanthus is what you want...you could even get a full time job on the side. You'll need to talk to your friendly local bank manager for the initial investment though.

I do have a full time job already! Miscanthus was investigated, but it is currently being used for bedding horses, and given the huge capital investment is just too uncertain to invest in.

ninty9er

maidhc wrote: »

I do have a full time job already! Miscanthus was investigated, but it is currently being used for bedding horses, and given the huge capital investment is just too uncertain to invest in.

I have the number of a guy farming it. PM if you're still interested in looking into it.

unkel

ongarite wrote: »

Biofuels can never replace petrol/diesel. We would have to cover the entire surface of this planet with suitable crops to fuel our all the cars for a year and then we would all be dead from starvation.

Not what I've read in relation to this country. I've no quote / link but iirc 10% of current farmland used for biofuels would be enough to cover all our transport fuel needs

Matt Simis

unkel wrote: »

Not what I've read in relation to this country. I've no quote / link but iirc 10% of current farmland used for biofuels would be enough to cover all our transport fuel needs

This is also screwed if and when we switch to Algae based biofuels. Either way, the whole surface of the planet is way, way off. With conspiracy hats on, it could be suggested that line of thought was originally started by the Oil industry.

VH

Matt Simis wrote: »

With conspiracy hats on, it could be suggested that line of thought was originally started by the Oil industry.

very true

derry

VH wrote: »

very true

It seems to be a no brainer
If you sell oil it not interesting to allow another fuel source be it coal or Bio fuels take some of your market

Best to fight back and fight back dirty

some links

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055369646
oil companies will try to suppress bio fuel solutions

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055364915
nuclear power will try to replace bio fuels


Derry

derry

maidhc wrote: »

Set aside was abolished under the fishler reforms.

Eitherway, I don't understand the logic of "food getting expensive", food is incredibly cheap at the farm gate. It just gets expensive by the time in reaches the supermarket shelves. It strikes me the issue does not lie with land use.

I speak as someone with a 120 acre farm that is only barely worth farming as profitibility is so low. It is all incredibly fertile land that could easily produce biofuels was there a profitible market, but instead is only turning a very very small profit from beef farming.

Can you find eneogh other farmers through farm net or similar solutions that can state what amount of bio fuel acrege that can be produced
That preferably without impacting present food farming and then start to campain for the right to allowed to save ROI from the Oil enslavement that controls this regime that is in power and wants to keep us enslaved

It seems that 30% of irish food producing land is out of production paid for from EU so as to keep cheap food imports coming intoROIand the rest of the EU and ensure OIL enslaves us

Derry

ART6

Depending on who you listen to, oil will run out in twenty years, or next week, or not for millennia. But given current understanding oil results from millions of years of organic matter being subjected to high pressures and temperatures in the crust of the planet, but only in certain places many of which are inaccessible with present technology. Coal is similarly created, although there is more of it. Both release carbon dioxide that was locked in millions of years ago into the atmosphere now. Whatever the availability estimates both oil and coal must run out sometime, and if man made carbon dioxide is creating global warming (which I personally doubt), then both should stop being burned now. So there is every reason to develop biofuels, since at least they are renewable and carbon neutral. If the oil industry doesn't approve, tough chucks. Some time in the future there won't be an oil industry.

Ah, but growing crops for biofuels (say the activists) deprives people of food in underdeveloped countries. I have a problem understanding how growing biofuels in Ireland is going to cause starvation in Ethiopia, but then I am not a politician or a rope sandaled environmentalist. If the people of Ethiopia decide to grow biofuels instead of food and then starve, then what the merry hell are we supposed to do about it? If they want to sell biofuel crops to raise the money to buy food, fine. If it doesn't work like that for them, then it's for them to adapt as every human on the bloody planet has to do at some time. If they live in land that can't grow food or biofuels, then go somewhere else as people have been doing for thousands of years.

So, in summary, it seems to me that we are being told: Grow biofuels to save the planet, don't grow biofuels to save the starving, stop burning oil and coal to save the planet but don't exploit any other fuel in case someone starves as a result. I don't know about the rest of ye, but I have a cave marked out, in a place far removed from politicians and rampant environmentalists, and when the crunch come there I will live in harmony with nature:D

derry

ART6 wrote: »

If the people of Ethiopia decide to grow biofuels instead of food and then starve, then what the merry hell are we supposed to do about it? If they want to sell biofuel crops to raise the money to buy food, fine. If it doesn't work like that for them, then it's for them to adapt as every human on the bloody planet has to do at some time. If they live in land that can't grow food or biofuels, then go somewhere else as people have been doing for thousands of years.

No sweat I don't go with the oil is running out any time before 100 years
I don't buy the CO2 story
I am only interested in that ROI is enslaved to oil from other parts of the world when we can have the same replacement fuels grown here and keep the money and work in ROI anmd run the serpant oil companies out2Sea Period


But unfortunaly the Countries like Ethiopia are in the grips of these evil multi national companies
Ethiopia is huge in size easily 30 times bigger than ROI
Big chunks of it several times larger than ROI are full for water and fertile soils and can grwo most anything
However the Ethiopians joe soaps cant have that land as the elite owns it and work it for cash crops
Ethiopian are often scraping a living in the desert regions that the regime has banished them off to
The Ethiopians cant leave the region as EU and USA whatever wont let them come here
When you check most countries like Ethiopia you find a similar story meaning that fodd crops or fuel bio crops both starve the local populations

I cant figure the rest of the world accept that ROI has plenty of excess land and can do fuel bio crops and have no effect on food prices and make ROI at least 50% of all its fuel needs maybe even 100% all at prices similar or probably cheaper than oil products
I cant say that will work in the UK or Africa or somewhere else

Derry