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Headlines : EnvironmentShell Calls Food-Crop Biofuels 'Morally Inappropriate'
At first blush, it seems self-serving for Royal Dutch Shell to make the statement that it is morally wrong to use food crops to make biofuels while there are still people starving in the world. It turns out though, that Shell is the world’s top marketer of biofuels. The company’s research unit is working on renewable alternatives to food crops for extracting biofuels, including wood chips and plant waste.
The question remains though, if food-crops ceased being used to make biofuels, would that food be distributed to the starving people of the world? (I think we know the answer to that.)
[Posted By rocketjam]Republished from CNET News.com
Royal Dutch Shell, the world’s top marketer of biofuels, considers using food crops to make biofuels “morally inappropriate” as long as there are people in the world who are starving, an executive said Thursday.
Eric Holthusen, a fuels technology manager for the Asia-Pacific region, said the company’s research unit, Shell Global Solutions, has developed alternative fuels from renewable resources that use wood chips and plant waste rather than food crops that are typically used to make the fuels.
Holthusen said his company’s participation in marketing biofuels extracted from food was driven by economics or legislation.
“If we have the choice today, then we will not use this route,” Malaysia-based Holthusen said at a seminar in Singapore.
“We think morally it is inappropriate because what we are doing here is using food and turning it into fuel. If you look at Africa, there are still countries that have a lack of food, people are starving, and because we are more wealthy, we use food and turn it into fuel. This is not what we would like to see. But sometimes economics force you to do it.”
Ethanol, mostly used in the United States and Brazil, is produced from sugar cane and beets and can also be…
Posted by rocketjam
ROFL, an Oil Company making statements about morals.
The solution to many, not all of the worlds ailments is…..
....your….
..........favorite…..
......................Skunky…......
..................................errr….....
.......................................non psychoactive….................
HEMP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Screw corn, with hemp every 180 days you have a new crop and most soil types are not depleted by hemp in the way corn does(it needs to be roatated out with nitrogen fixing plants like soybean and peanuts)
I’m just gonna go ahead and give this a five for reporting the best case of irony colliding with spin that I’ve ever read…
BTW, Ive never heard this point made, so I’m going to try:
Isn’t it about time we stopped looking at wood as a renewable resource? Because of our population, we are starting to use it far quicker than it can replentish itself, hence, not renewable on a signifigant scale… If wood is a viable natural resource at this stage, we wouldn’t be down to 3 trees in the rainforests…
cannonfodder,
The hemp idea is it!
And rather than depriving starving people of food, they can claim to be depriving drug addicts of drugs!
And never mind, of course, that there’s already far and away enough food to feed the entire human population with a shitload to spare…if everyone got a fair share. Which they don’t, of course, but to blame famine and malnutrition on supply rather than sociopolitics is totally fucking naive.
fuck, exactly.
Rocketjam the whole depriving drug addicts of drugs is un-true. There is not a single human being that has EVER been addicted to Cannabis EVER!!! not one physicaly addictive substance in the wonderous plant.. The hemp that is used for industrial production is 100x worse than a male swagg plant(case you did not know male cannabis sativa plants have far less thc than thier female counterparts and swagg is the bottom of the barrel crap) Yes it has some THC but you would have to smoke a coupl’o’ pounds to get a THC ‘High” but your lungs would hurt too much to feel it anyways.
Basicaly an acre of hemp in 10 years, can out produce 20 acres of Old growth forest in pulp manufacturing.
Hemp my friend it IS the answer to everything all our problems
Hemp for Victory!
Oh, and notice Shell failed to address the issue of world overpopulation.
That works against the priciples of capitalism at it’s core.
cannonfodder, I had my tongue firmly in cheek when making that comment. ;-) Really, hemp is a great proposal.
snark, of course you’re right about sufficient food being produced to feed everyone in the world. That’s why I made the comment in parenthesis at the end of my article summary.
I hope Eric Holthusen doesn’t eat meat from animals raised with cultivated feed. This is immoral too…
I watch Evil Dead incessantly
Rocketjam glad you belive in hemp, I am sick of people saying addicted to this and that and yet it does not meet the definition of addiction…that why I jumped the gun.
Hey maybe we can tell Bush “Theres oil in them there hippie plants” he might pass sweeping legislation to allow for unrestricted hemp production.
Dupont, The Oil Interests (evidenced by the words of the Shell spokesman), pure ignorance are just a few of the hurd(les) for hemp.
Convincing Bush is a waste of time, effort, and ENERGY
AriellaSharon-Tzu