Years ago, scientists were saying the world could grow five times the amount of food it was currently producing. I guess they were wrong, seeing as we can't even grow a bit extra for biofuels without pushing the price up catastrophically.

Good thing is that 2nd generation biofuels like biomethane from anaerobic digesters (AD) are encouraged. With OEMs like VW and MB making great CNG vehicles now (Passat, B Class, Sprinter all launched in 2008) there is nothing to stop this market now.

Cars will go the furthest on crops grown on an acre of land if the crops are used to produce renewable methane in an AD. At todays energy prices, this makes financial sense as well as being best for CO2. Truly sustainable transport.

As most of these reports: full of questionable ideological perspectives, some very bad science (on land use efficiency) and the result of a 'minimalist' approach towards sustainability.

For example the idea that small farmers should be protected, or that a particular piece of land should not be converted for energy crops, is highly debatable. Historically speaking, the tendency for small farmers who use extensive techniques to give up farming and to migrate to cities, has led to much higher efficiency as better and larger farmers take over with intensive techniques.

It is actually good that small farmers in Brazil get pushed out of the market, so that they can get better paid jobs in cities, and so that a bigger farmer with much more capital can invest in much more efficient production. This is good from a social, environmental and efficiency point of view.

This is just one example of how a maximalist and historically grounded view on sustainability is needed. Else, we keep getting these pretty nonsensical reports.

But these counter-intuitive ideas are really unacceptable in today's politically correct green discourse.

@MartinB, where do you get these strange ideas?

By 2050 the world can still produce biofuels worth 7 times (1500Ej) as much oil as currently consumed (220Ej worth), while feeding all people (9 billion by that time), without cutting a single tree, and without taking into account advancements in biotechnology.

These are readily available projections made by the world's leading scientists in the field (and now also the basis of the FAO's bioenergy and food projections).

So you are confusing actual market conditions and traditions, with the actual potential.

The potential is enormous. The organisation needed to tap it is disastrous (subsidies, bad science, trade barriers, lack of inputs for poor farmers, horrible policies, etc...).

So let's not go that catastrophic Malthusian route please. It is the hallmark of ignorance.

"So let's not go that catastrophic Malthusian route please. It is the hallmark of ignorance."

Jonas, if you are going to bandy about accusations of ignorance, you should at least provide sources for your statements (ie 7 times as much biofuels in 2050 as oil currently), ie exactly who said that, when, and where. You should also take into account the fact that cultivable arable land will probably be reduced in 2050 from the present amount because of global warming effects (desertification, retreat of glaciers, esp. Himalayas, etc). hard to believe the world will produce 7 times as much biofuel as oil currently consumed within any kind of plausible economic scenario (ie not allowed to assume oil is >$1000).

Jonas is right. Stanford just released a study that posited that there are between 1.0 and 1.2 Billion fertile, Abandoned acres in the world. With modern, developing biotechnology, and farming methods - not to mention forestry methods - it's a slam-dunk.

Let’s leave the unfarmed lands alone for the little bird, animals and insects. They deserve their place in this world.

I admit it is discouraging to find out Bio-fuel as presently deployed is rather unattractive in an environmental sense.

It just makes no sense to have increased food price, and no net benefit to environment at the same time.

Premature government subsidies exasperated the problem in the United States. This should become a lesson learned, cautioning against industry lobbying, and rosy projections. Now, hydrogen technology could become a similar disaster area if it is allowed to run its present course.

What we see here is that the EU is realizing that biofuels can supply only a small part of our energy needs without new and undiscovered methods (political or technological).

Our search for energy independence and sustainability must therefore be focused in other areas. Unfortunately, the EU has not yet noticed that they are required as leaders to look for and identify those areas.

Might I suggest they have a look at wind and solar to pitch in the renewable requirement that we don't see coming from biofuel.

Hell yeah, push the small farmer off his farm just when he can start making money in energy crops and organic produce. And get him a "good job" in the concrete jungle.

We're talking the milk of green compassion here.

NEWSFLASH! Computer simulation project bankrupt, financially and of ideas. Computer models shown to be "Not ready for Prime Time."

European countries failed miserably in biofuels, hence 180 degree turn from “biofuels the saviors” to biofuels crime against humanity”.

Soon Europe will fail wind and solar. Expect wind and solar declared “crime against humanity” too.

Let's blame it all on the World Bank:

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=79

Hang on, my switchgrass poplar stew is still on the boil... I have a bowl every morning before heading off to the landfill!

Only a short three days ago this malarkey was called: The World Bank Report:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/07/world-bank-repo.html

Today, somehow we've entirely lost the meddling World Bank as the culprit. Is this journalism or pathetic old propaganda?

I call it "sanity prevails". Its good to know someone in the UK somewhere has common sense. I wish, here in the US, that some common sense could be found regarding our current gasohol enacting efforts.

The solution, BEV, at any cost! (which is much cheaper than the damage of the current gasohol effects, and, our addiction to oil) Wind, new generation nuclear, cleaner coal, natural gas, are all here, lets utilize them......

Mark A:

PHEVs and BEVs are certainly part of the longer timeframe solution.

What do we do to feed the existing 700 to 800 million gas guzzlers (+ many more new one coming out every year) for the next 10 to 30 years?

Fossil liquid fuel is running out or getting rare and will be more and more costly.

Agro-fuels cannot be produced in suffisant quantities without provoking major world food shortages and sky high food prices.

Producing fuels with various types of wastes may eventually help but the technologies are not mature yet.

The solutions will be progressive and will take time. Many approaches, such as corn ethanol, will fail and will have to be abandoned.

Meanwhile, speculators are going to make a fortune by taking advantage of people's needs and fears.

Progressive but massive electrification (transportation vehicles, HVAC etc) seems to be the best way to go.

An oil-free economy is possible. Switching from fossil to agro-fuels is not the answer in most cases.

I see what you did there.

Euro-Commies Bait-and-Switch a Green Eco-Scare tactic to loot the taxpayers into a Command-and-Control land grab to destroy self-reliance via biofuels.

BOOGA!BOOGA! You're all gonna starve to death unless we micromanage the economy! No biofuels for you evil capitalist farmers!

Mark A:

Agree - BEVs at any cost!

That'll be $102k for your Tesla EV (only one avail).

rp

Was your grandpa against the Ford gasoline self propel carriage?

The near future world does not have many choices for personnal transportation vehicles. We will soon run out of cheap fossil liquid fuel. We can't produce enough agro-fuels to satisfy 1 + billion gas guzzlers and feed 10 + billion people. Our love affair with cars + Vus etc is an addiction we can't shake off quickly.

Transportation vehicles electrification could solve both our addiction for cars and GHG reduction.

What is wrong with electric vehicles beside our resistance to change?

There is NO such thing as "Clean Coal".

Even if you clean up smokestack emissions, the carbon still comes out of the ground, that is greenhouse gas. And the coal comes from strip mines. Stripmines destroy the land forever and destroy the watersheds.

----"BOOGA!BOOGA! You're all gonna starve to death unless we micromanage the economy! No biofuels for you evil capitalist farmers!"------

Yes, isn't it strange, American farmers who feed the world are the bad guys, Saudi Arabian two bit royalty(the country that 11 out of 19 9/11 terrorists came from) is suddenly the big heros---Bush has to rush over and lick boots to beg for more oil. And offer then NUCLEAR REACTORS to "gaurrantee their energy future". The only things Saudi Arabia has more of than oil is sand and sunshine, offer them solar power. No, Saudi Arabia wants nuclear weapons, not solar power---you cann't make solar panels into bombs. The next time that terrorists attack us, they'll have nuclear weapons---thanks to GW Bush.

----"The near future world does not have many choices for personnal transportation vehicles. We will soon run out of cheap fossil liquid fuel. We can't produce enough agro-fuels to satisfy 1 + billion gas guzzlers and feed 10 + billion people."-----

We can use exactly the same vehicles we use now. All we need to do is use biofuels in them.

We have already run out of cheap fossil liquid fuel, we will never run out of cheap liquid biofuel, it is renewable, we just grow more, it is non-polluting and produces no greenhouse gas.

We can easily produce enough biofuels to replace petroleum oil. Saltwater algae grows best in desert conditions in saltwater, current technology produces roughly 5,000 gallons per acre. We have a LOT of deserts and saltwater available.

Ethanol can be made from any type of plant source. It can be made from trees thinned out of managed timber stands. Trees are thinned at about 15 to 20 ft,---about 2 to 3 thousand per acre. Each thinned tree contains about 1 ton of pulp producing material. That is about 140,000 to 210,000 gallons per acre of thinned managed timber stands.(current yeild about 70 gallons per ton) That is wood that is just piled up and burned now. Why not use it to power our vehicles.

By the time you account for production, transportation, and refining costs--each gallon of biofuel replaces the need for 2.3 gallons of crude oil. Petroleum is extremely wasteful and inefficient. Our current usage rate of petroleum crude is 20.7 million barrels per day(in the US)---we could do the same things we are doing right now with biofuels equivalent to 9 million barrels.(42 gal./barrel)