Last Updated- Mar 8, 2009 9:48 - - 3 Comments


Biofuels do far more harm than good

biofuelWriting in his blog for the online version of the Guardian of the UK, George Monbiot argues that biofuels cause more harm to the environment than can be imagined.

As Ghana expands the field for investments in biofuels, have all these dangers, if indeed are true, been considered in the unrestrained rush for the biofuel industry?

A number of foreign businesses have been storming Ghana in their quest to invest in the cultivation of sugarcane and jatropha for the production of biofuels for export. While this looks good for a country that is in need of foreign exchange, the country’s history of managing environmental challenges of development is not encouraging. This article therefore, is reasonably relevant to Ghana.

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Tuesday March 3, 2009 the EU imposed temporary tariffs on US biodiesel because subsidies over there distort trade – but that shouldn’t be the only reason to stop the biofuels juggernaut.

Is there any trade crazier than the liquid biofuel business? Apart from a handful of cars and vans running on used chip fat, it exists only because of government rules and subsidies. So what social benefits do these buy?

Biofuels are supposed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They do the opposite. Almost all of them produce more greenhouse gases than petrol (gasoline) or diesel, for two reasons:

• emissions of nitrous oxide (a very powerful greenhouse gas) caused by the application of nitrogen fertilisers

• the destruction of grassland, wetland and forest caused by the expansion of agriculture stimulated by this new market (see this study on the biofuel carbon debt and this one on biofuels increasing greenhouse gases

Biofuels – especially biodiesel made from palm oil – also cause other kinds of environmental havoc. They are now among the major drivers of deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia, wrecking tens of millions of hectares of primary forest and driving orang-utans and other wildlife towards extinction

And they help to starve the world. Last year, the global food crunch was caused by a decline in the world’s stockpiles of cereals: they fell by around 53m tonnes. The production of biofuels consumed almost 100m tonnes. The extra millions who died as a result of malnutrition-related diseases when the price of grain rose last year did so largely because we took their food to put in our tanks.

Yet all motorists in this country are forced by law to participate in this crime against humanity. Why? Because, by taking into account only some of the emissions produced by biofuels, the government can claim to be cutting greenhouse gas production, thereby helping it to meet the legally binding targets in its climate change act. Because it means that people can carry on driving without constraint, this policy causes the government no political pain. It is exchanging political convenience at home for the lives of people overseas.

In the US the biofuel business is stimulated by a series of massive subsidies, running into hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Yesterday the European Union imposed temporary anti-dumping tariffs on US biodiesel on the grounds that the subsidies there are distorting trade, unfairly harming biodiesel producers over here. There’s already plenty of aggro being generated over the Buy American clause in the US stimulus plan: this new decision could be explosive.

So here’s what we gain from the biofuels trade:

1. Global environmental destruction
2. Higher greenhouse gas emissions
3. Mass starvation
4. The loss of hundreds of millions of dollars
5. The prospect of a new trade war.

Is there anyone out there who still thinks they are a good idea?

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Comments

3 Responses to “Biofuels do far more harm than good”

  1. Mr Norwegian on March 9th, 2009 4:17 pm

    Stop biofuels NOW.
    It is legal to use our brains, for God’s sak.

  2. Chip Daigle on March 9th, 2009 5:43 pm

    1. Global environmental destruction
    2. Higher greenhouse gas emissions
    3. Mass starvation
    4. The loss of hundreds of millions of dollars
    5. The prospect of a new trade war.
    Is there anyone out there who still thinks they are a good idea?

    I don’t know the situation in Ghana but I think the author is wrong. And here’s why.

    I don’t think you necessarily have to have environmental destruction with Jatropha. It grows on wasteland with much less water that normal food crops. It grows in dessert areas. You don’t have to chop down any of your greenie weenie rain forest. I do believe in chopping and replanting 1/20 of the Forest each year for thinning purposes so that the Forest Fires caused by Big Fat Mother Earth won’t burn Superhot. I personally think that the Greenie Weenies who believe in the “Let in burn theory” should be sent to re-Education camps.

    Clearly auto emissions from Ethanol is much less than emissions from Gasoline.

    I agree with the author about using Corn to make Ethanol. Making Ethanol from Corn has driven up the price of corn and thus all Food because Corn is a basic Feedstock that is used to produce other types of food and Meats. Using Corn to make Ethanol will eventually lead to Mass Starvation. I am totally opposed to using Corn to make Ethanol except in the case where there is an excess of Corn that drives the price so low that the Farmers can’t make a profit. For years and years the Liberal Elites and East Coast and West Coast Trash has made fun of Middle American Corn Farmers. For years the Yankees and the West Coast Trash laughed at the Farmers while they were loosing their family farms. I am glad to see the Corn Farmers finally get some revenge on them by using Ethanol to drive up the price of Corn and finally start putting some money in the bank to feed their families and send their kids to college also. Why on Earth is a Farmer considered less of a human being that a big fat Union goon Auto worker, I have no idea.

    You will not loose hundreds of millions of dollars by planting Jatropha trees in wastelands. You will get rich. Eventually we will run out of gasoline and we will have to use higher and higher amounts of Ethanol in our Gasoline. Increasing demand for Ethanol in the coming years is a surety. Anyone between 30 degrees North of the Equator to 30 degrees South of the Equator is prime territory for growing Jatropha on its wastelands. Open your eyes; you might even escape Poverty.

    Trade Wars are inevitable with young, stupid, naïve, and irresponsible Barack H. Obama in the White House. He is a power hunger neo-Communist from the get go and will do anything to amass more power. Right now he is setting the stage for Unions all over America so he can steal the wealth of the successful Americans and give it to his Comrades. Tariffs and Price Controls are inevitable. His redistributionist Tax structure is a Marxist as it gets. Get use to Trade Wars, Comrade.

    Chip Daigle
    Mandeville, LA

  3. kwasi broni-sefah on September 28th, 2009 6:17 pm

    Hi, biofuels can help curb climate change if only policy makers consult professionals in related fields to formulate policies in order to create a conducive environment for all.Biofuels should not be grown at the expense of food crops.Specific lands should be allocated for growing biofuels.Local farmers whose lands may lie within these designated areas should be compensated. Another way to curb any conflicts is to allow farmers to grow biofuels alongside food crops and firms purchasing both at the time of harvest.That way food shortages would be curtailed and both the farmer and the biofuel firm are satisfied.This avenue should be used to develop rural areas in the tropics such as Ghana.

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