Your Blog

emailed to have your say bbcnews24 16th march 2007

Posted by freebhang on Saturday, 17 March 2007 00:21:50

Working lunch

With regard to ethanol from wheat, your programme 15th march 2007.

Several, perhaps smaller ethanol plants have been built in the UK. All, except one have become unsustainable. The others either because they couldn't get enough wheat locally ended up having to import wheat from Europe. This pushed up costs and made the ethanol plants economically unviable.

So why didn't farmers want to grow more wheat in these areas in the past?

How much fertiliser and pesticides will be used to help grow this wheat and keep it free from pests? What ever the figure may be it is added costs to the farmer which then makes the finished crop more expensive. Do wheat crops diminish soil quality? How many person hours go into the cultivation of wheat, from the preparing of the soil till harvest? All figures, would, still be interesting figures to find and perhaps this is why, so few of our UK farmers chose grow wheat.

What would be the carbon/environmental footprint of 150,000 hectares of wheat cultivation including the transportation of fertilisers and pesticides? Will the cultivation of this wheat take in less carbon dioxide than the amount of carbon dioxide being produced?

Has government or the agricultural industry ever been told of an alternative crop which could yield a minimum of 30% more ethanol and have as its major bye products, pulp for tree free paper and fibre for textiles? Do the government and agriculture know this crop could be grown as a fallow field crop and can also be grown on the estimated 100,000 hectares of marginal land, unfit for conventional crops, in the UK? Added together that makes 250,000 hectares given over to a crop which yields a minimum of 30% more ethanol than wheat.

Two major UK based industries from bye products of this crop would minimise imports of wood pulp and textiles, mainly chemical sprayed, cancer causing, soil depleting, cotton. The carbon footprint of those imports would be minimised while also creating employment for the 3.5 million unemployed, counting those disabled, fighting for the 800,000 jobs on the market. This crop requires only ground preparation and no fertiliser or pesticides saving on costs to farmers. It needs no person hours from planting till harvest. From sowing to harvest, it takes in tons of carbon dioxide. Its lush growth prevents weeds and its root system and leaf droppings replenish the soil after harvest.

Yes, both government and agriculture know about hemp.

Al Gore does not mention hemp in his inconvenient truth. Perhaps hemp is an inconvenient truth to him as well as an inconvenient truth to our government.

I have proposed, government, fund a film documentary called hemp4shed. Sustainable, human and environmental development. Will the contwrepetives do it instead?

Colin preece

You could comment if you logged in | Read comments


 

Posted by Adamush on Saturday, 17 March 2007 22:15:44

All good points. I did some research into this when I was examining the anticipated float of Ensus. I found that ethanol from sugar cane is much more efficient to produce overall than wheat or corn. I can't say anything about hemp.

Posted by physics911comfan on Saturday, 17 March 2007 22:48:30

there are over 58 known cannabidoils in hemp
fast growing sure looks like a good fuel source
up until the late 18th century it was illeagal not to grow hemp as a resourse crop for the royal navy

Posted by Splatfly on Saturday, 17 March 2007 22:57:50

Adamush > "I found that ethanol from sugar cane is much more efficient to produce overall than wheat or corn."
I agree with you there, but we can't grow sugar cane in the UK, we do grow sugar beat but I do not know how good that is for ethanol. (It would make UK sugar beat farmers happy if there is a potential high value crop solution to the cut from EU sugar subsidies)

In the UK we get one Wheat harvest out off the growing season, it is highly dependant on fertilisers & pesticides and its root systems are not good for maintaining soil quality.
You can get 2 harvests of a hemp crop in one growing season using organic growing techniques, you may be able to force 3 harvest if you use fertilisers. Hemp's root system breaks up the soil, the plant is very resilient to pests and it will grow in poor soils after all it is a weed.

Wheat is very susceptible to the Wheat Stem Rust fungus, if we make ourselves even more dependant of wheat we will be setting ourselves up for an economical and ecological disaster. This type of disaster has already happened in the US about 50yrs ago and thankfully there are checks on wheat crops to control the rust fungus, but if that fails we and our country will suffer big time.


Isn't there a rather large element of burning involved with the harvest of sugar cane? Along with its growing enviroment being occupied by rainforest. I don't think sugar cane is a very environmentally friendly crop to grow.

Don't miss these