Skip to main content

Food Versus Energy?

Image
By
Today's Washington Post presents an op-ed by Timothy Searchinger titled, "How Biofuels Contribute to the Food Crisis". His main point is that the portion of crops devoted to biofuels has grown more rapidly than agricultural production in recent years. As a result, any stress on food production, e.g., drought in China or floods in Australia, leads to shortages or inflation in food for humans. Additionally, rapid economic development in China and elsewhere is increasing demand for meat, further stressing the world agricultural system and increasing the demand for water and energy.

Mr. Searchinger offers a hopeful outlook that the competition between food and energy production can be resolved through adjustments in policy and market responses. From our perspective, his article highlights the beauty of getting energy from a rock (uranium), and gives us another reason why China has 13 operating nuclear power plants and more than 25 under construction. The choice needn't be food versus energy; it can be food and energy.

Pictured: Uranium ore, USGS photo.

Comments

Kit P said…
After listening to anti-nukes for 40 years, the anti-ethanol debate sounds very similar. If it takes wild leaps of logic to define a crisis, I suggest that no crisis exists. One of the many reasons the fleet of US nukes are so productive is that we find the root cause of problems and fix them.

US farmers are very productive with the ability to saturate the world food supply. Processing some of the energy out corn or soy animal feed is a food and energy option while critics want to frame the debate as a food or energy choice. Much in the same way nuke critics want to debate energy or safety, instead of energy and safety.
February 11, 2011 at 2:10 PM
Marcel F. Williams said…
There's no logical reason to use cropland to produce fuels like ethanol. The US produces enough urban and rural biowaste to produce a significant amount of carbon neutral methanol, gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuel.

And if the US builds several hundred nuclear power plants over the next 20 to 30 years dedicated towards producing hydrogen, the waste carbon dioxide (80%) from urban and rural biowaste combined with that hydrogen could produce enough carbon neutral fuel (gasoline, methanol, diesel fuel, jet fuel, dimethyl ether) to completely replace the use of fossil fuels for transportation in America.

There's no logical reason why America can't become-- completely- free from the fossil fuel economy within the next 20 to 30 years through the mass production of nuclear power plants and the utilization of urban and rural biowaste.
February 11, 2011 at 9:13 PM
Anonymous said…
if the US builds several hundred nuclear power plants over the next 20 to 30 years dedicated towards producing hydrogen

Several hundred in the next 30 years? Have any independent analyses (not counting Lyndon Larouche) suggested this is even feasible?
February 14, 2011 at 2:26 PM
Anonymous said…
"Have any independent analyses ... suggested this is even feasible?"

I don't know. I'm pretty sure the plants won't be built, partly because these days, nine out of ten people wring their hands and call for studies, leaving one in ten to actually do something useful. It used to be the other way 'round. Decline of the West.
February 15, 2011 at 10:42 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

By
Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...
23 comments
Read more

Fluor Invests in NuScale

By
You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap...
1 comment
Read more

Nuclear Utility Moves Up in Credit Ratings, Bank is "Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy"

By
Some positive signs that nuclear utilities can continue to receive positive ratings even while they finance new nuclear plants for the first time in decades: Wells Fargo upgrades SCANA to Outperform from Market Perform Wells analyst says, "YTD, SCG shares have underperformed the Regulated Electrics (total return +2% vs. +9%). Shares trade at 11.3X our 10E EPS, a modest discount to the peer group median of 11.8X. We view the valuation as attractive given a comparatively constructive regulatory environment and potential for above-average long-term EPS growth prospects ... Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy. SCG plans to participate in the development of two regulated nuclear units at a cost of $6.3B, raising legitimate concerns regarding financing and construction. We have carefully considered the risks and are comfortable with SCG’s strategy based on a highly constructive political & regulatory environment, manageable financing needs stretched out over 10 years, strong partners...
Post a Comment
Read more