Bunny biofuel

There is a (I think) very funny case of concern in Sweden about the use of the bodies of culled rabbits. It is pretty mean to laugh, but it is very funny in some rather ironic and sad ways.

The problem: invasive rabbits are harming the city environment, so the city has employed hunters to cull them. 6000 last year 3000 this year. We will see how many in the future. Well after culling, the bodies are frozen and then incinerated. The catch, this particular incinerator uses the energy produced from the process to create heat for homes. So inadvertently rabbits are being used as biofuel to heat homes. Although, that is a bit of an oversimplification, as they aren't solely being used, and they are going to be destroyed anyway. And how many homes can be heated by the bodies of 3000 rabbits anyway?

But in many ways it feels a bit like science fiction, doesn't it? A bit like one of those Ray Bradbury stories of old citizens being encouraged to kill themselves, or of dredging the sea to make a kind of slurry for feeding the thousands...which is the funny part.

But it is an interesting question of efficiency. The company is already burning peat moss and wood for this process, along with various waste products, and had 1000 years ago rabbits died and become part of the peat bog, there would be no problem with burning them to make fuel. Or had a large number of people served rabbit soup and thrown out a bunch of rabbit carcasses, there would be no problem burning them. This is because there are intermediate steps, removing the direct animal to energy flow.

But it isn't like the government is going out killing rabbits for the purpose of making energy, that is just an added bonus (or effect if you will). But it does kind of leave that eerie feeling, that if it is okay to dispose of rabbit bodies in this way, how long before human bodies too may be recycled to heat our homes. Does it matter? And there it is...that question of man...our greatest hubris, or greatest truth...are humans sacred?

Anyway, I hope the cute bunnies stop over populating the streets of Stockholm so that the cull can end, and we can avoid that elephant for a few more years.