Biofuels are doing more harm than good.

- Inspired by the many stories about rising food prices

What ever happened to the vehicle that Doc built in "Back to the Future" that ran on garbage? A car like that would solve two problems, land fills and the use of oil products. I appreciate the necessity of finding and using cleaner fuels, but in a world where so many are on the brink of famine we need to consider the bigger picture. At one time we were the "bread basket" of the world and now we are getting fat and lazy. There were many economic and social factors that went into creating the highway system and creating our dependence on oil, but our predecessors did not understand that this was a finite resource. The air can not sustain the use of polluting fuels any more then the ground can provide it. Both are finite and both will one day disappear if we do not make drastic changes to the use of traditional motor vehicles.

Over at Simon Robinson's Big Biofuels Blog (http://www.icis.com/blogs/biofuels/), he posted, "Two US associations react to rising food prices," (http://www.icis.com/blogs/biofuels/archives/2008/06/two-us-associations-...) yesterday. Basically, the National Biodiesel Board and the Renewable Fuels Association have both issued statements refuting the position of many of the US food sales companies that rising food costs are being caused by rising crop prices. Robinson's position is: "They may have a point in the US which consumes a significant amount of processed food where the input of energy, marketing and transportation are big factors in the overall cost." There's a lot of controversy behind the issue actually. For instance, India has slammed the US for blaming it for the global food crisis, and said the major reason behind the sky-high food prices was the shift from "food to fuel" (http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14692918. Meanwhile, higher food prices are significantly impacting Africa though some economies are growing there: ""The demand for and production of biofuel are increasing while agricultural production for food is declining. This has an impact on food prices," Justin Lin, chief economist at the World Bank, pointed out." (http://allafrica.com/stories/200806120774.html) There's even an anti-biofuel campaign, launched by various food companies. (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/5829126.html) Yet at the Conference on 'Biofuels in Central and Eastern Europe,' Mr. Ivan Danchenko, chairman of Belarus state, highlighted how his nation could answer Europe's biofuels conundrum without competing with food crops. It's a really complicated issue, making it hard to weigh what's best for America, and even the world. If rising oil prices and rising food prices go hand-in-hand, it's going to make it increasingly difficult to find alternatives for how much oil we consume. It's like a catch 22.

Consider this obviously reductive, but nonetheless important comparison: with coal and oil, all that is required is their extraction and transport.

To make ethanol from corn grain, one needs to plant, harvest, deliver, store, and process the seeds to remove dirt. Then the ethanol has to be milled, liquefied, heated saccharified, fermented, distilled, etc. etc. The process is time and resource-intensive. Then, there's the huge amount of water that's required to satisfy the crop, the pesticide to protect the crops and its subsequent runoff... not to mention that rain forests, savannas, and grasslands are the types of space that are reduced in order to grow the corn.

Bush signed a mandate saying that at least 36 billion gallons of biofuel need to be produced by 2020. Huzzah for Bush. Of course, he may have done it again, as they say.

There has to be a better way.

In my eyes technology and style matters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jatropha_oil
shows plants, that produce high quality diesel from waste land.
Making fuel of food plants - what is now very common source of biofuel - will most likely cut down the nutrition of less wealthy persons.

I hope for a good outcome for everyone.

There really is no question what-so-ever that "biofuels" as we know them today are completely un-economical. And government distortion of free, open markets through subsidies ALWAYS does more harm than good.

No matter how you slice it, the fact remains, takoszja, that you cannot have your cake and eat it too. There are simply far too many humans on the earth for the available resources. Biofuels are a great thing, but there are no free rides. Underline that last phrase and keep it in mind. Ev-ery-thing has tradeoffs. If the majority continues to insist that humans are sacred & that we have not over-populated, we're all going to have to eat less, buy less frills, and drive less. For those who live in towns, that means effective public transit. For us who live and work in the country, there are few notches left on our belts already. As Pogo said, "we has met the enemy, and he is us".

I have to agree. Utilizing foodstuffs to produce fuel is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Our focus should be on non-consumer goods, waste, and biomass if we want to look to anything for alternative fuels. I see Honda made a splash yesterday with the introduction of a hydrogen fuel cell auto. Congrats Honda- I know this has been the focus of Daimler Chrysler/Chrysler, but perfection of the H system has been elusive. IMHO this is the direction that holds the greatest promise for actual gains in efficiency and decreases in carbon impact, while preserving the love affair that we Americans have with our automobiles. Now that I've jumped on the fuel cell bandwagon, I suppose it's time to research how the hydrogen will be produced for these vehicles.

Personally I agree with the don't interfere with food crops for fuel. I like the idea of vertically growing algae for biofuels. For one the exhaust from power plants, or industrial buildings can be piped through the water to provide the algae with the CO2 needed and it grows so rapidly a relatively small refinery could supply large areas. Combine that concept with 'localized' refineries and it would help to save on the fuel transportation costs.

Clearly the development and use of biofuels was a road of good intentions, it has just been pushed in a different way. Biofuels, like fuels, now have corporate constituents and players who like their consumption of raw materials as it keeps their demand where they want it to be. It's no secret that automobile companies bought and dismantled public transport to gain marketshare and drive people to spend their dollars. Though creating ethanol from corn is not efficient, the ag lobby will not allow this to be curtailed in the short term as it inflates corn prices in the US. The plus side is that, at least, having developed some refining technologies and basic knowledge; we should be able to advance quickly once the technology is available to create cellulosic ethanol from saw grass or algae.