Is Mitch Daniels Trashing Indiana?

You don't hear from me for a couple weeks, and now you get two posts in one day? Sorry, I couldn't help myself when I stumbled across this little excerpt on BioFuels. In case you don't know about it, that's the supposedly "environmentally friendly" spin Daniels has put on his Agricultural push here in Indiana (which many believe is just being used as a smoke screen to change legislation for opening things up to Hog CAFOs all over the State).

Well, his BioFuels spin might end up nipping him in the butt by the time all the research starts hitting mainstream:

Biofuels from energy crops are bad news

Biofuels from energy crops are bad news, as our Energy Review makes clear (http://www.i-sis.org.uk/ISIS_energy_review_exec_sum.pdf).

To sum up: there isn't enough land to grow energy crops and food crops. The pressure on land will accelerate deforestation, and cause huge increases in carbon emissions, so biofuels won’t be carbon neutral as claimed.

Bioenergy crops will destroy biodiversity, and accelerate global warming and species extinction. Above all, they will threaten the food security of the poorest nations, and raise food prices for all countries as food and energy compete for the same "feedstock".

Bioenergy crops are also unsustainable, as they deplete soil minerals and reduce soil fertility especially in the long term. They generally give small to negative energy returns when you do the life-cycle analysis properly. The processing wastes have substantial negative impacts on the environment. And although biodiesel is cleaner than diesel, ethanol is not; it generates mutagens and carcinogens and increases ozone levels in the atmosphere.

So, add this to Daniels big pork push, and you really have to wonder where he's moving after his term in office is over. It also makes you wonder what will happen to the rest of us Hoosiers...

Unabashed Plug: I'm doing something for our family to create a financial safety net in case anything bad happens owing to the Hog CAFO that got planted 2500 feet from our doorstep, and it's proving to be quite lucrative. Check the goji opportunity out here.