This is a pivotal point in the future of biofuel policy. It's evident that we need to find alternative energy sources to fossil fuels, but the current policies for biofuel production are not substainable. It's all very well encouraging and even legislating the inclusion of biofuels as an energy source, but this shouldn't come at the cost of reducing world food supplies, which are already insufficient for those in developing countries.
So what is wrong with encouraging biofuel production as it stands? Where should I start?
Instead of using good quality crops for food, we are burning them for fuel. And these crops are frequently grown in countries that have intense poverty and food shortages already, whilst their governments pocket the money they get. The rainforests in Brazil have been cut back again and again to use the fertile land for soy production - the most idiotic thing being that although the land is fertile and would be very good for many food crops, it doesn't support soybean. So they have to pump fertilisers and chemicals into the soil, affecting the ecosystem, whilst the local farmers who would have kept livestock and crops on the fringes of the forest lose their livelihood. Of course, this problem goes much further back than the current debate over biofuels, but it can only get worse if we insist on using soy for energy.
The idea of using biofuels as a more environmentally and substainable energy source is completely contradicted by the current methods of production. The Kenyan government has recently approved a biofuel project that would involve using a large chunk of the Tana river delta as a sugar cane plantation. This is in a continent where drought and shortage of fertile land is a problem - can you imagine the impact of damaging the river delta ecosystem, both on the people who rely on the delta for food and livelihood, and on the many species of birds and animals that live there?
Nor is Kenya the only African country that has joined in, without properly considering the long-term problems. The Guardian report on the sugar cane plantation project also says this:
The merits of growing biofuels are the source of increasingly acrimonious debate in east Africa, where vast tracts of open land in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Tanzania are attracting the attention of local and international agriculture firms hoping to cash in on the demand from the US and the European Union for clean energy sources such as ethanol.So the local governments want the money, as do the agricultural firms. But what happens to the people and ecosystems that are already there?
If the policy-makers don't stand back now and take a good look at what is really happening, then although biofuels were originally supposed to be a relatively eco-friendly solution to our fuel problems, in the long run we are just escalating the problem of world poverty, food shortage and climate change. Biofuels are currently produced for the profit of private companies. Perhaps we need international organisations like the World Bank to become more involved and keep an eye on the long-term effects of these biofuel projects.
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why bother with biofuels in the first place??
if we are worried about sustainability, biofuels are not a substitute.. biofuels are also mineral fuels.. plants suck minerals out of the ground to grow and then we burn them.. if we are worried about environmental issues, biofuels are again damning, as it inherently means cutting down trees and clearing land to grow fuel..
once again, this is just a solution being put forth by politics and business, in order to maximise profit.. there really isn't a real case for using biofuels at all.. if there was a clear logical case, things like these just wouldn't happen..
we should all listen to stephen hawking and work on colonising the stars while we still can..
sustainability is unsustainable..
It's true that biofuels are not substainable with our current technology, but then, neither are any of the alternatives.
Energy supply is really a big problem, and increasingly so as we as consumers get more demanding. We need to find an alternative to using fossil fuels.
All of the current sources have problems - hydroelectric dams affect the environment by changing ecosystem structure and the life cycles of saltwater fish that migrate to freshwater for spawning. Wind turbines threaten birds. People refuse to have nuclear reactors in their area. Solar panels will only return enough energy to make them worthwhile in sunnier climes.
There is no ideal solution, other than all of us using less energy and living more energy-efficient lifestyles. But how likely is that? And why blame people in China and India for wanting more consumer goods and following technology when we are exactly the same here?
I think biofuels if managed properly could make a difference. But only if it's not being used as a political or commercial tool, as you suggest. GM technology I think is one of the keys - there's a lot of land in the world that is no good for edible crops but if we can engineer biofuel-suitable crops that can tolerate of those conditions... In which case land that is already clear can be used.
But using up resources at the rate we're going and working for short-term gain is not the way to go about it.
biofuels use different minerals from the minerals we are sucking out to burn, i.e.: petroleum. we don't burn stuff like Na, K, ammonia etc. the issue here is competition for land with food crops and also environmental impact from the biofuel plantations. biofuels was never meant to be the whole solution, just a fraction of it. one could probably get more energy output per area of land from alternative technologies such as concentrated solar power (CSP) to generate steam and drive turbines and generate electricity (no need to manufacture expensive and potentially environmentally damaging solar cells; but this is of course debatable, since lots of mirrors are required), and in places with less sunshine but strong winds, wind power of course. geothermal energy is definitely another option, it's basically energy from the earth's mantle, and isn't going to run out in the next few billion years or so. again, this requires lots of capital because you need to dig really deep. all of these have their downside, but once our fuel becomes more expensive, these become economically viable. at the end of the day, it's all economics.
another aspect would be to make our processes more efficient, for example, we don't need such huge fuel guzzling cars like the cadillacs of the '60s or the SUVs of today. but then again, this is subject to economy. in the '60s, fuel was dirt cheap and so it was probably more expensive to buy and operate a high-tech energy-efficient car at that time.
i think the 'colonising other planets' answer is a very hand-wavy, irresponsible answer and missing the point of this issue. yes, we definitely should expand our space exploration, but in the scale of this discussion, we aren't going to suddenly colonise another planet and live happily ever after.
even if we do suddenly colonise mars in the next 50 years, the resources are going to initially be so scarce/difficult to acquire there, that the people who went there might as well have been better off on earth.
perhaps we should also be thinking of controlling the population via family planning, etc. yes, it is probably wishful thinking, given the mentality of people, but then again, population control was always economically-controlled anyway.
i think it's better to push ahead on all fronts of alternative energy and see where it all leads us. there's definitely not going to be just one solution to this.
*correction to the CSP bit, maybe the term 'turbine' is misleading. the state-of-the-art today is a Stirling Engine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine
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