Fundamentally we cannot turn food into fuel to allow some people to live very unsustainable life styles.
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Stuart
Bio Fuels could really hurt the Third World.
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Stuart - 2007-01-31 13:10:10 |
| Re: Bio Fuels could really hurt the Third World. | Mike Curran - 2007-01-31 18:47:35 |
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China and India are buying up most of the grain at the moment, China will need two thirds of the worlds grain by 2025. Here the price of land to rent has rocketed this year because of tillage farmers. As the grain is becomming expensive , beef production also is as the cattle need grain to fatten in most countries, countries which we traditionally competed against for beef production are switching to grain production. As a result the beef price is the highest it has been for the last ten years. In America they need to feed a cow 4.5 ton of grain to produce milk for the year, in Ireland it's 0.5 ton. The milk price will also rise. Production of beef and milk is shifting to grass based systems, much cheaper. I'm no fan of the US but the problems the third world experience have little to do with it. It doesn't matter how cheap or dear the grain is , the third world has remained poor through all the market fluctuations. Oil, diamonds, metals even nuclear material come from the poorest countries and we are trying to run the house here off wind! You can't worry about such things , the market is too complex to control and any government who tried to have everyone equal failed. Oh God I sound so boring, I'm really not , sorry
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| Re: Bio Fuels could really hurt the Third World. | Stuart - 2007-01-31 20:22:37 |
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Mike why is there such a differential in the consumption of grain between Irish and US milk cows? Would the UK figure be closer to Eire or the US? -- Stuart |
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| Re: Bio Fuels could really hurt the Third World. | Stuart - 2007-01-31 20:23:45 |
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Bye the way anyone who climbes up that tower to do the repairs is not classed as boring in my book! -- Stuart |
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| Re: Bio Fuels could really hurt the Third World. | Mike Curran - 2007-01-31 20:40:46 |
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I think the cows need the grain because they are kept inside and stall fed, of course not all are but because of the extremes in temp in some states they don't bother with grass. Also letting cows graze in a field and then bringing them in to milk them in is ok if you are small, one man might be able to handle 200 cows like this, in Newzealand they would handle more but in the US some have thousands of cows per farm and it is much easier to keep them in and milk them. Large dairy companies handle this, not individual farmers, the work in such a place requires little skill which is the way they seem to do things. I only know this because it has been on the Irish farming news on the radio 2 weeks ago, they were explaining the grain price and trying to forcast the results of this. Going to Proven in Scotland on monday yea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -- Mike |
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| Re: Bio Fuels could really hurt the Third World. | Mick - 2007-02-01 12:07:51 |
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I agree in teh us .. in door is the norm . its all about COW factories ... feed them / clean them and milk them thousands of cows ... With lots of automation ...for instance automatic cleaning of sheds and auto pumping to slurry bits ... M -- hopper |
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| Re: Bio Fuels could really hurt the Third World. | Mike Curran - 2007-02-01 18:38:33 |
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Hey Mick, any progress on the turbine? Who is the distributer down south? -- Mike |
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| Re: Bio Fuels could really hurt the Third World. | Mick - 2007-02-02 08:31:21 |
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the order is placed 3 months ...i think ...before i receive ...so that will make it ...APR I have now Applied to the ESB for Connection I now need to start planning for the foundation ..... So if any of you want to "join" in and help your more than welcome .... lots of concrete ... Steel bars and wellies I have being lobbying the minister .. to do some thing in this area ... as you know ...no grants ... no NET metreing and no ROC grants like in the UK .... we really are in the dark ages when it comes to policey
The Irish goverment is spending 300M in renewable energy projects this year ...of which 270M is to purchase carbon credits . This they believe is Good ..and can not see any fault in the " model" ....we dump tonnes of CO2 in to the atmosphere ...but we buy Credits .... so net net ...were OK ....
The agent in Cork / Ireland is /are WESTWIND Rgs
M |
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| Re: Bio Fuels could really hurt the Third World. | Mike Curran - 2007-02-02 14:49:58 |
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COMRADE! I fully agree with you. Let me know when you're starting the revolution :) I thought the peoples republic of cork did their own thing anyway? -- Mike |
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| Re: Bio Fuels could really hurt the Third World. | Stuart - 2007-02-06 22:26:25 |
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How did you get on with Proven?
What is their office/factory like etc. I hope it is all sorted now. |
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| Re: Bio Fuels could really hurt the Third World. | Mike Curran - 2007-02-09 22:54:36 |
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Have been there all week, just home today, no internet cafe in Kilmarnock so couldn't even check emails. have loads of news and pics, trying to connect phone to computer at the moment to post pics but it's not working for me. Brought home windings or as they now call it generator core. got brackets to convert mine to the modern spring set up. Will post longer reply when I have the pics uploaded. There's loads of pics of turbines with their covers off! oh baby! -- Mike |
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