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Biofuels are energy sources from today’s crops and have been hailed as the answer to oil and petrol shortages and to climate change in that they appear carbon neutral.This is because burning them only releases carbon that has been locked up during their growth.
Biofuels come in various types and should be assessed individually. Brazil has specialised in making bioethanol from sugar cane, producing 20 billion litres per year already. Most cars in Brazil already run on it.
The USA is growing maize (corn) to make bioethanol and is expanding this rapidly.
Other important sources of biofuel include soya bean and palm oil. Many countries are currently expanding their growth of biofuels.
Europe has set itself to increase the biofuel content of its petrol from today’s 2.5% to 10% by 2020.
Biofuels are not as carbon neutral as they seem nor as effective in energy production. The energy input into growing the maize in America - when you factor in the costs in terms of fertiliser, tractors,ethanol synthesis, transport etc is - so high that the energy return over energy invested is probably very low.
Growing biofuels takes land and turning land over to biofuels can exacerbate deforestation (in such as Brazil), with loss of biodiverstiy and can compete with land currently used to grow food.The European target of 10% biofuels in petrol would take 40% of Europe’s farmland.You can feed a person for a year on the land it takes to grow the biofuel to fill one 25 gallon tank in a car. The recent price rise in staple foods around the world is causing social unrest in more than 30 countries. It is caused in part by turnng land over to biofuels.
Some forms of biofuel such as biomass for boilers and chip fat for cars are relatively uncontroversial but also very limited in how many people can benefit from them.
Other sources such as using algae for a biofuel may be promising, but are as yet unproven at the sort of scale that could make a difference.
It may be that there is no easy alternative to oil. Oil is an enomrously concentrated energy source and relatively easy to extract.
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