Comments on: Demand for grains and oil

By: lonympics spokesman

lonympics spokesman — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:36:04 +0000

We need the CAP to stop food shortages. It is the tory free market euro skeptics who continue to argue against the CAP, and for free market extremism. It was the sun newspaper run by Kelvin Mackenzie who got the EU to drop it's so called grain mountains. We would have far bigger problems if not for the EU. The EU guarantees our food security. It ensures we subsidise food production which would be farmed out (pardon the pun) to other countries if we did never subsidise our farming industries. The EU does not pay people not to farm. It pays deliberately for over production, so we have no famines. So we cannot be blackmailed by foreign nations for our own food. It is the free market that would leave us dependent on other continents, having to compete with the Chinese for food. I know Mr Redwood will not allow this view to be published as only euro skeptic tories are allowed on his blog.

By: Bazman

Bazman — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 16:43:13 +0000

Difficult to see how mankind can be realistically proactive instead of reactive in terms of energy. As long as oil producing countries can sell oil at reasonable prices then it id unlikely that other countries will stop buying. What can be done though is force companies to be more efficient.
The ultra conservative car industry could do a lot more for fuel efficiency, so far only Toyota is talking about 'True to the earth' and 'well to wheel' efficiency instead of 'tank to wheel' efficiency which at the moment is about 16%. The 0ther 84% being lost in heat and friction.
Anyone who thinks that the car industry is not ultra conservative should take a look at a Model T Ford and then compare it to the latest Mondeo.
It could have been all so different.
When the customer decides that SUV's are just not a realistic way to get from A to B. You can be sure the car industry will be slow to react and tooled up to build the wrong type of car, blaming everyone including even the customer for their poor sales. The Japanese manufactures will probably be on the ball as they are always focused on designing and building cars the customer wants, and not mergers and other financial deals.
Take a look at the Mazda RX7. You might not buy one, but you want one. Almost affordable too! http://www.shiotsu-used-car.com/blogpics/mazda-rx…

By: mikestallard

mikestallard — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 20:24:02 +0000

According to Christopher Booker, who runs a column in the Telegraph, 11 million tons of grain are demanded by the EU for fuel from us to cope with global warming and to reduce imports of oil. Our total output is just 13 million tons. He warned about this last year. Pig farmers on the radio this morning (Farming Today) were warning that they were losing about Â£20 per pig owing to grain costs, they are trying to protest (700 turned out in London apparently) – but who cares? Demonstrations are simply ignored. (Unless they are planned by parliament itself??)
In Africa, Rhodesia was "the bread basket of Africa" a few years ago. Today bread costs a lot of money out there? South Africa is distributing farms racially, I believe (there were hints of this in the Telegraph, but nothing specific yet). Already there are power cuts in Johannesburg. Kenya's little problems meant that food could not be shipped out through Kenya this year. This, of course, affected Uganda and all stations to the DRC. All in all, a rather sad outlook for a rapidly growing continent, don't you think?
The EU, of course, is, as ever, blameless – oh, I nearly forgot the CAP and the protectionist policy towards ex-(English)colonies which drives developing nations to starvation.
A lot of the trouble is, as usual, man made. And not, actually, with us Brits making it. Never mind, we shall, no doubt take the blame as usual and tighten our belts while other people grow even fatter – or thinner of course.

By: David Barron

David Barron — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 20:20:12 +0000

"and we may be close to a breakthrough in the use of a variety of cleaner technologies like hydrogen."

Hydrogen doesn't occur naturally in its native form. The only way of producing it- electrolysis of water – requires large amounts of electricity generated by burning fossil fuels. Hydrogen is not a source of energy: it is a 'vector' which conveys energy from producer to consumer.

And by the way, the overall efficiency of the electricity-to-hydrogen-to-fuel cell cycle is about 10%.
(Roughly the same as the efficiency of a steam locomotive
in the old days.)

Reply:Yes, of course. Work is, however, advancing on renewable ways of generating the electricity to create the hydrogen.

By: Steven_L

Steven_L — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:14:59 +0000

I can't help thinking that speculation plays some part is the price rises. People blame property price increases in the UK on basic supply/demand issues, but on this blog you've mention the possible effect of an increasing money supply before. As credit conditions tighten we are starting to see estate agents and surveyors report falls in property prices. This has not happened because several hundreds of thousand of people left the country. Now everyone is waiting with baited breath to see if the next sharp movement is up, or down like has happened in the US.

You only have to do the rounds on the blogs of small-time traders to see that the words of everyones lips have been 'buy grain', 'buy sugar' and 'buy oil' for quite some time now. There have been reports in the national press of over 50% annual returns for hedge fund managers that bought grains and sold shares. Fifty per cent plus in a year when others are dropping like flies after bad bets on shares and debt. Gold is another one, I'm sure that actual demand in Asia plays a part, but everyone, from the small-time gambler with his spread bets to the high-rolling fund manager controlling several billions of pounds has been adding to this demand over the last couple of years. It is becoming the same with some agricultural produce if you ask me.

There was no good fundamental reason for house prices to treble in ten years. Likewise there is not good fundamental reason why oil prices should nearly double in the space of a year. Has demand for oil actually doubled, or demand for bets on the price of oil?

By: Neil Craig

Neil Craig — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 13:02:11 +0000

World population is rising less than previously expected & most of it is in the pooere countries. China has not only got its population problem under control but possibly, to much so at least for their own interests. There is enormous potential for creating ocean thermal power by pumping up cool deep sea water - the side effects of this are that such water is nutrient heavy & can be used to absorb CO2 & grow algae & fish. It has the unique condition of producing CO2 negative power. http://www.nrel.gov/otec/what.html The way biofuels will fairly soon be produced is by GM plants which will produce enormously more efficiently than our current procesing of grain. At that point it may well be able to cost effectively replace the entire petroleum industry (& without Green subsidies). http://alfin2100.blogspot.com/2008/02/first-trill... There are few of the "problems" government is currently worried about which cannot be solved by technology. John may I reccomend the Al Fin site to any politician who wants to be a generation ahead of the curve, though I acknowledge that would be a lonely position in UK politics. http://alfin2100.blogspot.com/

By: Devil's Kitchen

Devil's Kitchen — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 12:20:54 +0000

"There are two main causes of extra demand for food and energy. The first is a rapidly rising world population, and the second the increasing affluence of formerly poor countries."

Well, yes and no. Two other, and very important, factors are biofuels and climate. The amount of agricultural land turned over to biofuels is actually fairly massive, and only going to increase.

The climate has suddenly turned very cold and this, combined with the wetness of the previous two years, has resulted in ruined harvests and lower overall yields.

The EU has, naturally, had a hand in this. It sold off most of its grain reserves a couple of years ago (at a very low price: learning from Gordon's gold experience obviously) so, at a time when a "grain mountain" would be very useful, we don't have one.

Further, the change in CAP funding, which effectively pays farmers not to produce food — or, rather, to produce crops that are not edible, e.g. oil seed rape — has dropped the acreage turned over to food throughout the EU.

A classic piece of EU mismanagement which I thought that you would have picked up on…