alt.energy.renewable

On Tue, 02 Oct 2007 01:01:35 -0000, Fran < @ > wrote:

>On Oct 2, 8:27 am, Trygve Lillefosse
>wrote:
>> On Mon, 01 Oct 2007 20:50:12 -0000, Fran < ...@ > wrote:
>> >On Oct 1, 2:22 am, Some Guy wrote:
>> >> Fran wrote:
>> >> to the corn that comes into the plant and you sell that by-product back
>> >> to the farmer and completely recover the cost of your feedstock. You
>> >> then are simply looking at the different plant operating costs to
>> >> determine the cost of your ethanol.
>> >That sounds plausible, though the problem here is that cattle/
>> >livestock for food is itself more energy intensive than agriculture
>> >for food. It takes far more water and land and fuel to deliver a gram
>> >of protein to a consumer from livestock than from soy or other protein
>> >crops, for example. Accordingly, from a nutritional, energy or fossil
>> >fuel standpoint, including the offset from animal feed is misguided.
>>
>> When it comes to pollution, the wery best would be if we all were
>> vegetarians.
>
>Exactly ...
>
>> But, assuming that livestock will be raised, to do it
>> with less impact on the enviroment is not that bad either.
>That's true, but ... you can't zero rate the food/other use value
>components' contribution to greenhouse and emissions more generally
>without distorting the analysis of cost-benefit, unless you can claim
>that such practices are compelled because every alternative approach
>to meeting humanity's need for food (or some other essential good)
>would be as bad.

I agree. The price of meat has to get higher, but I cannot imagine
massive reductions in that area. Although halfing the production is
probarbly doable.

>It's clear that raising food from animals (and producing clothing and
>textiles from them) is less efficient in energy/environmental terms
>than other approaches based on the raising of crops. So while
>nutrient, clothing etc are essentails, producing them by suboptimal
>means are not. And if we decide to sporduce them by suboptimal means
>for reasons of aesthetics or whatever, then these net extra costs
>should be fully accounted in the calculus of benefit.

Sure, but that goes for all land use, compared to the option of
returning it to nature.

We need to use land, but we might be able tu use it more efficient and
more climate neutral/positive.
A simple thing as painting roofs white could lower the impact of
buildings. With solar, they may even get positive impact.

>> Personaly I prefer meat from sheep. They are mostly raised with whats
>> called "extensive grazing". Meaning that they mostly just walk around
>> and eat grass etc. I assume that the enviromental impact from raising
>> sheep in this way does not pollute wery much.
>There's actually some evidence that feeding them on grains such as
>wheat leads to lower GHG emissions. Then of course, they are competing
>with food for humans.

I will take your word for it.
But still, I am thinking of sheep that mostly use land that are
productive, but could not have been used for other purposes.

I have no knowledge of the digestion of sheep, but I figure that they
let uut less methane per kilo of meat than cows. This is due to their
eating habbits.

>> With cows, it should be mandatory to use the methane from the
>> "manure-basement" or whatever it's called. Most milk/cow farmers (At
>> least in Norway) just collects the manure and went off the methane
>> untill they spread it out at spring-time.
>Agreed. But you can't keep cattle indoors, so unless you are going to
>force them to expel all of their gases and manure into receptacles at

In cold climates they are kept indoors for large parts of the year. At
other times they are hearded to the barn for milking, when they will
do some of their droppings.
You would not get all of the potential metane producing manure, but
whats already awailible, should be put to good use.

>A large part of the land in the US that is set aside for "food" is
>actually land used to raise food for livestock. If this land were
>substantially returned to the commons with only that portion required
>to produce the proteins, carbohydrates, HDLs and micronutrients
>essential to feed the populace retained, the balance would be in
>favour of us humans and our biosphere.

Sure, but it's not realistic.

--
SEE YA !!!
Trygve Lillefosse
AKA - Malawi, The Fisher King