The Wall Street Journal (September 3)
There’s only one way the world can feed 9 billion people and provide them with fuel and water. According to Nestle’s Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, politicians around the world must decide “no food for fuel.” Increasingly food has been diverted for biofuel production. About one half of corn production in the U.S. and rapeseed production in Europe already goes to biofuels, which are also water intensive (producing a liter of biodiesel can require over 9,000 liters of water). While the result of rising food prices from this diversion is merely “annoying” in rich countries, it means people “go hungry” or thirsty in the Third World.
The Independent (August 30)
The second generation of biofuels may be drawing near. By using enzymes that allow elephants to digest “sugars which normally remain locked up in the cellulose structure of plant cells,” Swiss researchers were able to “convert 90 per cent of bio-mass, such as maize stalks or wheat straw, into ethanol—about double the rate until now.” This second generation technology would make it possible to “to mass-produce eco-friendly gasoline for the first time without relying on food crops.”
The second generation of biofuels may be drawing near. By using enzymes that allow elephants to digest “sugars which normally remain locked up in the cellulose structure of plant cells,” Swiss researchers were able to “convert 90 per cent of bio-mass, such as maize stalks or wheat straw, into ethanol—about double the rate until now.” This second generation technology would make it possible to “to mass-produce eco-friendly gasoline for the first time without relying on food crops.”
Tags: Biofuel, Food crops, Gasoline, Switzerland, Waste
