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Jeff Broin of ethanol producer Poet said the following

8). In the great debate over how much corn ethanol is affecting food prices, what do you think about some newer reports that have said biofuels have affected food prices significantly?
Every study depends on the assumptions of its author, and the opponents of renewable fuels have been able to generate a few that say what they want. Almost every independent study I’ve seen has said that ethanol production has had a very small impact on the consumer’s price for food, especially in comparison to the impact of rising energy prices.

A study from the Agricultural and Food Policy Center at Texas A&M said, “The underlying force driving changes in the agricultural industry, along with the economy as a whole, is overall higher energy costs, evidenced by $100 per barrel oil.” Just do the math. A semi can haul 4,200 boxes of corn flakes at a time, and with 10 ounces of corn in each box, that’s a total of 46.9 bushels of corn. At a $6 bushel, the corn in all 4,200 boxes has a value of $281.40. To haul those boxes 1,500 miles, however, would cost $881.25 with diesel priced at $4.70 per gallon. That means it takes 21 cents of diesel per box to get it to the store, yet the value of corn in that box is less than seven cents. What do you think is the real driver of higher food prices?

But this study surely has nothing to say about biofuels not pushing up the price of food? In fact what would the fuel cost have been if the truck was run on biodiesel?

Its also flawed in that the calculation is for $100 crude & $ 4.70 / gallon diesel – even at $50 crude and the corresponding diesel price of $ 2.86 / gallon (extrapolated from GasBuddy data) the diesel cost is still 13 cents. This is a of food retail and consumer demands not fuel costs!

Lets not even start calculating the packaging cost and the wholesale and retail margins!

While I am happy to say my daughter passed her license at Waltloo yesterday, the process lead to my watching what happens at the Centurion Testing Centre for many hours. Its just as bad as or worse than the Waltloo situation.

I have written various reports, which I have emailed to the City of Tshwane Customer Care Centre (in 5 separate emails to which I have not even had a single acknowledgement) and a number of other employees of Tshwane Municipality. Other than one response that probably raised more questions that it answered I have not made any progress.

What I can assure everyone is that I am not going to give up on this as it so clearly contradicts the City of Tshwane Customer Care commitment

which amongst others states:

Unfortunately they don’t deliver on any of these points.

on making a UPs from widely available materials and noted that I was not sure whether this was a viable proposition.

I have since had a look in South Africa and found the following prices, for the equipment used in the design the post reported on.

battery 100 Ah R 1 240
charger 685
invertor 800 W R 1 450
plug strip 60

I must say the prices seem to be rather variable so I have taken mid range ones.

So its going to cost us R 3 400 to put this together and we end up with bits and pieces that take up space.

Commercial UPS come at different prices for different specs but give you something with a sealed battery in a single box that can sit under the desk.

In South Africa I found:

Numeric 15Ah 800W – R 800
Mercer 20Ah 600W – R 2260
DTech 104Ah 600W – R 5500

So prices are very variable, both the wattage and the battery capacity effect the cost strongly, but its hard to compare directly and accurately.

I would expect you get more with a complete system eg control software, system guarantee, more plugs and cooling for maybe a little more than making your own.The profit for the manufacturer must reduce the benefit of buying in bulk.

So it is viable to put together your own system and the original article was anyway interesting in the background it gave.

Their argument that Africa’s poor deserve support is a good one but saying that hothouse raised roses are worse than Kenyan roses from a carbon footprint view forgets that roses can be grown in the garden or even a flowerpot – that is surely the smallest footprint!