Ethanol as polluting as gasoline

I never wrapped my mind around how burning biofuels contributed less carbon dioxide than burning petroleums. I can see perhaps fewer carcinogens but we still get the global warming.

I will support biofuels from garbage any day, but never from crops. The notion of trading food for fuel to promote world wide starvation and forest destruction is on the Republican agenda.

The alcoholic fermentation of certain foodstuffs led to serious and unexpected repercussions and in particular the blaze of the prices of these products.

What one hears these last months: “climatic changes”, “Transformations of certain edible into biocombustibles”, “raising of prices”, “great total hunger”… It is panic!

The combustion of oil, fossil fuel of origin, releases violently in the atmosphere of the million tons of carbon. The biocombustibles ones emerge, in theory, like alternative ecological to oil, durable, not pollutant, the great solution with the climatic change… but: is it really the solution? The producers (Linked States, Brazil, Europe) see in the production of biocombustibles a development appropriateness and a solution to the climatic change. FAO and other international organizations, they alert raising of prices of food and danger of deforestation to create new fields of cultures.

The biocombustibles ones: a solution or a threat?

Of what they do consist? The biocombustibles ones are containing hydrocarbon which derives from the biomass (the whole of the organic matter which can become sources of energy) and can be of two types: bioéthanol, an alcohol of vegetable origin which is manufactured starting from the matters rich in sugars or starch like, for example, the beet, the cane with sugar or cereals. According to its chemical properties it can substitute or mixed with the fossil gasoline of origin. Its principal producers and its consumers are Brazil and the United States. The other éco-fuel is the biodiesel, which is obtained starting from the raw materials renewable, the oleaginous plants (colza, sunflower, palm tree…) or of worn vegetable oils. It is the bet of Europe, whose principal producer is Germany (63% of the production).

The mixture of these biocombustibles with fossile fuels has the following advantages:

In comparison with the use of fuels fossils at 100%, there is less of carbon dioxide emissions CO2. It the last is the principal gas for purpose of greenhouse which, by an increase in the atmospheric temperature, led to the climatic changes. Thus its environmental impact is less.
The biocombustibles ones are renewable, contrary to oil which is a limited recourse.
The disadvantages are as follows:

Some studies show that there would be no ground cultivable sufficient. For example, in the United States all surface cultivated current corn alone could cover 12% of the consumption of one American gasoline.
Researchers of Institut of Sciences of Technologies environment of the University of Barcelona explain why the use of biocombustibles has an economic, social and environmental impact negative. Veterinary surgeons without borders denounce that the production helps to carry a consumption of energy larger than that which is generated. Well that on the subject of the production there is certain controversy, if one account holds that the cultures intended for fuels must be massive to be profitable, they require a fossil energy, pesticides, a great use of manure, water… finally, swinging energetics is inclined towards the negative side. The independence supposed of oil is not easy, since it is used for the production, it transport…
In certain countries, the request the biocombustibles ones increases without cease. So more fields of cultures are used for the consumption of the cars: what passes with food? Will it be necessary to choose between the food of people and that of the cars? It seems that yes. For two years the prices of food had increased in a considerable way, by reaching a level raised about 80%. This blaze of the prices touches with more hardness with the countries in the process of development, by slowing down its economic growth and while carrying to a great massive hunger of total nature. There is increase in the principal foodstuffs like the flour, corn, soya, rice, oil, milk, the fruit and vegetable fresh. Two thirds of the population of planet live under chronic conditions of poverty and denutrition, to that we add the raising of prices of food for the animals by supporting an aggravation of the food crisis.

This lack carried to the disorders in several countries of the world and as a private individual to Africa, in Kenya, in Senegal, to Guinea, in Ivory Coast, in Morocco, in Burkina, Cameroun and to Egypt. In Bangladesh, at the end of April 2008, approximately 20 textile hard-working miles (the principal industry of the country) initiated protests after the raising of prices of food and asked, in parallel, of in wages. In Ivory Coast of the thousands of people went while singing “we are hungry”. Strikes and confrontations also took place in Peru, in Bolivia, in Mexico, in Indonesia, in Pakistan, in Philippines, in Thailand, in Ethiopia and in Yemen. According to the director general of FAO, Jacques Diouf, “There exist the risk so that that extends because the causes are the same ones”: the expansion of biocombustibles, the speculation on the raw material market and subsidies with exports of the European Union, which mean that the Occident is the largest person in charge for the great hunger to which the emergent countries have to face.

Other dangers, alert UNO of the possibility of what deforestation increases if new surfaces are entitled without control for the cultures intended for the biocombustibles ones. Les petits agriculteurs peuvent se trouver nuis en substituant les petites récoltes par les monocultures, en favorisant la disparition de la biodiversité...

Le paradoxe des biocombustibles consiste en ce que cela pourrait vraiment être une solution, mais quelle solution pour un système de consommation, de production et de transport clairement insoutenable. There is change , relatively, of a fossil fuel of origin by another plant and that touched the spending patterns, discussed the intensive systems of production, influenced on the laws relentless of the market the Almighty. Recently, Jean Jose Daboub, Director of the World Bank, drew aside to intervene to stop the raising of prices of food and to finish with such a crisis which, according to him, will last two more or three years, a crisis which led to the poverty of the million people. Plaster solutions also propose, like eating less meat or making gift of the money to the interdependent organizations or increasing the loans of the African farmers (while being involved in debt even more). Thanks to several of factors - an expansion of biocombustibles, a speculation of the raw materials , a loss of harvests thanks to a contrary meteorology, a growth of the population, a food loss of sovereignty, a protectionism of certain economies, a raising of prices of oil - the successes reached since the decolonization move back, the food crisis is exacerbated and led to a wave of world hunger without precedents.

In conclusion, technology necessary must develop to nourish and not to die. To nourish with all the population and not to die of hunger to the victims of industrialization. But, in a suicidal bet, we elutriate ourselves to use this technology to nourish the privileges of a small percentage of this population. The image which one has of the “technological development” must change. Vis-a-vis evolutions which exceed to them, the developed countries must readjust their action. The principle is initially not to harm and to destroy because science without conscience can lead to the famine and violence.