alt.energy.renewable

German Minster says biofuels are causing 30 to 70% of current food
price inflation!

Biofuels declared "nothing short of disaster!"
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http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/198490,german-minister-calls-for-biofuel-rethink-over-rising-food-prices.html

THE EARTH TIMES

German minister calls for biofuel rethink over rising food prices

Washington - German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul
said Saturday in Washington ahead of a World Bank meeting that the
world needed to reconsider the use of biofuels amid skyrocketing food
prices. "The targets for (fuel) blends must be put to the test," she
said ahead of the spring meeting of the World Bank and International
Monetary Fund (IMF) in the US capital.
Increasing production of biofuels was 30 to 70% responsible for the
rapid rise in food prices, she said.

Dearer food was "a danger for growth, combating poverty, stability and
peace in the world," she said.
High prices for food had led to riots, looting and violence in many
mainly poor countries.

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http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/opinion/story.html?id=7ac33c22-ff7f-4108-a61f-a24757c61776

EDMONTON JOURNAL

Biofuels nothing short of disaster

Environmentalists to blame as emissions worsen, world's poor starve
Lorne Gunter, The Edmonton Journal Published: 3:01 am

Note to environmentalists: Remember, you were the ones who demanded
biofuels the loudest.
It turns out the production of biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel
is likely to cause far more environmental damage than it prevents, not
to mention triggering widespread famine and eating up more rainforest
and grassland than beef production ever could.

The production and consumption of biofuels releases far more carbon
emissions than are prevented when ordinary gasoline and diesel are
burned without first being mixed with corn or sugar cane derivatives.

Even the world's first tentative steps towards increasing biofuel
production has caused a doubling of annual deforestation rates in the
Amazon.

According to Wetlands International, Indonesia has razed so much
wilderness to grow palm oil trees for biodiesel that it has moved from
the world's 21st-biggest greenhouse gas emitter to third in just the
past three years. Only China and the United States -- in that order --
generate more carbon emissions.
With its rapid conversion of rainforest to cane production for fuel,
Brazil has slipped into fourth place.
Turns out the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere by
chopping down rainforests and switching grassland to corn, cane,
soybean or palm oil production far exceeds that released by burning
oil pumped from the ground or extracted from oilsands. The original
environmental studies advocating biofuels as a way of curbing
greenhouse emissions and cleaning the air hadn't taken this into
consideration.

Corn-based biofuels are particularly ineffective. After the ethanol is
made, the stocks must be destroyed, thereby releasing all the carbon
they took up during their growth.
Then there is the biofuel revolution's impact on world food supplies.
According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), "37
countries are currently facing food crises." The reasons are complex,
ranging from rising fuel costs to floods and droughts.
Still, the great biofuel rush has been a major contributor, as well.

In just the last month, Haiti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia and
Madagascar have suffered food riots. Even Pakistan and Mexico have
witnessed unrest over food prices -- Mexico City had tortilla riots --
as grains, oilseeds and corn that once went solely to the food market
are now being bid on by fuel suppliers, too. The Philippines,
Uzbekistan, Bolivia and Cameroon have also had protests or street
violence over food.
Again according to the FAO, the price of food staples such as rice and
corn has risen 57 per cent in just the past year, driven as much as
anything by the need to find feedstock for biofuel production.
In the developed world, where diets are much richer and more varied,
the effect of these increases has been minimal -- maybe five to 10 per
cent on a family's grocery bill. That's not easily absorbed by
everyone, yet since food makes up less than a third of average family
spending in industrialized countries, even a 10-per-cent increase in
food would add less than three per cent to most families' cost of
living.

But in the developing and underdeveloped worlds, the competition for
crops from the biofuel industry has increased family food tabs by as
much as half, pricing a traditional basic diet out of some families'
grasp. Hence the growing number of countries with food crises. And we
have only just begun to see what stresses the biofuel craze will
create.

In Europe and North America, bio-fuels make up less than five per cent
of energy consumed. However, either through government edict or the
desire of corporations to appear "green," biofuel consumption is
projected to double or triple by 2020.

Thanks to biofuel, the World Bank projects global food costs will stay
above 2004 levels until at least 2015. Expect more millions to go
hungry just to satisfy the desire of industrial-world
environmentalists to be seen to be saving the planet.

The sad irony, of course, is that not only is the developed world's
green conscience starving the rest of the world, it's creating more
environmental harm -- not less -- in the process.

Talk about the road to hell being paved with good intentions. But
watch, in typical liberal fashion, green crusaders will look to blame
someone else for their colossal error, in this case, likely, greedy
corporations and conservative politicians. Indeed, the revisionism has
already begun.
Time magazine, long a champion of environmentalism, recently called
the biofuel craze "the clean energy scam." But who did it blame for
the fraud?

Al Gore, David Suzuki and the Sierra Club? No. Biofuels, according to
Time, have become "the trendy way for politicians and corporations to
show they're serious about finding alternative sources of energy and
in the process slowing global warming." In other words, George Bush
and Big Oil are to blame.
It's true corporations are pouring $100 billion or more a year into
biofuel development. Even our own federal Tories have committed $2
billion to the cause.

But whose hectoring, lobbying, advertising and scaremongering created
the political pressure that has compelled politicians and executives
to go "green?" The environmental movement. That's who's behind the
disaster of biofuels.
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For the full story on the biofuel disaster, see -
http://home.att.net/~meditation/bio-fuel-hoax.html

For biofuel disaster news, see - http://home.att.net/~meditation/biofuel-news.html

Christopher Calder