Top scientists warn against rush to biofuel
The Guardian: Gordon Brown is preparing for a battle with the European Union over biofuels after one of the government's leading scientists warned they could exacerbate climate change rather than combat it.
In an outspoken attack on a policy which comes into force next week, Professor Bob Watson, the chief scientific adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said it would be wrong to introduce compulsory quotas for the use of biofuels in petrol and diesel before their effects had been properly assessed.
"If one started to use biofuels ... and in reality that policy led to an increase in greenhouse gases rather than a decrease, that would obviously be insane," Watson said. "It would certainly be a perverse outcome.
Comments
My latest Newsweek magazine made some good arguments about the rush to ethanol. It is unfortunate that so much work went into getting ethanol mandates into US law.
California seems to be thinking about "zero emission vehicles", which is another stampede that may not be what it seems. This idea is meaningful when one is not addressing the emissions that are produced, "over the hill." But when we are referring to CO2 issues, this concept is misleading, bordering on fraudulent.
When fully accounting for efficiencies of heat engines and fuels burned by all options, the electric car appears at best to have no significant advantage over the well engineered Prius, and maybe it will turn out to be significantly worse, depending on how much coal is used in the future to generate electricity.
Now that sobering reality on ethanol has hit us, the next shoe to drop may be the reality of electric vehicles.
The tragedy is that these stampedes obscure real possibilities that could be of real importance. I refer to significant improvement in efficiencies of vehicles and power generating systems. See some thoughts on this by clicking my name.
Posted by: Jim Bullis | March 30, 2008 1:50 PM
Correction, the article I was referring to in my previous post was in TIME magazine, not Newsweek. My apologies.
Posted by: Jim Bullis | April 5, 2008 1:41 PM