FOOD VS. FUEL

 

 

 

                        

 

            Appose to many people who say that Biofuel will dismantle the food industry, I think that it is a viable and growing solution. We need to support this field of work because as far as I can see it is the most promising solution to our global warming problem. Biofuels are an alternative fuel sorce made to try and decrease CO2 emitions. This post is in response to the food vs. fuel dilema. The food vs. fuel dilema refers to how people think Biofuels will impact the food industries in a negative way. I'm going to difuse the concerns that so many of my classmates have about Biofuels.



 

The first thing I want to bring up is Switchgrass. One of the most important things about switchgrass is that it can be grown in unusable soil. In an article about the first annual Biomass conference a man named Tilman said the test plots were "on land that is incredibly unproductive with very infertile soils. We did not water. We put out high diversity native prairie and let them grow." The energy production from the harvest was incredibly high. Tilman was also quoted saying that there was a large amount of carbon being stored in the soils. This is very important because according to this we will not need to use farm land to grow Biofuels. We will not take any land away from food productions.

 

Switchgrass is impressive in more than one way. For example, switchgrass ethanol can yeild 540% more energy than is required to produce it. This information was found in a National Geographic article entitled ""Grass Gas"" Shows Promise as Superefficeint, clean fuel". It also says switchgrass ethanol releases 94% less green house gas than burning gasoline does. Daniel karman was quoted saying "The result is very important-namely that yeilds can be higher and inputs lower than had previously been expected."

 

Another big problem that people tend to have about Biofuels is carbon debt. Carbon debt is the amount of carbon dioxide that is emitted when land is cleared for crops and the time it takes to get rid of it. Most Biofuels build a carbon debt that would last for decades and even centuries. This is a big problem because global warming needs to be fixed as soon as possible, but switchgrass gets rid of its carbon debt in only 17years.

 

Lastly, I would like to point out that our work with Biofuel is still fairly new but shows extreme promise. Vogle said it is too early to know what percent of the U.S. energy mix could come from switchgrass but the potential is significant and would benefit the environment and economy. It also says switchgrass breeds will continue to improve as will techniques for converting the grass into fuel.

 

I believe that Biofuels are a huge step forward but more progress is to be made to judge it now would be unwise but it shows great potential and is continuing to grow. I believe we need to invest in this field of work so that more answers can be found. If in 17years we could be moving steadily forward toward diminishing global warming.

p.s mes.gardner, I got off work at 10 and got home at 11. also iwoked today at 10 and got off at 3 so i got this done as quocly as i could. forgive me!!

Pesticides: Double Edged Sword Indeed

As long as there has been farming there has been sets of obsticles for farmers to face and and eventually overcome. One of the biggest obstacles was insects or pests. from the potato to the locust the insects would devour entire crops of food with out stopping for a breath. many believed for a long time that pests were a punishment from god, that how bad it would get. they reproduce fast and eat even faster before the 1930s they were a death sentence for any crop they came across and as the crops fell, the business would soon follow. hgc

finally in the 1930s a chemist in Switzerland created a compound that would drastically change the lives of farmers every were. it was spray that you use on your crops that would kill the pests that were foolish enough to lay there. This saved many crops from complete collaps and was called a wonder tool.

Sadly this victory was short lived, soon after inventing the pesticide a horrible side affect was discovered. I guess no one stopped and thought ( if they did they didn't speak loud enough) "hey wouldn't this contaminate the food were about to ship off to states all around the US." because soon people were falling ill due to the chemicals on the food.  

POROSITY,PERMEABILITY,POROSITY, WHATS THE CONNECTION?

porosity is the volume of water that fits between the particles in sediment.

permeability is the rate of flow of water through soil

retention is how much water is traped by soil.

these are all related. if porosity is high then permeability is also high the same if one is low. these to qualities are directly related. This was most clear to me when , in the lab me and angle tested the "gravel". we could see the large spaces in between the large pieces and when we poured water in, it went quickly.

retention has a conflicting relationship with porosity and permeability. When the other 2 are hight then retention is low. This was most prominet when when testing the "clay" sentiment. the retention was so high that it took over an for ANY THING TO HAPPEN.