Editorial: Are bio-fuels the answer?

The protagonists of green energy are armed with the strong argument that crude oil prices have been sky-rocketing and may climb even further (as Opec has predicted); on the other hand, there is no dearth of equally forceful arguments against the rush to adopt crop-based substitutes for fossil fuel. Among other things, there is growing evidence that bio-fuels can meet, at best, only a fraction of the total requirement of auto-fuel. If that is the case, the question to ask is whether it is worth jeopardising food security for the world's 850 million hungry people in order to reduce petroleum consumption by a tad. What adds to the misgivings on this count is the warning contained in the report put together jointly by the FAO and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in July last year, that the demand for bio-fuel feedstocks, such as cereals, sugar, oilseeds and vegetable oils, was likely to push up international commodity prices by 20 to 50 per cent over the next 10 years. This prophecy seems to have come true sooner than anticipated.

 

The fear now is that the purported cure for global warming