Biofuels are one way of reducing the world’s dependency on petrol. It will be difficult to reach high volumes soon but as with all efforts, every little bit helps.
It’s not all good news though. A big controversy is building on the influence this is having on the world food prices. Already prices of agricultural crops have gone up substantially in the last 12 months.
You can make ethanol from corn, then mix it with gasoline to drive your car. More corn is needed because it is also used to feed the cattle in the US and Europe. So it changes from a low value commodity into a high value renewable energy source.
The same is happening with palm oil which is a basic cooking ingredient in most of Asia. More and more plantations are being seen as fuel farms because the oil is mixed into a biodiesel and prices of palm oil is becoming a problem for low-income residents.
biofuel or food?
Some other voices: A Swedish bus company ‘Flygbussarna Airport Coaches’ is advertising their transition to environmental biofuel using some funny pictures.
Flygbussarna Airport Coaches wants you to know that they now run on environmental biofuel. To illustrate how clean this biofuel really is, their print ad campaign shows people drinking it right off the pump to prove that it is “clean enough to drink.” The campaign, which was created by Acne Advertising agency, Stockholm, Sweden and photographed by Martin Runeborg, shows people quenching their thirst by galloping biofuel. I just hope they do not light up a cigarette after this fuel consumption…
Drinking Biofuel – Flygbussarna Airport Coaches (GALLERY)
Biodiesel and ethanol, the most common biofuels in use today, are produced mainly from agricultural crops: sugar cane, soybean rapeseed and corn. However, these crops are often water intensive and pose a number of environmental problems related to land use and soil degradation. This is why the Commission favours so-called ’second-generation’ biofuels which are more efficient and less problematic from an environmental viewpoint. These are typically made from agricultural residues and ‘woody’ sources such as straw, timber, woodchips and manure
EurActiv.com – Wood, food or biofuels? | EU – European Information on Sustainable Dev.
Could you believe that countries are raising taxes on imports of ethanol to ‘protect’ their farmers?
A key part of this approach to biofuels is agricultural protectionism. A number of countries, including Brazil, can produce ethanol much cheaper, with a greater saving of nonrenewable energy and lower emissions, for example, by using sugar. But this sugar-based ethanol is subject to a prohibitive tariff in the United States (and there are similar barriers in Europe)
Straight Talk – The (Food) Price of Success – Finance & Development, December 2007
No Comments so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.