The high-carb economy

Abstract

The recent attempt by a group of suicide bombers to drive a car bomb into one of Saudi Arabia's biggest oil refineries sent a shock wave through the industry, and crude oil prices on the world market shot up, even though the terrorists failed. In Blaire, Nebraska, Cargill (an international marketer, processor and distributor of agricultural, food, financial and industrial products) has an industrial plant that takes maize, converts it to sugars that feed microbes in fermentation vats, and each day pumps out 136 tonnes of polylactic acid (PLA)