[Plant-education] Re: Biofuels & Food Security (Vinson Doyle)

[William E Williams]

For a brief statement on ethanol, see the editorial in the most  
recent BioScience (2006. 56(11):875) by David Pimentel and Tad  
Patzek. Bottom line: "Growing crops to provide fuel squanders  
resources; better options to reduce our dependence on oil are  
available."

-W2

On Dec 14, 2006, at 1:04 PM, Vinson Doyle wrote:

> There is an interesting debate going on in Florida surrounding  
> biofuels.
>
> The Florida Native Plant Society is opposing an initiative to grow  
> Arundo
> donax
> for biofuels due to its invasiveness.  Here is the .pdf of their  
> policy
> statement.
> http://www.fnps.org/committees/policy/pdfs/ 
> policyarundo_policy_statement1.pdf
>
> Vinson
>
> On 12/14/06, plant-ed-request At oat.bio.indiana.edu <
> plant-ed-request At oat.bio.indiana.edu> wrote:
>>
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>> Today's Topics:
>>
>>    1. Biofuels & Food Security (Greg Harrington)
>>    2. Re: Biofuels & Food Security (Susan Singer)
>>
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- 
>> -
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 10:26:33 -0700
>> From: Greg Harrington <Greg.Harrington At asu.edu>
>> Subject: [Plant-education] Biofuels & Food Security
>> To: <plant-ed At magpie.bio.indiana.edu>
>> Message-ID: <C1A585D9.4AEC%Greg.Harrington At asu.edu>
>> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="US-ASCII"
>>
>> I am teaching a general plant bio course called Human Uses of  
>> Plants as a
>> capstone course and intend to include food security (handling during
>> harvest/post-harvest, pesticide testing, etc) and biofuels as two  
>> topic
>> areas. Can anyone suggst useful government documents or other  
>> resources
>> for
>> these topics?
>> With thanks.
>>
>> Greg
>> ***************
>> Greg Harrington
>>
>> Assistant Professor of Plant Biology
>> Department of Integrated Natural Sciences
>> Arizona State University at the West campus
>>
>> CLCC 315E
>> 4701 W Thunderbird Road
>> Glendale, AZ 85306
>> USA
>> Tel: (+1) 602-543-6051
>> Fax: (+1) 602-543-6073
>> ***************
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 19:03:26 -0600
>> From: Susan Singer <ssinger At carleton.edu>
>> Subject: Re: [Plant-education] Biofuels & Food Security
>> To: Greg Harrington <Greg.Harrington At asu.edu>,
>>         plant-ed At magpie.bio.indiana.edu
>> Message-ID: <6EF068149722AEF0BC7AA056 At SSINGER35737.carleton.edu>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
>>
>> For biofuels, I recommend David Tilman's recent Science paper -
>> Carbon-negative biofuels from low-input, high diversity grassland  
>> biomass.
>> Science 314: 1598. His group also had an earlier paper this year  
>> on the
>> relative energy inputs into corn-based ethanol and biodiesel.
>>
>> The Department of Energy has many references on biofuels as this is a
>> current funding initiative. If you're interested in a corn-based  
>> ethanol
>> case study in progress, my township (Bridgewater Township) in  
>> Minnesota
>> just passed a resolution yesterday to take over our own zoning and
>> planning
>> instead of using county planning and zoning laws. The impetus  
>> behind this
>> for our small rural township is the strong push by a firm to build  
>> the
>> largest corn-based ethanol plant in the country in our township. The
>> amount
>> of discussion (from rural aesthetics to the lack of sense from an
>> energetic
>> perspective) in a township of 2000 has been unbelievable.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>> Susan
>>
>> --On Wednesday, December 13, 2006 10:26 AM -0700 Greg Harrington
>> <Greg.Harrington At asu.edu> wrote:
>>
>> > I am teaching a general plant bio course called Human Uses of  
>> Plants as
>> a
>> > capstone course and intend to include food security (handling  
>> during
>> > harvest/post-harvest, pesticide testing, etc) and biofuels as  
>> two topic
>> > areas. Can anyone suggst useful government documents or other  
>> resources
>> > for these topics?
>> > With thanks.
>> >
>> > Greg
>> > ***************
>> > Greg Harrington
>> >
>> > Assistant Professor of Plant Biology
>> > Department of Integrated Natural Sciences
>> > Arizona State University at the West campus
>> >
>> > CLCC 315E
>> > 4701 W Thunderbird Road
>> > Glendale, AZ 85306
>> > USA
>> > Tel: (+1) 602-543-6051
>> > Fax: (+1) 602-543-6073
>> > ***************
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Plant-ed mailing list
>> > Plant-ed At net.bio.net
>> > http://www.bio.net/biomail/listinfo/plant-ed
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Susan R. Singer
>> Laurence McKinley Gould Professor of the Natural Sciences
>> Department  of Biology
>> Carleton College
>> Northfield, MN 55057
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
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>> End of Plant-ed Digest, Vol 20, Issue 6
>> ***************************************
>>
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William E. Williams <mailto:WEWilliams At smcm.edu>
Professor of Biology
Saint Mary's College of Maryland
18952 E Fisher Rd, Saint Marys City, MD 20686
(240)895-4365