"In the middle of every difficulty lies an opportunity."- Albert Einstein

So in my previous 2 blog entries I discussed the benefits of higher gas prices on our quest to curb CO2 emissions. Another thing this has done is to make production of bio fuels and ethanol more cost productive. But the last of these two potentially beneficial gas alternatives has created some other problems in the process…a virtual food shortage. "The impact of rising food prices on food aid is part of a broader debate about the long-term impact on the world's poorest people of using food crops to make ethanol and other bio fuels, a strategy that rich countries like the United Sates hope will eventually reduce dependence on Middle Eastern oil." Noel Sheppard whose the associated editor of News Busters said. While Bush is blaming India’s increased population & wealth for using more grain to feed livestock which is causing the rise in grain prices, India in turn blames Bush’s energy bill which gives government subsidies to companies producing ethanol from those same food sources. The truth lies somewhere in the middle and includes several countries with high grain yields cutting back on their exports which also contributes to our current food shortage. But we should take partial blame to the problem instead of pointing fingers. We should eliminate government subsidies of ethanol made from food sources. Subsidies should be limited to ethanol production from agricultural waste. This is slowly taking hold with newly built facilities like the one in Georgia constructed by Range Fuels. This ethanol plant uses only bio mass which is made from a variety of wastes including olive pits, logging waste switchblade grass and agricultural waste not suited for consumption. It’s projected to produce up to 100 million gallons of ethanol from these by products yielding what founder and former apple executive Vinod Khosta terms “waste to value”. Subsidies for oil companies need to be eliminated and there for truly curtailing our dependence on oil. Isn’t it funny, if these technologies really take off, how Bush’s pursuit to protect oil interests for the U.S. by invading Iraq have in effect raised oil prices by weakening the country and would have ultimately insured the end of the industry it set out to secure. Just shows what goes around comes around.