Yet another example of perverted and absurd economics. Biofuels are net energy negative and it takes about the same amount of corn to fill a tank in 4WD as it does to feed a family in Africa for a whole year. Sadly people rate their wheels as being more important than anything else, refusing to accept peak oil and existing alternative means to power their precious cars. While there is insufficient land to feed the world's 6 billion people at present let alone a population that is growing exponentially it immoral to even consider growing crops for fuel while carbon neutral alternatives can be utilised.

Unfortunately, population control doesn't seem to work either. In the last 60 years or so, Australia's population has increased three-fold because we have encouraged migration and child bearing. China on the other hand has had a program of one child per family and the population there has also increased three-fold. Similarly, India which has largely tried to embrace various means of population, a three fold increase. Perhaps the latter two might slow down a bit because the population has access to better education, but the overwhelming numbers of poor and uneducated in both those countries will mitigate against that happening.

The most likely result in both China and India will be famine, exacerbated by the reduction in the food supply caused by limited supplies of water flowing from the ice fields of the Himalayas as global warming continues to bite.

Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Ecclesiastes VIII 15

David

Timely article and I am surprised how much education has taken place about this issue. A year ago most people seemed to think of bio-fuels as a sort of magic bullet. Nice to see so many ordinary folk are on top of the science.

Western governments are establishing generous subisidies for bio-fuel production knowing full well that they are a net negative - both in terms of energy production and climate abatement.

Why is this so?

Because energy security is much more important to them than climate is. The US now imports 58 percent of its oil, mostly from fairly antagonistic regimes. Its entire economy will be held to ransom as oil supplies dwindle or if a big supplier turns off the tap.

The US corn crop is now heavily subsidised for fuel production. The pretext for doing so is climate. The real reason is energy security.

Europe is starting to go down the same pathway. Australia will too.

There are some possible sustainable bio-fuel options, but they need much research. What is really needed right now is a moratorium on bio-fuels until these possibilities are established with firm science.

As the author says, the current push for bio-fuels will only worsen the climate crisis. No doubt about it.

For once I (mostly) agree with plerdsus. The world *cannot* feed an infinitely-growing populace. The best possible long-term outcome is population stability. It doesn't much matter what the number is. Devoting resources exclusively to food would feed tens of billions of otherwise utterly impoverished people.

Biofuels can contribute to third-world development and prosperity, enabling voluntary population control where draconian measures like China's are unacceptable.

Reynard re electric cars,

While each individual point you make is correct, the conclusion you draw is wrong because you do not look too closely. The bottom line is that an electric car (BEV or plug-in hybrid), even powered by coal-fired mains electricity, has lower emissions in use than a traditional petroleum-powered vehicle.

http://www.ilea.org/lcas/taharaetal2001.html
http://www.epri-reports.org/PHEV-ExecSum-vol1.pdf

Although ICEs have good thermal efficiency at near-constant speed and power, they're less efficient when repeatedly accelerated and decelerated, as is typical in traffic. When idling or used for "engine braking", they are entirely wasteful.

On the other hand electric motors have excellent efficiency over a wide range of operating speeds and loads, and are able to recover energy during braking.

If the mains electricity has lower carbon emissions than coal (renewable, nuclear, natural gas or even a diesel genset) then the carbon balance is *heavily* in favour of the electric car.

Comparing mains-powered cars against other emerging energy-efficient technologies would of course give less favourable results.

Storing mains power in car batteries, or having engines that produce mains-compatible power, enables vehicle-to-grid synergies which (among other good things) would greatly enhance the viability of intermittent renewable electricity generation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid

thylacine, gecko, VK3AUU,

There are numerous biofuel sources and technologies. All yield an energy surplus (however small), many are carbon-negative, and many are viable without subsidy. Judge each on its merits, not on what you've heard about the others.

There are no single and simple solutions to the problems of oil depletion, greenhouse gas emissions, third-world poverty and population growth. There are many partial solutions. Reduction of wasteful car use and electric cars are rich-country part-solutions. Biofuels work for developing countries too.

All the partial solutions will be adopted to some extent.

"it takes about the same amount of corn to fill a tank in 4WD as it does to feed a family in Africa for a whole year."

You are free to buy that corn and send it to Africa. Just be aware
that if you do, you'll land up with lots more families to feed.
Sending food without addressing family planning issues, leads to
even larger problems, as Geldorf has discovered.

" While there is insufficient land to feed the world's 6 billion people at present"

There is plenty of land to feed the world's present population.
Fact is it has to pay, or it won't happen. Grain prices have been
so cheap for so long, that much land is set aside and nobody bothers
to produce grain on it. Look at the increase in corn production,
with the rising price.

But none of this addresses the ongoing problem of an ever increasing
population. If you don't address that, you are peeing into the wind.

I have to agree somewhat, biofuels are a great start, but not a solution. For example, what about how it is impacting indigenous peoples (for an example, read the article on the Indigenous Issues Today news blog: http://indigenousissuestoday.blogspot.com/2007/10/biofuel-and-its-non-sustainable-impacts.html )? All of the drive for biofuels is having a giant impact on indigenous peoples that is often ignored in the debate.