Monday
Mar212011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill More unintended consequences
Mar 21, 2011 Greens An excellent article in the Guardian, looking at the effects of misguided greenery on poor people, and in particular how scaremongering over GM crops is leading to massive hikes in food prices.
The continuing distaste for [genetically engineered plants] and their consequent absurd over-regulation means that the most up-to-date, environmentally benign crop protection strategies are used almost exclusively for the mega-crops that are profitable for biotech companies. The public agricultural research sector remains largely excluded from using modern molecular technology. Will this change soon? I don't think so."
H/T The Englishman.
Reader Comments (124)
Atomic Hairdryer
I am all in favor of protecting the the bogs ONCE the alternative source of fuel is defined. In the case of our local turf fired electric power plant near Cahersiveen, we would have to truck in oil from Shannon as it is the only deep water port near by. And that would be over what is happily called N71 -- the same road used by the buses to tour the Ring of Kerry. I might add that is a windy two lane back woods road. Hardly what you want oil lorries running over. And just one accident will cause more ecological damage than all the burnt turf.
The idiots behind closing the bogs are Irish Peatland Conservation Council (IPCC)
Ironic -- or perhaps not.
Re Don Pablo
That's one of those unintended consequences I suppose. If that part of Ireland gets covered in wind turbines then there may be less ecocide from tourism. If the turf or peat isn't burned, then there may be oil spills. If they build more wind turbines, there may be more landslides and damage to the peat bogs from the roads and foundations needed.
None of which will really make much difference compared to the carbon emitted by the peat bogs that have been burning uncontrollably for years in Indonesia. They're outside the EU though so not our target or quota problem.
Or. we could tell the EU and people like Ms Higgins to foxtrot oscar.
Hi Frosty,
I wouldn't call BS on GM for a while yet - there's a decent probability of getting cereals to host rhizobacteria which can fix nitrogen. If this can be achieved, then we're looking at a new green revolution and agriculture being comfortably able to feed the projected 9bn peak of humanity. Furthermore much of the the work to achieve this is based in the UK and is, amazingly, funded by government. It's a powerful technology, and can be used to great benefit as well as the profit motive. (Which despite being viewed as repugnant, is why many of us sell out time for a wage).
As this point I feel the need to declare my personal motive in making this case - as with CAGW, it's seeking the truth through the miasma of disinformation. I currently work in the public sector and my last job was working for a charity - i.e. I'm no greedhead by any measure.
I know the agricultural sector intimately - please don't buy any lines that tell you that farmers are being locked into using more and more chemicals - nothing could be further from the truth. EU restrictions on chemical use are so overwhelming that a very large number of well-proven and safe chemicals are being lost to food production. Feel free to cheer this process - but I won't because I know that this process might well threaten our food security. Many producers of minor crops including most horticultural produce have very few options remaining to control weeds, for example. Organic growers deal with this problem by employing gangs to hand weed crops, which is (a) horrible work and (b) prices highly beneficial foodstuffs beyond the reach of many in society.
So, given fewer chemicals are available, the main option available to farmers is to buy seeds of crops which had disease resistance bred into them. This has been happening for a very long time, and is in many ways an arms race - if you grow one variety of say, yellow rust-resistant wheat, you end up selecting the mutant of the yellow rust fungus that can overcome this carefully-bred resistance. Fungicides can help secure our food supply in these circumstances. Conventional breeding for resistance can take over a decade but in some circumstances can be overcome in as few as 2-4 years. Speeding up the breeding process using GM gives an opportunity to massively reduce chemical usage. It's not about a dependency culture, it's about addressing a real need which keeps us alive.
Heirloom seeds are just that - and indeed are retained in the UK by several institutions, e.g. cereals by the John Innes Centre. They were developed in many cases by government research, but for the same reasons I outlined above - being superior to the previous varieties in terms of yield, disease resistance, harvestability, etc. Todays work continues the tradition. Much of it is no longer government-funded - e.g. the Plant Breeding Institute at Cambridge was privatised decades ago and is now owned by a French conglomerate, but even in the 'good old days' profit wasn't retained by the community - in the '80s vast areas of land was farmed by huge pension funds - and even today obscene tracts of the UK are owned by the offspring of despots who only contribution to community life for centuries has been bleeding impoverished farmers for rent.
I'm convinced that GM technology is the wrong target in the empowerment of communities - plant breeding has huge potential benefits, but the massive legislative obstruction to the use of GM technology provides another prime example of an unintended consequence (phew, back on topic) - only massive megacorporations have the funding available to get anything through the ludicrously over-regulated and therefore expensive registration process - and this means that to survive, they need to market their products very hard indeed.
Green own goal. Again.
SNTFM
Very interesting indeed. Thank you.
@ Brownedoff,
Sincere apologies,
I am unable to provide any further info' on my link.
I would like to know the upshot but I wouldn't know of a way of penetrating the turgid, indeed byzantine machinations of the Eutopian bureaucracy - does any human being on the planet?
CB or Dr. North, might know but I've no means of contacting either directly.
Regards, Athelstan.
Well said SNTFM
Years ago GM used to be selective breeding or hybridisation, but now it's been demonised by the greens and it isn't all bad.
James P
Actually, given that there are several HVDC power cables of that sort of length, the losses would be known. I have no idea how much, but I am sure someone on this blog could tell us.
At one time I was heavy into fiber optic communications and knew that about once a week one or more of the sub-sea cables somewhere in the world was broken by a ship dragging an anchor or from the trawling gear of fishermen. The whole area to the north of Scotland is an active fishing zone, and my guess is that at least once a year ----- ZAP!! CRACKLE!! KABOOM!! and Jolly Ol' UK will be in the dark for a week.
Now that is a real unintended consequence, but hardly an UNEXPECTED unintended consequence.
@ Don Pablo de la Sierra,
Mar 21, 2011 at 11:33 PM
"ZAP!! CRACKLE!! KABOOM!! and Jolly Ol' UK will be in the dark for a week."
Lots of fried fish, no lecky for chips!! sigh!
:>))
Atomic Hairdryer
I'll be damn if I am going to freeze the the dark!. Now you know why we showed the #*$*&#@ Greens the door, and slammed it on their arses as they left Leinster House.
You folks in the UK would be wise to do the same. Otherwise, you may have fish and chips floating in the sea as Athelstan points out.
Re Don Pablo
I was more on the fibre side than the power side, but the rough north seas are just a nasty place to lay cable. Take that however you wish. When I was involved, the idea was to turn Iceland into an international data hub with US-IS-UK and then Europe. Iceland would be an attractive place to do business given it's central location and potentially abundant and cheap power.
Being me, I used to say things like 'then why don't you fund the cable?' and get frowned at by sales people. Awkward questions like capacity Icelandic businesses would committ to purchasing to help fund cable construction would be met with similar frowns. Like so much green business, it wasn't so much a technology problem, more a simple business case problem and confirmed that I didn't get post-normal economics.
Same seems true on the power side, and with other European interconnector projects. With my simplistic view of economics, I thought we should be paying for things we can export, not paying for things so other countries can sell to us.
It's sad that so many well-intentioned people appear incapable of thinking through the logic of their emotional outbursts.
I've little doubt that the majority of eco-warmers would be lovely to have as neighbours as long as one could recognize to make one's excuses, and leave, when their moment of madness makes anther appearance.
Logic is not always the strongest weapon in their armoury but when it comes to talking about the 'good old days' they are top trumps.
SMc has just added a bit more fuel to the 'hide the 1960 decline' debate by revealing Briffas 16th Century 'trick'
The more the evidence for publically funded misdirection stacks up, the greater the ear-blocking becomes. They may accuse us of the D-word but whom else can make better pictures from the sky?
@Atomic @DonPablo
Opening soon....GreenQloud.....name with requisite silly spelling. Here's an article from their site promoting their green goodness...
http://blog.greenqloud.com/2010/10/07/green-power-usage-effectiveness-for-truly-green-comparison/
and more of an overview article from El Reg
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/14/greenqlouds_icelandic_green_cloud/
"consequent absurd over-regulation "
Haha..here in Australia..we never had any form of regulation..we were just told the science is in..its all settled..(now where have we heard that before) and in nsw..the panel that judges the safety of gm..has a majority of members that have financial stakes in this..
Thats made my day that quote.. :)
O/T
Hide the Decline – the Other Deletion
Marketing masquerading as science....
And to smooth after you chopped off data? Well really... scientists? B******s.
SNTF: If farmers rotate crops, legumes before cereals, and leave the roots in the ground after cropping, use no till planting methods, the N is left in the soil, the soil biota flourishes and the soil starts to rebuild (see previous links to soil food web articles/interview)
Plants have many symbiotic relationships with fungi and bacteria/archaea which are prevented by the use of chemical ferts/cides farming.
Some fungi act as 'pesticides' by utilising various methods, e.g. trapping root feeding nematodes, but the advantages of a healthy soil biota are much wider, keeping nutrients in the rooting zone and out of surface and groundwater, enhancing soil structure, decomposing improving the flow of water and reducing erosion, out-competing disease causing organisms, filter and degrade pollutants as water flows through the soil etc. Mycorrhizal fungi are also much more efficient with a healthy soil food web. A healthy protozoa population releases mineralised nutrients stored in microbial biomass for plant use, and prevent some pathogens from establishing on plants, besides providing a food source for larger soil organisms such as microbe feeding nematodes.
If the soil food web is restored by replacing the soil biota, a tilth develops within around 3 years, and the fertility is restored.
Ever put salt on a slug? See the osmotic action destroy it? That exact same issue is what chemical salt ferts do to the soil biota. These practices cause the soil erosion issue which is such a problem globally. Using chemical ferts locks farmers into a never ending cycle of soil erosion, where they must use more every year because they used it in the first place and killed the soil biota, it's a another monopoly.
With a healthy soil biota weeds are mostly out competed by the crops which have been selectively bred for that environment. Selective breeding for chemical fert farming could actually be stacking up intentioned consequences when the plants do meet soil pathogens they did not meet in the breeding grounds.
Since most fertilisers/chemicals in farming are derived form fossil fuels, prices are set to soar, farmers would be better getting away from them all together IMO.
I know this is possible, there are now quite a few farms in Oregon, and Australia utilising these methods and showing that within 3 years yields out compete chemical farming, they are more resilient, have a greater drought tolerance, and minimal pest issues as the pests are effected negatively when plants are grown in a healthy soil biota. (see previous lecture link) In Aus these methods are being used to reverse the salt issues too.
What's not to like ;¬)
practicalities: one spray of an organic aerated compost tea in a quality controlled system is equal to 2" of good compost. These are cost effective methods enabling organic farming on an industrial scale, the choice is 56,000 gallons of compost per acre (not cost efficient), or 5 gal per acre sprayed ACT.
Farmers can brew their own teas and remove themselves from the destructive monopoly of chemical farming, it's been done, the results are amazing IMO.
/soapbox ;¬)
Don't you mean "delete the decline" Jiminy. Why oh why!
Mar 21, 2011 at 11:20 PM | Athelstan
I have done a little more digging following your link to The Daily Failygraph of May 2010.
Needless to say, the gentlemen of Brussels and Westminster have not been idle in the meantime.
DEFRA, that bastion of common sense and efficiency, has published some information and stangely is fairly understandable. Perhaps Sir Humphrey was off on a CAGW jolly.
(see: http://ww2.defra.gov.uk/environment/quality/industrial/eu-international/industrial-emissions-directive/)
It appears that, in order to frustrate the serfs picking off bits of legislation salami style, they have decided to consolidate a shed-load of unpleasant regulations into one massive rule book that will deter attack.
This new panjandrum of nastiness apparently came into force from 6 January 2011.
In it, the deadly LCPD has been consolidated, so forget any relaxation for the UK, this is rock solid!
DEFRA go on to inform us that following the death of the 6 coal-fired and the 3 oil-fired proper power stations on or before 31 December 2015, new and deadlier regulations for large combustion plants already in existence before 6 January 2013 will be implemented from 1 January 2016, that is the day after.
That means that the remaining 11 coal-fired proper power staions may be put in harms way, but I am not going to probe further just now because my head is spinning.
Abandon Hope.
My favourite story of ecofascists and unintended consequences is the one about sulphur in fuel.
Crude oil contains sulphur. When refined, the sulphur ends up in the fuel grades. In the 1980s and 1990s, European ecofascists decided that sulphur in vehicle exhausts was the cause of acid rain, which was, like, really bad for the environment. Since the environment matters more than people, they lobbied for and got legislation to remove sulphur from fuels at source.
This was done by making refiners spend billions adding CHDs (Catalytic HydroDesulphurisation) plants to their refineries, or adding more such capacity where they hadn't enough for the necessary deep desulphurisation.
The hydrogen reacts with the sulphur in the fuel and produces "sour gas", i.e. SO2, from which the pure sulphur is extracted and pelletised.
As soon as the level of sulphur in fuel exhaust fell, so did the level of sulphur in rain. That bit worked. Unfortunately, what the ecobuffoons hadn't thought about is that sulphur is essential to plant growth. And they'd been getting it from rain. Have you ever wondered how oilseed rape is so bright yellow? It's the sulphur.
The upshot of suddenly depriving European crops of their vital sulphur was, of course, a leap in the level of crop failure and a fall in crop yields in Europe. The solution farmers arrived at was to buy sulphur-based fertiliser. What was this fertiliser made from? Why, the sulphur removed from fuel, of course!
So what used to happen was that sulphur entered the atmosphere via exhausts and fell in the rain, fertilising the crops. What now happens is that the sulphur is removed from the fuel via a chemical process, pelletised, shipped in trucks to a fertiliser factory, processed into fertiliser, bagged, shipped back to farming regions, and is then trucked out to farms, dissolved in water and sprayed onto the crops by tractors. I wonder if that uses more energy than the previous way at all, what do you reckon?
Now the glib answer an ecofascist would come up with is that it's better because you're only spraying the sulphur where it's needed. Since the 1990s, however, more work has been done in the light of the fact that the expected benefits of less acid rain didn't materialise. Other causes for it than sulphur have now been identified. One such is the habit of planting coniferous forests too close to lakes and rivers, with the result that the fallen needles acidify the rainwater runoff and thence the rain. So it is not even clear that acid rain was ever caused by sulphur in the first place, although then as now, the psyence was lyingly claimed to be settled, by the usual suspects.
It gets better. The crop worst affected by sulphur deficiency was...oilseed rape. At the time, this was being touted as the crop to grow to make into low-sulphur fuel.
You couldn't make it up.
J4R
So what the crops need is more Sulphur (burn coal) and more CO2 (burn anything) - Yay!
An incredibly informative thread!
The proposed Office of Unintended Consequences would be thwarted entirely by the Circumlocution Office, which Dickens wrote as satire but which has not only become reality but now has branch offices world-wide (sob!).
An old acquaintance back home in NZ, a very successful dairy, beef and sheep farmer, tried an experimental organic vege plot using the best Greenist advice on a commercial scale a few years ago and gave it up after one season as being totally non-viable. He commented that none of the veg looked entirely edible, let alone marketable.
On an entirely surprising note, the arch-Greenist Moonbat has recanted and now approves of nuclear electric gen plants following the events at Fukushima! I suspect he has been frightened by the example of the Chinese journalist who was thrown into jail for spreading baseless nuclear contamination scare stories and needlessly alarming the public in China. The MSM, particularly the BBC, who were still at it on the Breakfast show this morning, has been utterly and irredeemably alarmist over their untrue but scary nuclear stories which are anything but reportage.
And I can confirm that the Grauniad's moderators on CiF have taken a hard line on even the most polite criticism of their highly-protected prima donnas such as the horrible Bob Ward who is allowed to spout the most ridiculous untruths. My very polite attempts to remonstrate are 'disappeared' very quickly indeed.
Don Pablo @ 11:33pm March 21
HVDC line loss is ~3% per 1000km, eg:
http://www.energy.siemens.com/fi/en/power-transmission/hvdc/hvdc-ultra/#content=Benefits
There are further losses associated with AC/DC/AC conversions. Losses on a 3500km HVDC line are estimated at ~15% eg: van Voorthuysen (2008); Trieb & Knies (2004).
Brownedoff @ 8:59am
There's going to be an energy gap (generation shortfall).
Even if the entirely unrealistic expectations of renewables, interconnectors etc were magically realised, the construction timetables are out of phase with the termination schedule for LCPD opt out:
http://www.eon-uk.com/generation/lcpd.aspx
It might be worth reminding everyone that the LCPD ('large combustion plant' = >50 MW) is not a CO2 emissions control:
http://ww2.defra.gov.uk/environment/quality/industrial/eu-international/lcpd/
But that doesn't make the Directive any less lethal to non-compliant plant. Or to future security of supply in the UK.
J4R - I see the greenies as a bit of scapegoat in your last post. Would it not also be possible that the policy was enacted to boost economic activity, i.e. the policy came before the science as is common these days with climate shenanigans? Ultimately the cost is born by the consumer, with extra profit margins in many new streams for the banksters. It worked for Sulphur in exhaust gasses, now repeated for Co2 in everything.
We know Thatcher was staking out the CAGW political ground to her advantage well before the 'greenies' had much of a platform, although she has since been reported to have repented on CAGW.
I've started to see everything as a business model, the current (and previous) wars being on point also.
Frosty @ 8:07am
Are you actually suggesting that no-till be used without pesticides? That's what it sounds like, but I may have misunderstood you.
Blake Hurst (an actual farmer) has written an article about industrial agriculture which you may find interesting. It's long, and the quote below is just a taster:
http://www.american.com/archive/2009/july/the-omnivore2019s-delusion-against-the-agri-intellectuals
Frosty @ 11:41am
Er... no.
Alarmist environmental 'science' created the European and American 'acid rain' scares out of nothing much. Shrill and massed eco-activism followed. Massive, unnecessary changes were made, and the cost passed on to the consumer.
This is a clear example of 'green' activism increasing the cost of living for ordinary people. Green dogma = hardship, asymmetrically toughest on the least well-off.
Frosty
Nobody is disputing that industrialists make money out of war. America, in particular, did very nicely indeed out of WWII. But suggesting - as you appear to - that business starts them or fosters militarism for its own profitable ends is too simplistic.
Further down that road lies the tinfoil hat ;-)
BBD
Time to invest in new 49MW installations, perhaps? I wonder how it will apply to this..?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-12402500
(Sorry - can't get linking to work)
BBD you can't take one element of the system in isolation, and use that example to declare the whole system defunct, that would be a strawman argument. If you understood the soil food web institute approach you might see what I mean. Clearly there is not the space here (or the will) to explain the whole system, I've not even scratched the surface. I left breadcrumbs for those interested.
I still see the 'greenies' as 'useful idiots', nutting off the premise as tinfoil is hardly making a solid case against it either. It may be simplistic, but that doesn't mean there is not truth to it.
Are you really suggesting we went into Iraq, and now we are going into Libya for the sake of their oppressed people?
BBD
“DC line losses are 30–40% less than with AC lines”
Which makes them about 1% worse for AC. And the AC/DC/AC conversion losses are? Not to mention the expense...
Just found some handy numbers, consider market reactions to war as measured by the Dow:
Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF): is a simple starting point. March 20,2003. The Dow that week closed around 8,146 and by year end in 2003 was up a whopping 28.3%.
Afghanistan War: From down 9,120 around its October 7, 2001 kick-off, the Dow climbed 11.1 percent by year end (and 16% by March 2002).
Desert Storm: From August 2, 1990 when the Dow was around 2717 gained 11.4% in the ensuring 5-months into year end.
Korean War: June 25, 1950 began with the Dow around 209 and by year end, the Dow had gained 12.4% to the Dow 235 level.
World War II: From a Dow of 111 the week of the attack to a 3.6% gain a year later.
Would you say this history of the Russian Revolution is tinfoil (genuine question as I think you are well read in this area)
http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/ArticleDisplay.php?Article=FinalWarn07-3#Revolution
Atomic Hairdryer
it wasn't so much a technology problem, more a simple business case problem and confirmed that I didn't get post-normal economics.
Beautifully said!
An excellent article but, as usual on CiF, prejudice and stupidity dominate the comments.
It really is a Daily Mail clone.
Hi Frosty,
Taking a couple of you points on board, you seem to be suggesting that farmers don't rotate their crops as a matter of course? In the UK it's veryrare for continuous monocultures to be grown in arable production, although I'm aware of a few stock farmers who grow fodder maize in the same field year after year. Not rotating is an expensive mistake in general, as you just build up disease pressure by sitting in the same old inoculum. Legumes are frequently used in the rotation (field beans) although oilseed rape has economic benefits, particularly with the current high veg. oil prices. Leaving the N in the soil is an attractive idea, but unfortunately nitrate is extremely soluble - if it's around when there's no crop, then it gets washed away. Organic farming systems leach far more N than conventional systems for this reason - you can't apply most organic N sources to growing crops in any quantity as it smothers them. Also, synthetic fertilisers are no more fossil fuel dependent than they are nuclear power dependent - Haber-Bosch needs energy - we have plenty of free N available in the atmosphere and don't need to use fossil methane to generate ammonia. Biogas works beautifully.
Direct drilling is entirely dependent on effective herbicides - which means glyphosate. It can work well, and avoids an awful lot of heavy lifting in terms of ploughing, but it isn't a magic bullet - leaving high levels of organic material on the soil surface can mean massive slug populations =no crop.
Compost tea also CAN produce interesting results in terms of disease supression on a small scale, but it usually doesn't - and because it's so difficult to control the microorganisms that end up in it, it can be a massive health hazard to people who have to handle it. Also, in the quantities needed for agriculture, legally it would be regarded as industrial effluent and subject to strict control. In effect it's quite a lot like the effluent that used to come from water-retted bast fibres like flax.
Please bear in mind that we used to produce all our food in 'chemical-free' ways. Widespread adoption of many of these seemingly idyllic methods will ensure that we face the same crises that created a demand for effective crop protection in the first place. I'm sure looking after soil biota is a good thing, but given that current crop protection chemicals are typically used in quantities of 10 to 100 grams per HECTARE we're not exactly talking about soil-sterilising drenches - more like a monomolecular layer, realistically, and most of this never comes in contact with soil as that's not where the target is.
Yup, so I followed it up. According to Blake Hurst, what you say is idealised and unrealistic. You are blatantly anti-GM, so that's to be expected.
You are (deliberately?) conflating two points. The first - that the greenies are useful idiots, I simply disagree with. They are pernicious of themselves. There is ample evidence which you perversely misinterpret to suit your argument. The second, your belief that that business fosters militarism, is just simplistic.
Are you really suggesting that both conflicts are entirely about Big Oil?
I said 'simplistic', remember?
James P
Sorry - no idea what you mean. Can you rephrase?
AC/DC/AC conversions are estimated at ~15% for a 3500km HVDC line (see 11:14am).
Frosty @1:30pm
I have already agreed on this thread that war is good for business. Your references support this, but not your contention that business creates war for its own ends. It may help, certainly, but it does not set the agenda to the extend you appear to suggest.
Think of business as a facilitator and beneficiary, rather than primary causus belli.
BBD
I appreciate you finding the above. However, I really doubt that the power loss is a mere 3% per 1000 km. And I am talking resistive losses only. The big advantage of HVDC is that it eliminates the reactance and I can see that being 30 to 40% less. But 3% loss over 1000 km? Sounds like they hired Bob Ward. Either that, or they have silver conductors with a cross sectional diameter of 1 meter or so to carry gigawatts at 800KV. Nowadays, 99% of all long-haul power line is aluminum not only for cost reasons (copper is now $4.50 a pound) but for weight and strength. And it requires 30% more aluminum to carry the same power that copper can.
However, the really big cost is in the AC/DC/AC conversions, both in hardware and power losses.
While I am no fan of Wikipedia, they do have some good articles and there is one on HVDC
I want to call attention to
So I am with Atomic Hairdryer -- If this is such a wonderful think, why aren't you funding it yourself instead of asking for public money.
And a second issue that was missed is
96% is TERRIBLE!. There are 365 days a year and that means you will not have power for two weeks a year.
Don Pablo
* I am not advocating for a supergrid. The absolute reverse, actually.
* The information I provide re line losses is referenced. You are welcome to follow those up.
* I stated that the AC/DC/AC conversion is by far the largest loss.
* I stated that failures to undersea interconnectors are a profoundly under-examined issue.
It's all in earlier comments.
SayNoToFearmongers
Thank you for the detailed comment at 2:13pm. However, I suspect Frosty 'knows what he knows' and that's the end of it.
I know BBD I was merely expanding on your points. Sorry to have been confusing.
The damning thing for me is the 96% reliability. You can deal with one hour a year of outage, not one fortnight a year. You must have back for that. The issue is the AC/DC/AC conversion equipment which is the major part of the expense. So doubling the equipment to have back up is extremely expensive.
@Brownedoff,
Mar 22, 2011 at 8:59 AM
I thank you for the info, trouble is, it is appallingly bad news.
I really do despair, this is madness and we are happily [well they are] marching into an energy deficit of jaw dropping proportions because our leaders believe..........well what exactly?
I don't think, that our dullard politicians have any ability or aptitude for cognitive reason, if they did, they would be ignoring these daft diktats.
Are they for the British people? Or, just in it to say; "because of my belief in green energy and propensity for never asking questions and blindly following the words of our masters in Brussels - yes we made a difference."
The difference between copious and cheap[er] but importantly RELIABLE energy supply and a prosperous future........................ and a dark, cold decline into a wretched blackness.
It makes one weep bitter tears of a frustration that runs deep.
I've tried to post a couple of times, sorry - Athelstan.
Don Pablo
Thanks - sorry for augmenting any misunderstanding there.
One of the main points I make to 'supergrid renewables' fans is that their argument is arse-above-tit.
Grid interconnectors do not increase security of supply, as our renewables friends insist. Rather, they increase the geographical spread of fault risk.
The whole concept of the European - N. African supergrid with a huge solar baseload coming from Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria etc is manifestly insane.
It is completely reliant on a few, indefensible interconnectors, and it places custodianship of the principal baseload energy source in the hands of a few unstable N. African countries.
Frankly I'd rather have far fewer interconnectors and far more nuclear. But then I only care about results, not pushing some half-baked 'environmental' agenda at the expense of security of energy supply in coming decades.
SNTF thanks for your reply: This is one of those complex subjects it would be easier to discuss in RL than debate via short comment. Although some elements are/have been used in conventional 'chemical' farming, unless it's approached holistically individual elements cannot be judged so easily.
"nitrate is extremely soluble" soil labs tend not to measure organic N, in the same way compost is not a 'fertiliser' as only soluble, inorganic nutrient values are used. The fertiliser industry has pushed to define N as only nitrate, possibly nitrite, and ammonium, the inorganic forms of N. Whilst this is based on the soluble forms of N that most vegetable and row crop plants take up through their roots, it is far from the only source of N in the soil.
If the full soil food web is present, then forms of N that are not nitrate, nitrite, or ammonium will be cycled into these forms by the organism. And not just N, but any not-soluble form of any nutrient will eventually be converted from it's non-soluble form to the plant available, soluble form by the organism cycling system in a healthy soil. Phosphorus for e.g. is converted from not-plant available forms (in rocks, in sand, silt, and clay, in humic materials, in organic matter, in dead plant material) into organism biomass, and then consumed by predators which result in plant available forms of the nutrient.
If the organisms that perform these cycling processes have been destroyed by agricultural "management" then the nutrients cannot be processed from non-plant available forms into plant available forms. Leeching, erosion, and compaction then result in loos of remaining nutrients in the soil, and plant production will suffer. The engineering and chemical answer is to load more and more soluble, inorganic nutrients into the soil, while bemoaning the fact that water quality suffers. These sciences have ignored the fact that natural systems manage to hold nutrients, manage to produce clean water, and produce higher plant yields than any agricultural system.
Why is it that when you send a sample to a soil testing lab it will always be reported as being low in N? Soil labs tend to remove the organic matter as soon as the sample arrives, because their methods cannot extract minerals from large chunks of organic matter. How does this help us understand what nutrients plants can take up from this soil, it can't, unless the soil biota is assessed and quantified alongside the soil sampling.
"synthetic fertilisers are no more fossil fuel dependent than..." they need energy to be produced and transported, energy is going to be very expensive. Producing the farms requirements on site reduces the required energy.
"and because it's so difficult to control the microorganisms that end up in it, it can be a massive health hazard to people who have to handle it." I agree it is difficult to control the micro-organisms, hence a strict quality control is required. Brews are made on site with microscopy quality control, preferably on site also, but it is possible to use a lab for this service (lhttp://www.laverstokepark.co.uk/soil_testing_laboratory)
"Also, in the quantities needed for agriculture, legally it would be regarded as industrial effluent and subject to strict control" I'm talking about 5 gal per acre. It's brewed in highly aerated system, usually built from 250 gal IBC containers on site. I have not come across any control legislation issues as yet, if you could provide a source I would appreciate it.
"chemicals are typically used in quantities of 10 to 100 grams per HECTARE" But fertilisers are much higher quantities are they not? Also I have had herbicide in contaminated compost remain active for 4 yrs ruining crops season after season, that's after passing though herbivores, these low concentrations of broad-leaf herbicide are not as low as industry would have us believe IMO.
It will take time for these techniques to become more accepted granted, they are becoming widely accepted in Australia, and Oregon, which will provide useful data, I remain convinced the soil food web approach is the future of farming, it's a shame we can't have a longer discussion and visit some sites together, I am sure we could find some common ground in time, I am also sure you remain unconvinced :)
BBD: did you miss the Russian rev comment?
Frosty re russian revolution - no but I don't have time to read long documents during the working day - will try and look at it later.
There are half a dozen things that I have commented on in this thread to which you have not responded at all - how about some effort from you?
Frosty
The link you provide goes to an index with some pretty bizarre content (Illuminati etc). I couldn't actually see anything re Russian Revolution.
If this is the company your source keeps, that's probably all for the best.
Unless you are pulling my leg, of course?
http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/ArticleDisplay.php?Article=FinalWarn07-3#Revolution
Frosty
Some of the things you have avoided addressing can be found at:
11:556am
2:18pm
2:28pm
Frosty
Interesting that you link to Laverstoke Park. It's just up the road from where I live. As is Sparsholt Agricultural college.
...Where the tutors do not have much time for biodynamics. I have heard them describe it as 'homeopathy for farmers' or 'utter f___ing bollocks' - though admittedly in the pub. They probably phrase it slightly differently in front of their students.
sorry BBD I thought we were about even in responses, I do find it difficult to respond to you when you are pronouncing what I believe/think though.
"Are you really suggesting that both conflicts are entirely about Big Oil?" Not oil per se. More about profit, e.g. Tony Blair had a 600odd million pound deal on the table with Gadaffi up until 3 days before we launched the attack. Banksers now in firm grip of Gadaffi's off shore loot etc. etc.
11:556am, 2:18pm 2:28pm
Are we talking about this thread? your first comment was 2:12pm addressed to Browndoff
can't find another comment of yours until the 2:28 one addressed to SNTF about the supergrid I've not commented on so I remain confused.
the link worked for me, this is a cache version so is a bit messy with my search terms highlighted form the original, the bit I was interested in starts a little down the page headed "Russian Revolution"
http://tinyurl.com/5rkuybe
Please disregard the company the source keeps and address the content, nutting everything off as tinfoil is less than useful.
Loverstokepark has a soil lab linked to the soil food web institute so is familiar with the quality control testing required for ACT, I have no idea regarding biodynamics, usually when I hear it mentioned I do a good impression of 'Bones' eyebrow in the original Star trek series ;¬)