Food prices are up as corn prices have doubled to $4.50/bushel with the $0.51/gallon of ethanol subsidy. As the US is (soon to be was) a huge corn exporter, this is causing higher prices worldwide. Foreign Affairs in the May/June issue says that could lead to doubling the world hungry from 600 million to 1.2 billion. They hope that

relying more on sugar cane to produce ethanol in tropical countries would be more efficient than using corn and would not involve using a staple crop.

No, if sugar cane is more profitable than corn, it will also outcompete staples for land and labor until the price of staples is hungry high.

Scientific American makes the same mistake in the June issue:

[Jatropha, an oil crop] favors hot, dry conditions and hence an unlikely threat to rain forests. There is no trade-off between food and fuel either, because the oil is poisonous.

No, Jatropha will pull away farm equipment, labor and land from other crops driving up the price of every other crop.

Ethanol is an OK energy delivery system to convert solar energy, but if biofuels stay competitive with petroleum (via subsidies for now), all arable land will be converted to corn and other energy crops until the food crop prices are driven up enough to be competitive with the energy crops.

The only way to bring the corn price down is to either bring a multiple of the current acreage under cultivation (all US arable land devoted to corn would get us 12% of petroleum consumption) or reducing the corn/ethanol subsidy.

Taylor Dinerman calls for space solar power in this week’s The Space Review. He trots out hydrogen as an alternative energy source. No–it’s an alternative energy delivery method. Last time I checked, to get hydrogen, we had to use another fuel source and lose energy to crack the hydrogen. To make space solar power viable, we need an advance that will advantage space solar power to terrestrial solar power. Does this meet the objective:

One technology that might radically reduce the weight requirements for these systems is the technique pioneered at the University of Notre Dame where single-walled carbon nanotubes are added to a film made of titanium-dioxide nanoparticles, doubling the efficiency of converting ultraviolet light into electrons. Any solar cell technology that could reach conversion factors of over 50% or even higher would reduce the size and weight of an SPS and thus make it easier and cheaper to build and launch.

It also makes terrestrial solar power potentially reach conversion factors of over 50% too. To make space solar better than terrestrial solar, we need launch costs to be no more than 3x manufacturing costs per kg if space solar is 4x as efficient. With manufacturing costs $350/kg, we need launch costs $1000/kg to make space solar viable.

I’ve never been very thrilled with the idea of converting food to fuel. This article explains why:

President Bush has set a target of replacing 15 percent of domestic gasoline use with biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel) during the next 10 years, which would require almost a fivefold increase in mandatory biofuel use, to about 35 billion gallons. With current technology, almost all of this biofuel would have to come from corn because there is no feasible alternative. However, achieving the 15 percent goal would require the entire current US corn crop, which represents a whopping 40 percent of the world’s corn supply. This would do more than create mere market distortions; the irresistible pressure to divert corn from food to fuel would create unprecedented turmoil.

Thus, it is no surprise that the price of corn has doubled in the past year

…why ain’t you rich?

An explanation. And good advice. It’s not new, but too many people (particularly in the inner cities, due to a dysfunctional culture) haven’t yet figured it out.

…why ain’t you rich?

An explanation. And good advice. It’s not new, but too many people (particularly in the inner cities, due to a dysfunctional culture) haven’t yet figured it out.

…why ain’t you rich?

An explanation. And good advice. It’s not new, but too many people (particularly in the inner cities, due to a dysfunctional culture) haven’t yet figured it out.

Arnold Kling writes about the little-known history of prostitution insurance.

Could be. Of course, if we leave it up to the Dems, they’ll screw it up by raising taxes.

Eastern Market apparently burned down over the weekend. I had many a good crab cake there, but I agree that the government should not be involved in rebuilding it.

Good for Congressman Campbell.

I also think we need to look into this suspicious event. Were there government documents buried underneath? Were the Jews warned away? Where was Dick Cheney? Was it made of steel?

Brink Lindsey is blogging again, to help promote his new book, which looks quite interesting. He’s thumbing his nose at the socialists on their holiday by celebrating freedom.

[Update in the evening]

Take back the day. Here’s a web site dedicated to the remembrance of the millions of people who died in the hoped-for furtherance of a naive and well-intentioned but ultimately vile and evil (hmmmmm…I just noticed that those two words are anagrams) totalitarian ideology, and one that stood in utter defiance to human nature, and was therefore the most inhuman of all.