🚀 go-pugleaf

taylorj@ecs.ecs.csus.edu (Jon M. Taylor) writes:
> In article <D5q77J.I73@sactoh0.uucp>, Kim A. Berry <kberry@sactoh0.uucp> wrote:
[snippity-do-dah]
> 
> >But our current farming methods are unstainable for at 
> >least two reasons: A) Irrigation will eventually poison the topsoil.
> >It is already a factor in Central California -- after only a few
> >generations of farming. 
> 
> 	*Irrigiation* will poison the topsoil?  Irrigation by itself just
> means watering.  Are you referring to the water table being contaminated? 
> Overuse of pesticides?  Overfertilization? 
> 
Central Valley and Imperial Valley soils have a lot of salt in them,
which has to be rinsed out of the soil to grow crops.  Imperial Valley
farms all have tile drains in fields, and a complex system of open
drains that lead to the Salton Sea.  The Central Valley does not have
as sophisticated system, but most of the salty waste water ends up in the
San Joaquin River.  It is the Selenium in this waste water that caused
such grotesque abnormalities in ducks at the Kesterson WIldlife Refuge
several years ago.

> >B) Our crop yields rely on oil, which is 
> >finite.  Some estimates say 30 years. I won't bet $1000 on a specific
> >date, however.
> 
> 	Our current worldwide oil reserves have about another 100-150 
> years left at current consumption rates.  After that, we'll probably end 
> up going to methanol from corn, assuming no great breakthroughs in 
> nuclear fusion (cold or otherwise) happen.
> 

The thing that really scares me about methanol and fuel made from crops
is the economic problems:  if our country went to methanol, all of a sudden
you have the fuel producers bidding against the food producers for the same
crops, and food prices would skyrocket.  
And, I think there is a wide range of estimates of how much oil is left,
depending on who you are listening to.

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Alexis(ndlxs@netcom.com OR araalex@dbserv2.teale.ca.gov)
Sacramento, CA  "The Pearl of the Central Valley"