Environmental Science

   One of the questions raised in class was whether it was right to use a source of food as energy because of the possible negative effect on hunger. Well scientists are now pushing for more reasearch to be done in the areas of ethanol and its production. Kenneth G. Cassman, director of the Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln stated “It (the research) is the core issue to ensuring that we don’t come up short in food supply, and don’t have high consumer prices, and can still maintain expansion of the ethanol industry.”

   Conflicts are arising about whether corn can sustain both energy and food requirements. One side says “…it will be possible to produce 16 billion gallons of ethanol by 2015 while also meeting corn grain requirements for human food and livestock feed,” while others claim the prices in all agriculture and livestock feeds will rise dramatically due to the shortage of food. Hunger is a major problem in this country and others and it cannot be forgotten due to the demand for fuel. Everywhere we go people are begging or asking for money in order to eat.

  We can be sure that this issue will be a major part of conversation and that both sides will be strongly supported.  This along with rising gas prices will surely force this issue to be resolved.

Photo Credit – (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Gas_prices%2C_July_2006%2C_San_Francisco%2C_California_01.jpg)

  There definately needs to be more reseacrh done in order to determine what the best solution is to this energy problem. Hopefully scientists will either be able to find a new source of energy without using food, or find a way to provide enough food for people and enough fuel for… well … everything.

 Sources:

• http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=11680
• http://www.ethanol.org/ethanolresearch.html
• http://www.ethanol.org/ethanolresearch.html