Stop the biofuel madness

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

It is said that there is not enough land on which to grow food, and this is, more than likely true, and yet land is being taken out of food production at the same time to satisfy our “need” for gasoline and diesel in the form of bio-ethanol and bio-diesel. If you think that this, somehow, does not compute I have to concur with you. It does not.

We must have gone totally insane to put fuel before food, whether it is corn (maize) being grown for biofuel or miscanthus, or whatever.

Somehow it would appear that automotive fuels have greater priority to those that claim to be our “leaders” than food security. Can we really not think beyond the motorcar and are we going to put driving before food? It would appear that those “leaders” most certainly do.

We can neither eat our gars nor the fuel on which they run, whether made from mineral oil or from plants and we must make the choice and make this clear to those that pretend to be our rulers.

Furthermore, aside from using valuable farm land, or in the case of palm oil for bio-diesel destroying the rainforests of Asia, biofuels will do nothing whatsoever to reduce carbon emissions and pollution, it is just a change from fossil fuel to another one to be burned in combustion engines.

Additionally, bio-diesel particle emissions, the ones held responsible for the increase in asthma, have been found to be several times greater than those from fossil suel diesel.

We are jumping from the proverbial frying pan right into the fire, and losing out as regards to farming areas at the same time. Has everyone gone insane?

It would, however, appear that everything is being done to maintain the motoring madness instead of getting people out of their cars and onto or into alternative means of getting about.

The British capital London has been told to cut air pollution by 2020 or face hefty fines and the cutting of pollution, whether in London or elsewhere, is not going to happen if we keep on motoring as we do right now and, as far as diesels are concerned, it will only get worse with bio-diesel. Time to wake up!

It is good to see though that many young people in the early part of the second decade of the twenty-first century are going car-less and are walking, cycling or using public transport instead. This is, to a degree, due to the ever increasing cost of running a motorcar as with tax and all that aside from the purchase price but also because they begin, and it is but a beginning only, so far, to understand that motoring is not a sustainable way.

There are still too many people who are not comprehending this, as yet, and firmly believe that mineral oil derived fuels and others will continue to make personal private motoring, which many see as a (human) right even by now it seems, possible.

This is, however, an illusion conjured up to them by those – unfortunately – in power with their snouts firmly embedded in the trough of the oil and motor industry.

You can't eat your car, or roads, neither most bio-fuel crops. We have to understand that we either can drive and by this very action destroy the Planet or change our ways and eat. Both at the same time soon will no longer be possible.

And here we are coming back to the issue of the way ever since World War Two the car has been put on a pedestal and we have separated ourselves not only further from Nature but also, as far as where we live further from our places of work and thus have become dependent and reliant on the car to get from home – often many tens of miles away – to work and back.

With mineral oil, if I may call it that, running out all over the place cheap and plentiful petroleum products are about coming to an end and no amount of tinkering, such as with hydraulic fracturing – fracking – for shale oil and shale gas is going to make any difference in that quarter. It is just going to prolong the agony and the destruction of ecosystems.

We must transition now to a oil-free future, and that included one free of biofuels, which still pollute and possibly even much more, to one without the internal combustion engine. And even methane produced by anaerobic digestion be best reserved for use in our electricity generating plants and for cooking and heating than for use in motor vehicles.

It is time – high time indeed – that it was realized that the time of personal motoring is over, is history and that the motorcar is and will have been but a blip in the history of mankind. The future is car-less, at least internal combustion engine car-less. And the sooner this was being realized the better and the futility of biofuels (and fracking) be abandoned.

© 2013

Biofuels sinful, Muslim cleric says

by Michael Smith

And the learned cleric did not make this statement because the growing of the crops whence biofuels are made from and the fact that the growing of such crops could cause hunger around the world. Nay, but because many biofuels are alcohol and alcohol is prohibited by the Koran.

The adaptation of biofuels could therefore be limited in Muslim communities after an Islamic scholar called for religious groups to study whether biofuels might violate the ban on alcohol in Islam.

Sheik Mohamed al-Najimi of the Saudi Islamic Jurisprudence Academy told the the Saudi newspaper Shams that the Prophet Mohammed prohibited all dealings with alcohol – which would include buying, selling, transporting, drinking, serving and manufacturing.

Ethanol is derived from ethyl alcohol, which al-Najimi said would fall into the prohibited category. In the process to make ethanol, sugar or starch from plants is converted into ethyl alcohol through yeast fermentation.

Biofuel "is basically made up of alcohol," he said.

Al-Najimi said his opinion on biofuels should not be considered a fatwa, or a legal pronouncement in Islam, but should prompt Islamic leaders to study the issue.

Al-Najimi said he thinks a ban on biofuels should extend beyond predominately Muslim countries to include Saudi and Muslim youth studying abroad who ride in vehicles using biofuel. Many Western and Eastern governments have established mandates for biofuel to be blended in petroleum based fuel in increasing percentages.

What the learned Sheik does not seem to understand is that the Prophet was speaking of alcoholl for the purpose of drinking when he prohibited all dealings with alcohol – which apparently includes the buying, selling, transporting, serving and manufacturing.

Personally I doubt the Prophet was referring to the use in fuel or as, for instance, a medical disinfectant.

However, I have my own reservations as to biofuels, as the reader will know from previous articles and this has nothing to do with the fact that some biofuels are alcohol. It has, on the other hand, everything to do with the fact that the growing of those plants for biofuels occupies lands that are better used for food production.

We must, as I have said before, get away from the notion of biofuels for the running of cars and trucks and find better and cleaner ways and ways that do not put an additional strain on the environment.

© M Smith (Veshengro), February 2009
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No link between biofuels and food prices, leading biofuel industry figure claims

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Biofuel production has almost no impact on food supplies and Government must stop hiding behind the tabloid "food or fuel" debate, says Graham Hilton, leading figure in the biofuels industry.

Graham Hilton, chair of the Renewable Transport Fuels Working Group and managing director of The Energy Crops Company, accused the Government of panicking in the face of public criticism of biofuels.

It is obvious, surely, that Mr, Hilton has absolutely no vested interests here in stating such clap-trap.

Reacting to the publication of the Gallagher Review, he said the report contradicted Defra's own conclusions about the impact on the food production industry.

"Defra have confirmed that biofuels have virtually no impact on the cost of food," he said.

"The real reasons behind the rise in the cost of food are lack of investment, an increase in the fuel costs of agriculture and severe weather impacts such as drought and floods."

He said the biofuels industry is working hard to ensure it is responsible and sustainable - claiming other industries are lagging far behind their efforts.

"Government should stop hiding behind tabloids and have the courage to encourage an industry that has done more than anybody to put the safeguards in place and to make a real contribution," Mr Hilton added.

Mr Hilton has an axe to grind for sure and he would claim that the biofuels industry has no impact on food prices seeing as he is – one – the very chairperson of the Renewable Transport Fuels Working Group and – two – and this is much more important probably – the managing director of The Energy Crops Company. Therefore, I am sure that no one could accuse him of having a vested interest now and being biased towards the biofuels industry, could they. Hell, they could.

The problem appears to be that the biofuels industry is going to be the next oil industry with the same kind of attitudes. It is they – like Mr. Hilton, who hide behind “green” credentials while all they are really interested in is in the bottom line and how much profit they can make out of it, regardless whether it drives the cost of food through the roof and whether people suffer. Not their concern. The environment is, so they say.

But studies have also now found that the use of most biofuels, if not indeed all, rather than reducing any harmful emissions, including the CO2 so tauted as being the responsible agent for Climate Change – remember not so long ago freons were held responsible for the hole in the Ozone layer – will even increase them, and still they all want to go “full steam ahead” with biofuels. Whoa! Someone pull in the reins and stop this runaway ream of horses.

We now have another industry with vested interest that claims to be green and all that even but will be as damaging, if not controlled, as the oil and petroleum industry was and still is, as far as the environment and people are concerned. Let's not even talk about extracting oil from tar sands of Canada, for instance, or coal by removing mountaintops in the Appalachians.

Time for a change... a real change...

© M Smith (Veshengro), July 2008
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