Drought West

Another reason to move agriculture to the East and kill agriculture subsidies. And to fight global warming.

Algae a viable biofuel?

Ethanol from corn is nothing but a shakedown, and other biofuels are marginal, but what about algae? --

Yield of vegetable oil in gallons per acre per year:

• Algae: 100,000

• Palm: 700

• Rapeseed: 130

• Sunflower: 110

• Soybeans: 50

• Corn: 29

Source: GlobalGreen Solutions; Valcent Products

Is there anything to this? And why in dry West Texas?

The two companies behind it, El Paso's Valcent Products and Canadian alternative energy firm Global Green Solutions, have developed a system they claim will allow for cheap mass production of algae in just about any corner of the world.

Why not in the wet East?

Irrigate the East

Move agriculture from the massively irrigated and dried out West and Let the East Bloom Again. Kitchen Linker says this could be the most important environmental idea in the USA (the carbon tax is a global idea), via The American Scene.

$30/gallon water

Wired News (found here) on a very cool sounding technology Making Water From Thin Air has this:

The cost to transport water by C-17 cargo planes, then truck it to the troops, runs $30 a gallon. The cost, including the machines from Aqua Sciences, will be reduced to 30 cents a gallon, Roy said.

A single gallon jug of water costs about $1 at retail in the U.S. Maybe the money would be better spent improving Iraqi infrastructure so bulk commodities did not have to be flown in on cargo planes that are themselves boondoggles.