By Rhena Imamura

Price increases are spreading in the food industry. Retort-packed food, instant noodles, mayonnaise, fruit juice, snacks and so on are going to increase about 1 percent in prices. House Foods corp. is going to increase the price of "Vermont Curry" from 270 yen to 295 yen by November. This is the first price increase of curry in 17 years. The price of a snack named "Tongari corn" will not change, but the quantity will be reduced by 6 to 8 percent. Such price increases will be extend to many food products in the near future.

The reason for the price increases is that the use of corn and sugarcane for bio-ethanol car fuel is spreading worldwide. Because of this it is thought that the amount of soybeans used for cooking oil and oranges used for fruit juice cultivation has become scarce.

Bio-ethanol is an alcohol made from fermented plants like sugarcane and corn. It burns the same as gasoline, so it can be used for car fuel. It is claimed that this fuel is useful for the prevention of global warming and the demand for it is getting higher as an alternative energy source. Bio-ethanol also discharges carbon dioxide like gasoline when it burns, but the plants that it is made from soak up carbon dioxide as they grow. This is what is called "carbon neutral."

However, this bio-ethanol production will result in disturbing our food sources. If we keep increasing bio-ethanol production there will be worldwide shortages of food and the number of people who suffer from hunger will increase. It is thought enough of a crisis that eventually the price of beef and pork will go up because cows and pigs eat crops for their feed.

But bio-ethanol is not a trump card to prevent global warming, so a new suggestion has been put forward to solve this problem. That is to not rely only on vegetable materials, but to use other alternative energy sources so as to hold down the demand for all resources in general.

Some typical alternative energies now mentioned are methane hydrate, liquefied natural gas [LNG], sodium sulfur batteries, and so on. Methane hydrate is a sherbet-like substance formed underground with methane gas and water under low temperature and high pressure. It is expected that the liquefied methane gas buried underground will be used as an alternative energy source instead of liquefied natural gas.

It has been confirmed that a large methane hydrate layer exists at the bottom of the sea and it is thought to be widely distributed on the Pacific Ocean side of the western part of Japan. If this methane hydrate could be put to practical use then Japan, which has been historically poor in natural resources, could suddenly possesses a great resource, so this energy resource is expected to be used from now on.

However, methane hydrate will not solve everything. Methane gas gets into the air but it breaks down in about 12 years, so it won't have much influence on global warming like carbon dioxide does. However, if we consume large quantities of methane gas, another problem will surely rise up, which could undo any recent progress made to evade global warming.

A lot of alternative energy resources are attracting considerable attention for their practical use, but some of their disadvantages will get a great deal of attention. In addition, these things called "resources" will surely disappear someday. Whatever epoch-making resource is found, problems will never be perfectly solved if we rely on only one resource here after.

What we have to do first to prevent global warming is to cut our energy consumption. For example, you can walk, ride a bicycle or choose public transportation instead of driving. Moreover, we should live more simply in our daily lives by changing our eating habits, the type of clothes we wear and so on. The time has come to reconsider how to eliminate much of the waste of our mass-consumer society.

Our globe's life span also has a limit, so humans can't survive on this planet forever. Still, it is our duty to keep this beautiful globe clean and healthy for future generations.