Hello Mark >Hi all, > >I'd like to point out that a big downside of Euro priced fuel in the US >is the asinine tendency to produce goods in one part of the Country >(World) and then TRANSHIP all across the country.
I posted a Guardian article a while back about a British company that ships IIRC strawberries grown in Britain to Kenya to have them prettily packaged, then to be flown back to Britain for sale. We quite often rant about the food miles issue here, it's rather relevant, rather comparable to the similarly asinine centralized power supply as opposed to localized, micro-niche, biofuels production. IMO organic food is LOCAL food. I don't care how it's grown, but an "organic" banana grown in Mexico and sold in Tokyo is not organic. > Fuel is an interesting component of freight costs in the distribution >network. As fuel costs rise, so do consumer goods costs and that hurts >the less economically advantaged disproportionally. Yes it does. And they're getting hurt anyway in the food stakes, all the way from simply not enough for about 33 million Americans, to being too poor to afford anything but the cheapest, most toxic junk food, no matter how much they might know better. Lots about this in the archives too. The fact remains that the fuel/energy cost/price in the US is severely distorted, for very bad reasons; obviously the entire economy is distorted as a result. You can't fix one without the other. Fuel prices will most certainly have to be fixed - WILL be fixed, no matter who doesn't like it. It's happening now. We've been discussing it here for years. Since it's all rigged from on-high for the benefit of the powers-that-be and sod the rest, said powers-that-be are all too likely to be far too concerned about their own suffering (about time!) bottom-lines to care much of a damn about the plight of the mere peasantry/cannon fodder/production units/consumer units. Cynical? Not me, but they sure are. >My company manufactures Organic Vegetarian Foods on the West Coast of >Calif. Fully 5-6% of our annual budget costs go to truck freight to >distribution. If the price of Diesel (Dino) doubles (taxes, price >manipulation, etc) the price of our products has to rise. >Unfortunately, due to brokers in the middle, this wholesale price rise >of 5-6% gets whacked again by the distributors who mark up on a >straight % basis of delivered price. > >Suddenly, our affordable, vegetarian, organic food becomes very >unaffordable to the people that need and want it the most. >The parasitic drag of the brokerage mark up also becomes unbearable. >eg. Our delivered price goes up 6% the broker adds their mark up (30%) >on top of the DELIVERED price. Fuel goes up, the broker makes more $$$ >for sitting on their butts. >Short of producing on both coasts, (duplication of everything in the >system, loss of economies of scale, etc,) How do we get good, healthy >food to those that want/need it? I wrote this previously: "How much fossil-energy, in fuel, fertilizers and pesticides, would be required to produce enough food to feed 900 million people? "Answer: none. "According to the FAO, no less. More than 15% of the world's food supply is produced by city farms (in 1993, expected to grow to 33% by 2005), with virtually no inputs other than wastes (thus vastly decreasing city sanitation problems as well), and with the use of no farming land at all. Quite easy to apply such an approach to biofuels production." [more] http://archive.nnytech.net/index.php?view=1395&list=BIOFUELS-BIZ How much fuel can we grow? >The same situation applies to fresh produce, even more so. > >If biodiesel were an option, It is an option, and rather more than that. >how long before the same Bastards got >control of the sales and distribution? And charged accordingly? We've been discussing this for a long time too. "I have a niggling feeling that 10 years from now, the environmentalists will be fighting the ethanol industry tooth and nail. anything can be done badly, and I expect the ADM's of the world will be successful in turning a clean renewable resource into a dirty unsustainable one......" - Steve Spence. And so on. Do a search here for "Noyes" (Graham Noyes of World Energy) and read the whole thread: http://archive.nnytech.net/index.php?list=biofuel They're the Big Guys, the NBB is backed by the Soy Councils, which comprise mainly or very largely ADM, Cargill, Monsanto - pretty much the same bastards, or the same sort of bastards at the very least. See what happened to Graham (who's now World Energy's sales VP, by the way) - he changed his tune more than somewhat, and his subsequent attitude and indeed behaviour has changed too. We're not too concerned. It's too late to stop us. Ed Beggs posted an article a while back about ADM moving into biodiesel production in the US and warned that we'd all be bulldozed, here come the big guys. So what, quite frankly. >I'm all for localized production where possible, Where is local production not possible? >but the food >distribution system is a real challenge. Don't distribute it further than locally. Sorry, I know you won't like that, but that's the way it's going to be in a rational, sustainable system, should there ever be such a thing again (and woe betide all if there's not). Sorry again, but an organic food company trying to accommodate itself to the existing industrialized food supply system is not too different to an organic farmer saying "Just a little dieldrin (RoundUp, Gramoxone, ammonia, GMO seed) won't do any harm." Won't it hell. >I am thinking that if a few Natural Foods companies in the area can >co-op biodiesel production from our WVO and contract freight with a >trucking company, we can be in a bit more control of our destiny. Sure. But why not distribute non-local business instead to where it's local? Anyway, you seem to be thinking mainly in cost terms here, but isn't it just as important if not more so that that would cut the fossil-fuels/carbon emissions component on each item you sell, and shouldn't that be your aim? Idealistic? Sure, but not impractical, and if you don't like idealistic then why are you doing organics and natural foods? They're hardly "natural" anymore with a big fossil-fuelled Food Miles fraction in the price tag. So, yes, $4.50 a gallon? Bring it on! Best Keith >Pipe dream? > >Got to start somewhere. > >Mark Osborne > > >--- Appal Energy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > You know, the really nice thing is that there is at least somet type > > of > > circuit interupt between the manufacturing sector and the legislative > > sector. > > > > Despite all the legislated subsidies for fossil and nuclear there > > remains > > the problem of ever-increasing costs and ever decreasing supplies > > giving > > rise to price increases. > > > > The market can be a wonderful thing, eh? > > > > :-) ..... Still begging for $4.50 a gallon (US).... > > > > Todd Swearingen ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for Your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at Myinks.com. 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