“consensus that industrial biofuel production uses valuable food crops and increases carbon emissions” ???

sounds like a great debate.

Whose big idea was biofuels in the first place?

Not greenies, surely…

I’ll also bet you a pound to a penny that the govt is simply following some EU directive!

@2.

Not only is it an EU idea it’s EU law. Doesn’t matter what our government decides to do.

Got to be done because Brussels says so.

Whose big idea was biofuels in the first place?

Not greenies, surely…

Yeah, stupid greenies, changing their minds when it turns out they got it wrong. Not like serious people, who always stick to their guns regardless of what new evidence comes in…

Or were you going for the well-poisoning angle – “they were wrong about something once, therefore everything they say in future can be assumed to be equally wrong”?

Yes, first-generation biofuels were a horrible mistake – a mistake most in the Green movement had recognised long before they were adopted by the EU (thanks to industry lobbying, and opposed by most of the Greens).

Dunc, you’ll be amazed to hear that some people (non-greenies generally) always thought biofuels were a bad idea.
Still, better late than never for you.

Are they going to change their minds on nuclear too?

Is James Lovelock a greenie in your book? He invented the microwave oven and the gaia hypothesis.

He thinks nuclear is our only option until we get our acts together. He’s probably right.

However we need to make a lot of other changes in order to get our acts together, there’s no get-out-of-jail-free card on this one.

How the hell can anybody pretend to know whether biofuels are a “bad idea” until we know about the future path of biofuel technologies, food production patterns, and what happens with alternative energy technologies? What are we going to do about airtravel, for instance, if not biofuel?

This is just not something anybody has any business having a firm opinion on. It makes sense to say current particular biofuels are bad ideas, or particular pieces of legislation are stupid, but being “anti-biofuel” is insane and the alleged consensus referred to in the OP is, thankfully, a figment of the author’s imagination.

The “competition with food” angle is over-egged (that’s not to say the problem can be ignored). Would anybody object to reforestation on that basis that forests compete with agricultural land? The emergence of a new money-making crop is just as likely to help the world’s poor as harm them – there are millions of acres of underexploited land across Africa and South-East Asia, and the main constraint is the lack of a market for what could be grown on it.

Just one promising example: phyrolisis is one of the most promising ways of processing human waste, and also takes carbon out of the cycle by creating charcoal that can then be dug into earth to increase fertility.

Whose big idea was biofuels in the first place?

Not greenies, surely…

How’s your bet against temperatures rising coming along cjcjc?

7 years to go you know! ;’)

Did nobody learn ANYTHING from Day of the Triffids?!?

Not to mention the subsidies that go to industrial “farmers” producing biofuels.

Erm, the problems with biofuels are largely problem with first generation biofuels. There is no such “global consensus” on any such problems for second or third generation biofuels. Science progresses.

For instance, the page linked starts with this:

“Most biofuels are produced from agricultural crops.”

Then don’t oppose the biofuels that aren’t from such crops!

(Also, it would help if those on the left didn’t act like walking and talking naturalistic fallacies by opposing genetically engineered food)

Exxon, and others, are now looking at second generation biofuels. Personally I think this is a way forward because you don’t take from the food producers.

Then there is the subsidies to “industiral” farmers … another debate to have.

13. Alex – “Erm, the problems with biofuels are largely problem with first generation biofuels. There is no such “global consensus” on any such problems for second or third generation biofuels. Science progresses.”

What is a second generation biofuel I wonder? The Brazilians have been using sugar cane residue for decades. This first or second? It looks to me like an effort at spin. All biofuels use crop land and other resources that could be used for food. I don’t see how anyone can get around this. On the other hand that does not matter as the supply of food is elastic – the price goes up and so does the supply.

The real issue is whether they take more energy to produce than they provide. All the studies I have seen say they do. Maybe second generation biofuels will escape this but I doubt it.