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Dept. of Energy Rejects Corn Fuel Future
eldavojohn writes "The United States' Department of Energy is stating that corn based fuel is not the future. From the article, "I'm not going to predict what the price of corn is going to do, but I will tell you the future of biofuels is not based on corn," U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell said in an interview. Output of U.S. ethanol, which is mostly made from corn, is expected to jump in 2007 from 5.6 billion gallons per year to 8 billion gpy, as nearly 80 bio-refineries sprout up. In related news, Fidel Castro is blasting the production of corn fuel as a blatant waste of food that would otherwise feed 3 billion people who will die of hunger."
Actually, Castro wants us to use sugar cane to make the ethanol, as they do in Brazil. Guess what is a major crop in Cuba?
The only thing more pathetic than being a living fossil from the cold war is making puerile jokes about one. Are you afraid from him?
^[:q!
Sugar cane ethanol is the viable alternative, if you are going to use biomass based fuel. Brazil is doing it since the seventies, it already works on most cars that use gas with little to no modification (Fiat, GM and other auto companies already produces them in quantities there) and it is almost a closed cycle, using barely to no fossil fuel on its production. This (warning, PDF) is a good summary on the benefits of sugar cane ethanol, of course we can wait for hydrogen or whatever is the technology of the future, just like we are waiting since the seventies, but if you want something that already works, sugar cane ethanol is the way to go.
Do you know that the only reason that makes U.S. not to get more ethanol from Brazil is protectionism via subsides and import quotas? Fidel got it right on this one, in order to protect the few (and rich) local corn farmers (not to mention the oil barons), U.S. impedes cheap sugar and ethanol to reach the U.S., artificially increasing the demand of corn for ethanol production, driving corn prices up and, this way, making things harder for poor people on U.S. itself and, indirectly, on Mexico too (thanks Nafta). Check this article and see, it is past the point of speculation and conspiracy theories.
Law of unintended consequences in action here. It could be different. Unfortunately, I'm not a citizen of U.S., so, I'm not part of the democratic process there. But a lot of you are, and only you could make the difference. You can wait for the Tesla electric car all your lives (maybe it will fly too, if you wait time enough) while complaining about dependence on fossil fuels and financing wars on it, or you can make the difference now and take a stand on it.
Before you say it, no, we don't need to think of the children. Industrial hemp contains less than 0.3% THC, as opposed to the 20%-30% that is found in unfertilized female plants that are grown for drug use. But God forbid anyone grow hemp: we all know what evils marijuana can cause.
'Every story, if continued long enough, ends in death.' --Ernest Hemingway
a sop to farmers and farm state congressmen.
No, it's much more about massive corporate welfare for ADM (price fixer to the world.)
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I believe the grandparent poster meant direct, electric-only wheel power, not the "dual-forces on one driveshaft" approach current hybrids use.
Diesel-electric locomotives have no direct mechanical linkage from the hydrocarbon-fueled engine to the wheels on the track. This is exactly the kind of car I am waiting for. I'm a EE, so I like the idea of electricity as the main transport of energy in a car. And the hydrocarbon engine plus generator could be replaced in the future by better technology. So IF someone made an inexpensive, reliable fuel cell, it could take the place of the engine.
The European Union continues to subsidize thousands of farmers, allowing them to produce huge amounts of surplus food every year that costs EU taxpayers a fortune. There is no political will to curb this waste as (especially in France) the farmers have too much political clout). So, there is no need to consider planting new crops specifically for fuel. The resources already exist, though greater efficiency may come from changing the crops EU farmers currently grow to ones more suitable for biofuels. Growing crops in the EU for biofuel, therefore, could solve two problems contemporaniously: EU waste converted into much needed fuel. Alternativly we could all scrap our cars and take the bus!
Even more surprising than the absurd 3-billion-deaths number, is how people are more than happy to harp on it, than to focus on the fact that many people do indeed die of starvation.
O lord, bless this thy holy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.
Yeah, all we have to do is restructure the global economy so that poorer countries are able to develop, and the problem will most likely solve itself. Why aren't we getting to work already instead of ripping them off?
Sugar is a good way to go. Sugar is very fast growing which is why ethanol in Brazil is pretty cheap: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/06/17/AR2005061701440.html. There flexi-fuel cars can run on gas (which is at least 25% ethanol) or E100 (100% ethanol).
A massive usage for corn is in fattening cattle. This is a hugely wasteful way to feed people compared to a more direct approach such as eating the corn or soy or whatever, Processing into beef is very wasteful. This would also drive up beef prices which would make McDonalds unhappy with DoE
There is no reason why there should not be a multi-input strategy. Corn can grow where sugar cannot. Algae can grow where corn and sugar can't. It is silly to really argue for one over the other. Rather make a multi-input ethanol industry.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
It takes more energy to grow and process the corn into biofuel than you would get from using the biofuel produced. The only reason why corn has been considered is because lobbying concerns have been pushing for it to increase the bottom line of big agri-businesses like ADM. The US already has massive corporate welfare programs for the 'poor farmers' of corporate agri-business and I'm surprised that the DoE has taken this stance.
Furthermore, we already use too much corn (not the best choice of words, but I'll explain what I mean). Besides the corn we eat in its regular form, corn syrup and other corn derivatives are used in a large portion of our diets in the US. Also, corn is used as the vast majority of feed (estimated at 92% in 2003) for livestock. Corn is a major part of our entire food infrastructure. We are already in serious danger if a corn famine ever arose, but the effects would compound if we base our fuel on corn as well. Diversification is important for any country, especially with an economy as large as the US. Of course, this might never happen, but we all know it's possible (Ireland). By the way, I live in Illinois in a small town of 4000 people surrounded by corn fields. I'm not saying this because I hate corn, but dependence on a single crop is a thin line to walk.
I see, so *everybody* who is born from now on will starve to death, right? Because we have absolutely no arable land left to feed anyone...
Funny thing about that. See, starving poor people don't usually have much money. And the only reason this corn is even being grown is because energy companies are willing to pay record high prices for it. If the starving poor people were willing to do that, they wouldn't be starving poor people.
Yes, it's harsh, but that's the way it works.
Maybe not
That said, now that farmers might actually have a CASH crop and end the govt subsidies, people don't want to pay fair prices for food... funny how "free market" raiders don't like when another industry can lock up some profits at their expense. It does seem "wasteful" to use the food crop for fuel, but poverty and hunger are not due to lack of food like Casto and others would like to think... we ship more than enough food to the starving nations to feed them, their leaders sell it or burn it instead of helping the people... the GOVTS simply don't care about other people. We grow lots of crops to not use expressly for food that corn can be used for both food and fuel is a good thing! Like how soy can be used for all sorts of things.
Frankly, we need to get more "eco-friendly" all life comes from the Sun... even coal and oil were once vast herds of dinosaurs and lush forests before being buried by massive amounts of earth being flipped over... last I checked we're not making anymore dinosaurs for oil anymore. If we can get slightly less power from a plant without waiting the thousands of years to make oil we should go for it.
It's called "Iowa". Eliminate the Iowa caucuses as the "first in the nation" that every Presidential candidate must suck up to (and convince his party to suck up to) and you'll never hear about corn-based ethanol ever again.
Much of this restructuring has to happen in the poorer countries, and they are unwilling to restructure.
Take a look at North Korea, where the government makes the (mis)allocation of resources to military expenditures rather than food supplies. Take a look at Sudan, where the government has no interest in the health of its citizens, or Somalia, where there is no functioning national government.
By and large, the countries which have opened themselves to Western-style Keynesian socialist markets are developing themselves out of food security issues (China, India, and other developing 3rd world states). The other places, where nationwide starvation remains a chronic issue are either the result of natural catastrophe (Bangladesh), or broken governments (North Korea).
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
> But ethanol is such a poor fuel compared to biodiesel I am amazed it gets the attention it does.
Why on earth would a multi-billion dollar corporate welfare payout to ADM surprise or amaze you? You don't think it actually has anything to do with whether ethanol is any good or not, do you?
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
But ethanol is such a poor fuel compared to biodiesel I am amazed it gets the attention it does.
There's no technical reason for it. It is pure politics and the media exploiting(mocking) the anger with the petroleum companies. And it's putting more rainforests at risk. I don't what it does to the soil. I'm sure it will make Monsanto rich. As long as we continue using our present day jalopies, biodiesel is the one true fuel for rapid oxidation. And for the best bang for the buck(best yield per acre), algae is the way to go(about half way down the page). Heck you can grow the stuff in(on) the ocean. No need to use up valuable real estate, but in case you want to anyway, "More recent studies using a species of algae with up to 50% oil content have concluded that only 28,000 km or 0.3% of the land area of the US could be utilized to produce enough biodiesel to replace all transportation fuel the country currently utilizes. Furthermore, otherwise unused desert land (which receives high solar radiation) could be most effective for growing the algae, and the algae could utilize farm waste and excess CO2 from factories to help speed the growth of the algae."
What?
Not everywhere is like the land of the plenty were the supermarkets are stocked with food.
Yeah, well it would be if everybody would stop shooting at each other for a second.
What?
It's not necessarily waste to have more land than you need today under cultivation. Tomorrow there may very well be a drought or blight that reduces production per acre; keeping that extra land cultivated can be a very useful form of insurance, even if the food rots.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Unless I'm missing something in translated translation, I looks to me that he is saying their soil is better for food and they won't be doing it. Nothing about the GP's stating he wanted sugar cane used so his crops would be worth more.
In case your wondering, taking the majority of the competitions product off the market makes your prices go up. It is the free market thing.
Pump it in from the ocean. Or, as I said in the original, grow it in the ocean. Also, we now know that transportation of fresh water(or anything else) no longer really has any technical issues. Inadequate distribution of all our resources is strictly economic and/or political in nature.
What?
When I went to college (in Morris, Minnesota) there was an ethanol plant in town and I researched ethanol production just to provide some context to the awful smell (think rotting sileage) that hit my apartment complex when the wind was right. Even back in 1990 there was little justification to use ethanol because of the high energy use for production, the increased end-unit costs because of the need to blend at the POS (because ethanol absorbs water it needs to be mixed into the blend near the end delivery point) and the other implications for vehicles (reduced power/volume, injection issues, etc). The investment that the government has made has been misplaced. It purely subsidizes this waste instead of promoting the development of more efficient production/end product. The plant in Morris is still producing the exact same product in the exact same way, the only difference is now (16 years later) they are making money hand over fist.
Finally, corn requires a tremendous amount of water to grow. When we grew corn we didn't irrigate but big corporate farms cannot resist. The Oglalla aquifer is draining, which is a big deal. Irrigation for crops of all sorts are the primary culprit but the impact is larger -- most of the 'breadbasket' of the US is dependent in many ways on the viability of the Oglalla aquifer.
I am stunned and pleased that the DOE has stepped up and stated what should be the obvious. I hope that people following the stories realize that subsidies without measurable and definable goals have no place in our "free trade" economy (tongue in cheek there).
Im not sure I undstand your kneejerk outrage.
:P
Half of all cuba's exports earnings are from sugar. Cuba used to supply 35% of the world's sugar, but now only 10% (though that's still a lot for a little island). The decline is primarily due to the price of sugar dropping 58%. Therefore if sugar was used for ethanol, it's price would increase like corn's price is doing now, and Cuba's sugar exports would approach previous highs.
Which is all to say, there's not really anything wrong with that. Sugar is better at making ethanol than corn by a longshot, and there's nothing wrong with a little national self interest, even from zombie communists
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
You mean Detroit and DC don't have food on the shelves?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Chavez, therefore, has a vested interest in making sure that the price of oil is not affected by either the promise or reality of alternate fuel sources. He is also pushing against a US/Brazilian alliance to increase Latin American use and production of cane-based ethanol - he does not want to see either country increase their influence in the region. Brazil's Lula da Silva is hardly a US puppet (he's a leftist), but he doesn't hide his dislike of Chavez and has had a fairly good working relationship with Bush. Plus, cane-based ethanol has been an incredible boon to Brazil, vastly reducing Brazil's need for oil. It's also 6-8 times more productive than corn-based ethanol - done correctly, it makes real economic and environmental sense (if used as just one of many ways to move to a post-oil energy economy). Castro's editorial is just a followup on a conversation he and Chavez had on Chavez's talk show, "Alo Presidente". While it was billed as a "spontaneous" discussion, at several points Castro made references to talking points given to him by Chavez.
Castro may be many things, but he's not stupid - Chavez is the best thing that has happened to him in years. If he has to sell-out a declining industry (Cuban sugar cane) in order to do so, he will.
Where are my mod points when I need them?
There's no food supply problem. It's all a distribution problem. Castro most likely knows this, but that "starving people" card is awfully effective.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
I agree with everything you say in the first three paragraphs but your conclusion is where it all falls down. the bottom line is our government is lining up to put mass fortunes into "cultivating" the ethanol industry for a very small 1.3 to 1 return. It doesn't make economic sense. And to waste any more limited financial (especially public money) or intellectual capital on ethanol is wrong. Rather than an earmarked subsidy for ethanol, why not a level playing field subsidy for all alternative energy technologies that show potential to reduce oil imports, or greenhouse gasses or whatever the problem is that we're really trying to solve. Better yet, just tax oil at a higher rate and let the free market find the most efficient alternatives. My guess is that 90% of that solution would be greater conservation.
What the GP is saying is that we are fast approaching or have exceeded the sustainable population limits of the planet. You are being deliberately obtuse in suggesting that everyone born from now on will starve to death. There is, however, a growing population base that lives in regions subject to famine. These are the people who will face starvation. The only reason the west has the ability to avoid these conditions is because it also has the political and economic clout enabling imports to cover any shortages. So third world populations are doing the starving for us.
The reality is that the affluent western lifestyle is unsustainable 90+th percentile standard of living, which cannot be shared at current population levels. This will become particularly obvious when the increasing energy demands of the emerging middle class from China, India et. al. begin to approach supply limits.
It is unlikely that fossil fuels alone will sustain the next 50 years of projected growth in energy demand, and just as unlikely that adding the (agriculture based, fossil fuel subisidsed) biofuels industry to this will help much either. Something will have to give and unfortuately, in the short term, it will probably be the remaining forrested land area that will be sacrificed. In the long term, expect to see some starvation in the western world too, particularly during extreme drought conditions, as the capacity of normally arable land is adversely limited.
Perhaps you don't recall what was the Dust Bowl of the 1930's? Be assured that we will see something like it again at some point. Imagine the economic devastation when both food and fuel is dependent on agriculture.
No. That's comes after World War II. I wish I was being sarcastic. We spend way too much time talking about the Civil War to leave room for discussing any of those icky parts of history where America might've done something controversial like the Bay of Pigs invasion or the Vietnam War. (At least, that was my experience growing up in a former Confederate state.)
We're just lucky to get a very small warning about McCarthyism and some coverage of the Civil Rights movement. All US history south of our borders post-Spanish-American War is pretty much not taught in high school -- especially anything critical of our actions during the Cold War. Too much of what is going on today can't be understood if your knowledge of world events pretty much ends at WW2. Why the US's enemies are enemies and why many of our allies who don't share our values at all are allies is pretty much a mystery to the vast majority of the electorate.
It gets me depressed about the future every time I think about it.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
It's not the supply of food that's the problem. It's the distribution that's letting people starve. There's plenty of supply.
Never complain about history classes. Not only is said that "history is written by the victors", but it is heavily culturally based. I'm not talking about propaganda, just about the focus that you get in school. Now, I have read much more about American history on slashdot than I had at school. I, however, got fed the whole creation of the European Union with all its boring treaties and whatnot. Americans probably get that as a summary "The EU was created in as the ECSC in 1951 and evolved (or Intelligently Designed) from there on". My contemporary history consisted mainly of EU blah-blah, and at least I understand my part of the world thanks to it.
Overlaps are probably in history are the things that happened a real long time ago: pre-historic times, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans. The sole exception would be World War II, which still differs from content. Europeans get the mantra "look how, horrible, horrible, horrible, it was... let's never do that again", Americans get the mantra "Evil Hilter! We, heroes, had to get over there to save the World".
Geography is the same: we got to learn the name of every country of the world and their capital, plus the internal structure of our own country", you do the same (I hope)... The internal structure is just different ;-) I expect a Frenchman to know about his Departements, a German to know about his Bunderlander and an American to know about his states. I don't know them, because I'm neither. So don't ask me what the capital of Utah is. I don't know... If you're an American, you should though.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
And because the problem with starvation isn't one of not being able to grow enough food, it is one of politics. The nations with massive amounts of starvation are basically all ones with really screwed up governments. Take Zimbabwe. It used to be called "The bread basket of Africa," and was a large net exporter of food. However now due to Mugwabe's extreme mismanagement and tyrannical policies, they are a net importer of food and have starving people.
We have the technology and the resources to grow plenty of food. The problem is getting it to those that need it. It isn't like you just drop it in a mailbox and send it off, there are real issues to contend with. The opening scene in Blackhawk Down? An accurate portrayal of the kind of thing that really happens.
If you've got a solution to that, let's here it. If not then please back off of the self-righteous BS ok? The problems of the world are quite not easy to fix.
What if it turns out that it's more efficient to produce ethanol from, oh, let's say hemp......or certain other highly over-valued weeds....
Do you have _any_ idea of how ethanol production works, and why we're not all drinking distillates from hemp ? If you do - nice troll - otherwise, let me start an explanation: it's about S.U.G.A.R.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
The real answer to the "future of bio fuels" is not to use as much as we use now. There is no magic thing that will make the problem of resource depletion go away. The stark truth is we've used more than we had in the first place and now we're basically fucked if we go on this way. You can shift the problem about at a huge cost to all, or radically change lifestyles.
I don't mean go and buy a goat though: I mean we need to reorganise cities and suburbs so that people stay in their local area to get as much as possible of what they need(shops, work, socialising etc). This will mean much less car use. And in the states, they could get as efficient as Europe had to in the 70s and get used to higher fuel prices as has happened in Europe too, and that would already reduce the amount needed.
I think for now the only biofuel that's actually "5-star green" is the recycling of biomass, plant waste etc to produce very limited transport - like EU nordic countries for example. Latest issue of "The Ecologist" has an in-depth section on the US's bio fuel plans and it's current and potential effects, and proposing bio-gas as the only acceptable solution that's viable now (yes microbes may be viable one day - let's see that research money). I think sweden has a bus service running on this.
The problem is that this isn't a free market.
US corn has a 44.64 cent / bushel average subsidy to start with. Each bushel makes about 2.5 gallons of ethonal which is then subsidized by 51 cents/gallon plus another 10 cents per gallon if you produce less than 60 million gallons.
The latter subsidies distort market conditions and take away corn from feedstocks hurting ranching and other industries.
At the same time we impart a 54 cent/gallon excise tax on sugar ethanol from Brazil. The reason is we have the same excise taxes per gallon as for gasoline. The problem is that ethanol produces about a third less energy per gallon, so the tax burden for its use as a fuel is higher. Brazil has economic leverage in that sugar cane is more efficient than corn when used to produce ethanol and they have a more suitable climate for growing it. It costs them about 50 cents/gallon to produce; we subsidize corn by more than it costs Brazil to produce. That said this picture is a little distorted as Brazil subsidizes their sugar crops and ethanol production.
Its not a matter of people paying fair prices for food, though they aren't if you want to argue from a free market perspective.
The issue is that corn ethanol can only exist because of very large market distortions and just doesn't supply a viable economic alternative fuel source.
If you want ethanol, fine, it is a reasonable goal, but leveraging corn isn't the best way to reach that goal. We can't compete with our corn ethanol on the world stage. All we are doing is playing protectionist sleight of hand games with the underlying economics. It lets politicians talk about how they are helping local farmers and talk big about having a vision for the future about energy self-sufficiency, but its all a shell game.
Now isn't the time to subsidize, it is the time to seriously evaluate if we want to construct an enormous infrastructure for corn ethanol production that doesn't make sound economic sense and that we will be stuck propping up indefinitely.
Sanity is a sandbox. I prefer the swings.
Biofuels only 'work' as a concept if you're one that is reflexively opposed to fossil fuels in the first place.
We already have serious issues of deforestation in the Amazon due to agriculture - does anyone think that will DECREASE if the value of sugar cane is increased by world demand for biofuel?
Further, in the US we already have problems with overtillage, exhaustion of the soil, loss of topsoil, and excessive pesticide use. Again, does anyone think that the widespread use of biofuel will help any of those situations? Particularly (regarding pesticides) when the corn isn't going to be consumed by anyone, so there is no food-quality issue to restrict the severity and frequency of pesticide use?
No, I'm thinking at some point we're going to look back and see biofuel (from grown crops) as a stupid, dead-end choice that wasted a lot of time & money.
-Styopa
"The embargo applies only to American companies, and it's perfectly just, as american citizens and companies that were expropriated by Fidel's revolution never received compensation for the theft. Don't they teach those things there on history/geography classes?"
Still waiting for US reparations for the Revolutionary War. My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather's business interests were negatively impacted.
Although in spirit I agree the embargo only applies to American companies and citizens, in practice it hasn't been limited to such.
Most of the world recognises that the Cuban embargo is the result of confused Miami/Florida politics and a saving face gesture for American foreign diplomacy. The US does business with far worse countries and dictatorships than Cuba, and the embargo policy is a colossal failure -- if only because the rest of the world ignores it.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Hm, so would land dedicated to timber also be put to better use if it was put to food?
Pardon my cynicism, but this smacks of him setting up a call for central planning and control, which has worked so well in Cuba and Eastern Europe.
Maybe in Cuba there is a need for more food production. However, in the US, we are doing okay. The only Americans starving are Hollywood actresses and people who prefer to use their assets on drugs. We export a lot of food from here, and Americans could stand to cut back on their consumption, according to people in other countries. In fact, since a lot of the central planning (aka USDA subsidies and programs) have been reduced, America's agricultural production has increased.
But there is more to it than that. A free market allows people to better respond to demands and needs than central planning ever could. I don't know the latest statistics on these facts, but consider this data on the US from the end of World War II to 1990. In those 55 years, the amount of forest acreage in the United States east of the Mississippi River quadrupled. Yes, quadrupled, and it did this in the most densely populated part of the country during a time of rapid population increase and unprecedented urban sprawl. How? Agriculture became MUCH more efficient through technology and improvements in knowledge and technique. (Example: guano, aka bat crap, is now used on cotton fields because of its high mineral content, so cotton can be grown with less crop rotation.) Also, much of the farmland that became forest was the land that made for lower quality farmland: kind swampy, or poor soil, or on a bit of a slope, etc. Market forces responded to changes in demand, price, soil quality, etc. The system worked, particularly when the government didn't tell farmers what to do (either expressly or through subsidies).
In contrast, in Fidel's Cuba, where they boil stones for soup, there has been tremendous environmental damage to meet the bureaucratic goals of production which are based more on political theory and political wrangling than the needs and desires of the Cuban citizens. You know, the world would be a far, far better place today if that wanker had learned to hit a curve ball.
The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
One of the other hows is because we spent the years leading up to the Civil War deforesting the entire south-eastern seaboard of the United States. Much of the timber removal along the coastal regions went into shipbuilding since the old countries had pretty much exhausted their supplies of old growth lumber needed for masts. The rest of the southeast was stripped for the raw materials which left the exposed land to be used to build a near agricultural empire at the time. In the years after the Civil War the country moved on into the industrial age and much of the land was left to go back to wood as more people moved away from farming.
As a result there are few areas of old growth forest left in the Eastern US, much of it being in hard to get to and/or preserved areas,one of the biggest being the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest. The rest is covered in forests of yellow pine which is a quick growing tree that can go from seed to tree in less than 30 years time, which the pulpwood papermill industries had a hand in creating.
The reason we have all of these nasty things is exactly as you said in your last paragraph -- we can't economically afford to have the type of life you put on a pedestal. Agribusiness makes food cheaper for you. Cheese with high amounts of oil is cheaper, more versatile, and doesn't spoil as quickly as cheese made from more traditional ingredients. It allows people to eat cheese who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it. You may be able to afford to shop for all your food at Whole Paycheck, but many people can't. And this isn't because the 'rich get richer and the poor get poorer', it's a simple matter of supply constraints. You can only make so much cheese the traditional way, because it's more labor intensive, the ingredients are more expensive, and the process doesn't scale as well. Combine all these factors and you can see that it's just not economically worthwhile for cheese to be made this way anymore without charging a fortune for it, compared to the factory made agribusiness alternative. It's expensive, not because of the greedy greedy farmers who make it, but because of the high cost of production.
Say, for the sake of argument, that we were to outlaw the mass production of cheese. All cheese must now be produced by small farmers with milk from free range, antibiotic free cows. Now, cheese will become a premium product along the lines of wine or caviar, because the high cost of production would raise the price to levels unreachable by the average family making $48,000 per year.
Ok, so let's, again for the sake of argument, apply a massive tax on rich people. Say we tax 100% of income over $500,000 per year, so that the maximum anyone could make would be $500,000 per year. Take that tax money and subsidize the poorer people to raise the average income to $100,000 per year. Not only would you put productivity in the toilet, but the price of premium products like cheese would skyrocket until the same number of people who could afford to purchase them before the tax can afford to purchase them after the tax. The reason for this is simple -- it's not the price of goods that's the problem, it's the amount of effort it takes to produce them, which determines the price of a good.
The type of lifestyle you say we should all be living is simply not feasible any longer for the vast majority of people. The reason we aren't starving like many people in Africa who live according to your economic utopia is because of the efficiencies that agribusiness provides.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth
This topic has been around for centuries. One of the most prominent starting points is Thomas Malthus's thought(yours is somewhat similar) and it is also in Wikipedia, but I'll summarize here.
He assumes population grows geometrically, while food supply is linear. Given this premise, at some point those two lines are going to cross, and at that point, there will be just enough food to keep everyone at the minimum amount needed to survive at that level of population and widespread poverty. Too many extra people, they starve to death until you're back at the equilibrium, too few people, and they keep breeding until it raises to the equilibrium.
However, technology was not accounted for(rightfully so, since he was not around to witness the bounty of the industrial revolution make food supply explode). So the "Malthusian" situation will not occur so long as a sufficient level of technological growth is sustained to tweak that linear food supply line upwards to keep ahead of the geometric population growth.
Also, that population growth rate is not fixed.
Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a wikipedia entry on this topic since I don't recall the name used for this topic. Generally population growth rates and death rates were fairly regular throughout human history, and only in very recent years it changed. Technological spurts like the plow and such caused agricultural booms that allowed for larger population. Eventually the industrial revolution hit Great Britain.
This results in a huge increase in food supply so that the population growth rate and death rate leaped. Eventually the death rate drops, and then the population growth rate drops, and they straighten out once more. This happened repeatedly as the industrial revolution spread across Europe.
Africa for example, may not have had this phenomenon occur yet. Their birth and death rates are very very high. However, in modern countries birth and death rates and slowed nearly to a standstill without crashing into Malthusian poverty. Why?
One of the best explanation is the concept of Human Capital. What is a human worth? If we're living in an agricultural society, children can help me manage the farm and produce more and work less. Children help me live through retirement. However, since I'm poor, I have to produce more children since the children are also dying often. The above population phenomenon hits where technology grants abundance. I'm healthier and I can support a larger family so population spikes. My children are surviving from this abundance so the death rate drops. Since I have children who are surviving, that I have to care for, the population growth drops too.
Now I've got a stable family size and a stable population growth rate. Since the economy is filling with opportunities thanks to the new technology(there's different kinds of technology in economics, in this case, we're talking about the kind that make more jobs than they remove). This expanded economy can allow me to do more than just farm. If I invest in education I can get more money! So I go get a non-agricultural job. Families won't need so many kids with less human-labor needed on farms so the family size decreases. As opportunities for women to get jobs they have less children too(women in the west are now going to college, maybe grad school, and have children later and later in their lives.)
Education is expensive, increasing the human capital of myself costs money, doing the same for my wife and kids, it racks up to a large investment. So I actually have a disincentive for having a large family, since I can't put money into all of them without lowering the investment level in each.
If I have the opportunity, I may not even want to invest in making a child so that they can take care of me in retirement. I can have less children or no children at all and instead put that effort into my own Human Capital and focus o
With an electronic/electric system, you'd have easier acceleration, because the only rotational masses would be the axles and tires, and there would be no gears to drive or fluid to cause parasitic losses. You can also regain power by using regenerative brakes, which helps overall system efficiency, where no such thing exists in a purely mechanical vehicle (I'm aware that some hybrids use regenerative braking systems). Also, you have a computer system to keep the engine at it's torque peak, thereby keeping it at or near its most efficient speed at all times. Intake runners can be easily tuned to accommodate a desired target RPM, and the computer can control air intake charge volume and fuel flow like is currently done with CVT vehicles.
Also, with so much electrical power on tap, a lot of accessories that are currently belt-driven could become electrically powered, like the AC system. I *believe* the parasitic loss of the AC pulley on the engine (especially at full throttle, even with the clutch disengaged) is greater than what an electric AC unit would be. Also, with an electric AC, there are less moving parts, and therefore a simpler system, which tends to be more efficient.
All that said, it would require a largeish battery system, and those are neither light nor energy-efficient to manufacture. I don't have a solution for that, honestly. I can only hope battery technology ramps up in the near future; storing electrical charge for later use without having to rely on mechanics would be a huge boost for both efficiency and longevity. I still believe it would be more efficient in the long run, though.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.