Necessity is mother of Invention
 
 The saying goes, but spares me to say curiosity of mankind will destroy him/her.

       Mankind having danced himself lame from discovery of Industrial Revolution, now man is staring at reality that all is not well -Industrialization is a gift that stings there is environmental pollution, spread of diseases, earth is heating fast, ice is melting, floods here floods there, droughts not spared. So the discovery of using crude oils to met his basic energy needs like power machines, automobiles, cooking etc was not after all a good idea but a bad idea. Noticing this man has made U-turn like Kenyans politicians and is now talking of having magic of solving his eminent extinct Is Biofuels!!!! The fuel of the future; is green, clean, easily available and cost effective.Ghosh!!!!! This madness makes me jump out of my skin

  In simple terms am being told that instead of eating my maize/corn for Ugali I should sell them for fuel purposes so what will I eat wooie???

       This actual obscure me not to think of what are environmental implications of all this change of events that biofuels will solve all problems.

   even though they say is only fools who do not change but I need to play foolish until am told what effects of going green are.
  I will refuse such answers like
  Using biofuel
  -It will reduce global pollution,
  -It will encourage greater utilization of land
  -Will create job opportunities
  -Will reduce global warming
  -They are environment-friendly

  Let me assume the following remarks recalling my high school biology lessons

  Because photosynthesis performed by fuel crops removes greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and can reduce fossil fuel consumption, we are told they are green.

  But when the full lifecycle of biofuels is considered, from land clearing to consumption, the moderate emission savings are outweighed by far greater emissions from deforestation, burning, peat drainage, and cultivation and soil-carbon losses
 
  Unless we create flying lands where we can plant enough soya beans, maize, corn etc I foresee the danger of damaging our land and soon food scarcity will fall on us. The land is decreasing in size, and degrading too outcome will be poverty real poverty as we know a hungry person is an angry person 
 
  During my Internship at Kenya Agricultural Research Institute-Kenya (KARI) sometimes ago  I carried out an experiment of Calorific Value of Food samples such as Maize, beans, potatoes Soya beans, palm oil or groundnuts

  I noticed the following
  -Every 1gram of palm oil generates 33 grams of carbon dioxide emissions -10 times more than petroleum!!!!
  From above, if extrapolated, it simply means 100 tons of Palm oil will cause 3300 tons emission of Carbon Dioxide hence are we safe then
  -And Tropical forests cleared for sugar cane plantations like Mumias Sugar belts, ethanol emit 50 percent more greenhouse gases than the production and use of the same amount of gasoline.

  I hope that Managers at Mumias Sugar Company Kenya will not hear this statement  I wish to ask are we safe by embracing Biofuels?

  Thanks
  Gibson Nabuteya Amenya
  Kenya

– – –
Date:  Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:54:37 -0700 (PDT)
From:  amenya gibson
Subject:  Ref Biofuels

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Hi Gibson,

What’s your take on crops like jatropha that utilise otherwise “un-farmable land”, earning the farmers much needed income, and increasing the ever reducing forest cover? I think there is a flip side to your attack on bio fuels.

regards

Patrick.

– – –
Date:  Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:37:42 -0700 (PDT)
From:  patrick gatembo
Subject:  Ref Biofuels