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Thread: Biofuels: driving in the wrong direction?

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    just me duncan drennan's Avatar
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    Biofuels: driving in the wrong direction?

    Things don't always appear to be exactly what they are. Slowly this seems to be the growing realisation with biofuels (as described in this article)

    Earlier this year, two important scientific studies were published that pulled the rug out from under the biofuels movement, and market. First, a Swiss government study (Zah, et al.) determined that biofuels were worse than fossil fuels in terms of total environmental impact, because cultivation of biofuels was driving the destruction of natural ecosystems for agriculture. Even my Brazilian sugarcane ethanol, according to this assessment, was directly to blame for destroying natural systems. Rising demand for ethanol generally was also causing major indirect, but even worse, destruction. For example, US farmers have been switching from soy to corn, for which they get special biofuel subsidies as well as increasingly high prices. Then Brazilian farmers cut down rainforest to meet the increased demand for Brazilian soy. I stared at the graphs for a long time, but there it was, in hard-to-deny numbers: overall, my ethanol car was hurting the environment, much more than I had previously known, and more than my neighbors' "normal" cars, on which I had been looking with such negative judgment.
    It is a nice human perspective which covers the different angles without delving into the scientific detail (which can all be found by googling).
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    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    Not to mention what Biofuel is doing to food prices...

    Food inflation is beserk globally at the moment.

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    just me duncan drennan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave A View Post
    Not to mention what Biofuel is doing to food prices...

    Food inflation is beserk globally at the moment.
    Yes! So far that has been my main problem with biofuels, but when I saw an article in the Sunday Times (similar to this one), it was just another reason to be suspicious of the claimed benefits.

    What I find quite interesting is how often a comment is made to the effect of, "Some poor family can't afford food." I think what people need to start realising is that it directly affects them, and their food security.
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