tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235419263414453422.post1338692943661467817..comments2024-02-23T01:30:06.101-08:00Comments on Early Warning: A Little Relief on Food PricesStuart Stanifordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07182839827506265860noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235419263414453422.post-1674056267640922352011-04-08T16:13:10.322-07:002011-04-08T16:13:10.322-07:00Further points about the above scenario:
- The to...Further points about the above scenario:<br /><br />- The total amount of grain available for food consumption stops growing at t ≈ 12.9, i.e. Oct/Nov 2012. After that, there's less each year.<br /><br />- The scenario is an oversimplification because about a third of the calories in grain remain after fermentation, and this residue is used as animal feed. It may become available for people, too.<br /><br />- It also ignores oil crops. Palm oil has become an increasingly important source of calories among the poor in South Asia (over 600 million people) in recent years, as it has been cheap. The use of palm oil for biodiesel is also growing rapidly.<br /><br />- The market supplies "effective demand", i.e. those who have the money to pay. These are vehicle owners and operators, pretty much by definition.<br /><br />With all that, I think we would be getting close to one of those famous "tipping points", if we lived in a world like this scenario.Greghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11939046017258198038noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235419263414453422.post-33668800812831373132011-04-07T20:30:42.630-07:002011-04-07T20:30:42.630-07:00An extrapolation exercise:-
From the "grain ...An extrapolation exercise:-<br /><br />From the "grain supply and demand" page on the FAO's website, grain utilization in 2000 was 1900 million tonnes (Mt) and in 2010 was 2277 Mt. This is an annual growth rate of 1.8%. <br /><br />1.8% p.a. strikes me as being about the upper limit for growth in grain supply -- in the world as it is. (With better access to credit, better infrastructure, and more market power, Asian and African farmers could do a lot better than this. But pigs wll fly first, I think.) In the 2000-2010, supply has just about kept up -- not quite. But I'll use 1.8% p.a. for growth in production.<br /><br />From the NYT graphic and the FAO data, biofuels consumed 19 Mt (1% of 1900) in 2000 and 130 Mt (5.7% of 2277 Mt) in 2010. This is a growth rate of over 21.2% per year.<br /><br />Setting biofuel use, b(t) = 19 × 1.212^t equal to production, p(t) = 1900 × 1.018^t and solving for t, I get t ≈ 26.4. <br /><br />If nothing changes, biofuels will use the total grain supply in 2026.Greghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11939046017258198038noreply@blogger.com