From The TimesJanuary 21, 2008

Raising use of biofuels would harm the planet, says report
Lewis Smith, Environment Reporter 
An immediate moratorium on plans to expand the use of biofuels is
demanded today in a damning report from MPs that derides the
alternative energy source for damaging the environment. 

Biofuels often increase greenhouse gas emissions and exacerbate the
climate change that they were supposed to avoid, a committee of MPs
concluded. 

The report accused the Government and the European Union of reckless
support for biofuels that encouraged the destruction of forests and
other carbon sinks. Its publication comes 48 hours before the EU is
expected to announce in its Renewables Directive plans to increase the
use of biofuels, with a target of 10 per cent of transport fuel to be
supplied by renewable sources by 2020. 

Ministers were accused of stimulating the industry too quickly and
failing to introduce effective rules and monitoring to ensure
sustainability. 

Targets set by the Government and the EU to increase the quantity of
biofuels used by cars and lorries should be dropped immediately, MPs
on the Environmental Audit Committee said. They were critical of the
forthcoming Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation to ensure that 5 per
cent of road fuel sales comprise biofuels by 2010. 

MPs recognised that second-generation biofuels could be useful in the
fight against climate change, but said that it would be a decade
before they could make an impact. The committee said in its report
that it was a misconception that biofuels were carbon neutral, because
there was a failure to take into account the greenhouse gases (GHG)
emitted during their production, such as nitrous oxide from
fertilisers, and transport. 

“The final biofuel can lead to more GHG being emitted than if petrol
or diesel was used,” MPs said. A prime concern was that forests were
being cut down to make way for biofuel crops. 

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Have your say

Corn derived ethanol production in the U.S., in response to poorly
thought-through federal government mandates has driven up the price of
tortillas in Latin America, further exacerbating the U.S. illegal
immigration problems. As local food sources in Latin America have
become unaffordable yet more desparate people have proven willing to
risk their very lives to cross the desert along the border from west
Texas to eastern California. 

Something like this seems to always happen when governments try to
mandate the market behavior of free people. That it is a net minus for
the environment as well is also not unusual.

Don Bynum, Dallas, USA/TExas