Biofuel rush harmful, Oxfam warns

[Judi Lynn]

Source: BBC News

Last Updated: Thursday, 1 November 2007, 02:30 GMT
Biofuel rush harmful, Oxfam warns

The rush for biofuels could harm the world's poorest people, Oxfam has said.
In a new report, the UK aid charity appears to be joining a growing chorus of concern about the side-effects of Europe's drive to get fuel from plants.

The European Union wants to cut the CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels and has demanded that 10% of all transport fuels should come from plants by 2020.

But Oxfam warns poor farmers risk being forced off their land as industrial farmers cash in on the biofuel bonanza.
(snip)

"The EU proposals will exacerbate the problem. It is unacceptable that poor people in developing countries should bear the cost of questionable attempts to cut emissions in Europe.





Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7072386.stm

[luckyleftyme2]

1. and what is fossil fuel doing

forcing people to pay through the nose. bio-fuel is but a stop gap in the chain of events.
brazil has already improved their method of extracting fuel from their sugar cane! and that is in less than 10 years.
the world's future is to get away from fossil fuel!

[dipsydoodle]

2. I think it 's the mix

which will go up to 10% across that period rather than 10% being wholly biofuel. Currently its about 4% bio content - think so anyway.

The European governments have a vested interest from the point of view of tax and duty revenue from fuel which they will wish to sustain. That is the reason why our fuel is currently c. $10 / Imperial gallon. <think the US gallon is c. 0.8 of an Imperial gallon>

Aside from that yes , as usual , its the poor who will suffer if the commodity prices escsalate with the crops being used for fuel instead of food. Presumably this would have less effect with those on a staple diet of rice ?

Electric cars would overcome the food issue and so may be the better long term alternative solution.

[MadHound]

3. The funny thing is that we could go completely with biodiesel

And not use one single acre of land to produce it. Michael Briggs, a physicist at the University of New Hampshire, has figured out that we would need 15,000 square miles of water surface in order to grow enough oil bearing algae to supply our fuel needs. This could be wastewater treatment ponds, farm ponds , what have you. No land used:shrug:

[izquierdista]

4. Which is exactly what needs to be done

The Oxfam detractors are suffering from some straightjacketed thinking, namely that only cropland being used for current food crops could be used to grow crops destined for fuel. In addition to algae with high oil content, there are numerous plants which produce inedible oils that could be planted on land marginal for food crops. Jatropha is only one example and it can be grown as a hedge or border on productive land and the pressing of Jatropha seeds to oil could provide poor farmers with another source of income.
In the future, when fossil fuels have run out, there will only be three sources of energy. Geological sources, which depend on some property of the earth such as the tide or the wind or thermal springs or solar insolation; nuclear, which does have a future as long as all reactors are buried deep underground with a long extension cord to the surface; and biomass in its various forms (solid, liquid and gas). Of these three, biomass will always be needed, because it is the only one that can be stored in portable containers. Every transportation machine ever devised needs to carry along some source of fuel, even if it is a big chunk of seal blubber to feed the dogs pulling the dogsled.