Which biofuel?

Today, I read this interesting article of opinion in the International Herald Tribune:

Bring on the right biofuels
by Roger Cohen International Herald Tribune
Wednesday, April 23, 2008

(…)

Where fuel distilled from plant matter was once hailed as an answer to everything from global warming to the geostrategic power shift favoring repressive one-pipeline oil states, it’s now a “scam” and “part of the problem,” according to Time Magazine. Ethanol has turned awful. The supposed crimes of biofuels are manifold. They’re behind soaring global commodity prices, the destruction of the Amazon rain forest, increased rather than diminished greenhouse gases, food riots in Haiti, Indonesian deforestation and, no doubt, your mother-in-law’s toothache. Most of this, to borrow a farm image, is hogwash and bilge.

(…)

Much larger trends are at work that dwarf the still tiny biofuel industry (roughly a $40 billion annual business, or the equivalent of Exxon Mobil’s $40.6 billion profits in 2007). I refer to the rise of more than one third of humanity in China and India, the disintegrating dollar and soaring oil prices.

(…)

The danger in all this anti-biofuel hysteria is that we’re going to throw out the baby with the bath water. (…) Right now, the biofuel market is being grossly distorted by subsidies and trade barriers in the United States and the European Union. These make it rewarding to produce ethanol from corn or grains that are far less productive than sugarcane ethanol, divert land from food production (unlike sugarcane), and have environmental credentials that are dubious.

(…)

The real scam lies in developed world protectionism and skewed subsidies, not the biofuel idea.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/23/opinion/edcohen.php

5 Responses to “Which biofuel?”


  1. 1 German Fafian (KaosAxiom)

    I Still think that the idea of using grains for fuel or meat production instead of feeding people is somehow wrong.

  2. 2 Alexandra

    ok,biofuel.But what about the research in finding out some much more simple power sources?Like e.g. wind ,waves,son and so on and so forth.I think if the biofuel is not sure is useless to insist upon using it without restrictions,and is better to try harder in searching other ways in solving that problem.

  3. 3 Tania

    The world is out of balance and gone mad …Blessings Tania

  4. 4 Varghese.VP(NILAMBUR,INDIA)

    already we are facing food shortage ,and who wants now to use the available grains as fuel ?

    you want your car to move or you to live on ?

  5. 5 wanbliska

    Isn’t it cockeyed to burn lands and plant seeds for fuel?
    After have extracted fossils, ancient beings without knowing what their deep exvavations could produce at real, humans use the surface now. All we could hope is that they’re on the edge to watch up around soon.

    All scientists know hydrogen cell is possible to see a car advance, as constructors begin to create some.
    For the big promoters, it’s usually paired with core.
    Yet, a lot of genius men discovered water motor.
    As for an example, Sir Hector Vaes invented one in the eighties. Although his creation was approved by a bailiff, he could not trade it. Indeed, some “worrying visitors had strongly advised him against” doing it.

    Pantone Motor could also a chemical solution, that cause certainly less pollution and disasters on Nature. His creator was imprisonned for having sold it to unhappy buyers. But his process is still used all over the world in many tools. And truly, some persons are nowadays driving illegaly with, when scientists still shouts it’s impossible…

    Earth’s lung did not wait fuel to be slaughter. Nor riots did need it…
    This article shows once more, that decision-makers about Energy have no heart like finding good issues to air we breathe, and still enslave people’s mind everywhere with skewed rumours.

    The wiser should stop driving .

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