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Watermelon Juice Makes Great Biofuel
Mike writes "Watermelons are more than just a tasty summer snack — researchers at the USDA have determined that the fruit constitutes a promising and economically viable source of biofuel. It turns out that the relatively high concentration of directly fermentable sugars in watermelon juice can be easily converted into ethanol. Rather than grow fields of the fruit for the purpose, the report suggests that farmers capitalize on the 20% of each annual watermelon crop that is left in the field because of surface blemishes or because they are misshapen."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG76egCZXfo
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Winemaking: Watermelon Wines.
Dear Lord: I don't want to go back to college, so please help me be sexy. Amen.
This is all wonderful, us rich people can continue to drive GMC Yukons or whatever, except it has the same problems as using other foodstuffs for fuel. Oh, sure, you can use the 20% bad watermelons for it, but once watermelon->fuel processing capacity exists, market prices will dictate whether the 80% of good melons go to the grocery store or to the melon refinery, and when the global economy bounces back and fuel prices go up, it'll be just one more thing putting pressure on the food supply. Before anyone says "oh, but watermelons can't be a large part of the global food supply," what happens with cash crops is they end up more valuable than food crops (hence the name) and displace them in the fields.
And so this whole thing is barking up the wrong tree - the fuel is alternative, but it sure isn't sustainable, just one more squeeze on substance farmers someplace we don't give a damn about.
Even as you read this, your pants are strangling your loins! Aaa!
They aren't suggesting growing more watermelons, they are suggesting that the watermelons that are presently left in the field to rot could instead be harvested and sent to a distillery.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
That article, written Gal Luft, BTW, works for the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, which by the way, worked/advised the Bush administration. Of course he would be advocate that biofuel and food prices are a myth - the members of this group are also pro-biofuel consortium - which may I ask, are you?
Thank goodness for Muckety.
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. - Peter F. Drucker
My family owns and operates a peach orchard in Colorado. I've helped with harvesting the trees and pruning the crop, and I'm reasonably familiar with the entire process. Any kind of surface defect or imperfection results in the fruit being thrown on the ground, or discarded. Our farm is fairly small, and only the truly massive farms can really make money selling fruit at less than grade A standards, because the prices are simply awful. Its just not worth the fuel to ship it at that point.
Most of your grade "B" fruit and veggies comes from grade "A" fruit that sat around too long, and was sold at the lower price rather than thrown out.
My goodness, my reply wasn't flamebait - it was stating facts. (There is someone trying to hide facts from the public.) I'll go further.
This institution is also indirectly connected to - some of its members are also part of the same group. It's related to the same past administration.
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. - Peter F. Drucker