Frankenstein fuels

Increasingly, biofuels are being sold as a solution to global warming. This article challenges the recent enthusiastic adoption of biofuels by industrialised nations, highlighting the environmental costs involved in their production.

The author asserts that today biofuels represent big business for heavily polluting countries, who want to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and thus cut their carbon emissions. He notes that:

• production of biodeisel in the UK is growing at an impressive rate, with major companies now investing
• in America, biofuel is being hailed as a means of reducing dependence on oil from Arab nations. In terms of ethanol production, the US is poised to overtake Brazil as the world's largest producer within a year.

While biofuels are often hailed as “environmentally friendly” and their popularity continues to grow, the author highlights a number of damaging impacts, including:

• the production of such fuels often involves highly detrimental environmental processes such as deforestation
• land which should be used to cultivate food crops is instead reserved to grow crops for biofuel which is argued to be a highly energy-inefficient process with limited benefits.

Despite their many limitations, however, the author concludes that biofuels represent the perfect technofix for world leaders who must be seen to be doing something to combat rising greenhouse gas emissions.