Biofuels have been wrongfully promoted and mistakenly perceived to be ‘carbon neutral’, that they do not add any greenhouse gas to the atmosphere; burning them simply returns to the atmosphere the carbon dioxide that the plants take out when they were growing in the field. But this statement ignores the costs in carbon emissions and energy use of the fertilizers and pesticides used for growing the crops, the processing and refining, transport, and distribution of the fuels.
40% of the earth’s land is already used up for agriculture; there is no spare land for growing food, let alone bioenergy crops. Demand for biofuels has turned traditional food crops into ‘bioenergy’ crops. Food and energy now compete for the same ‘feedstock’. The pressure on land from food and bioenergy crops will certainly speed up deforestation and species extinction, and at the same time result in food price increases worldwide, hitting the poorest, hungriest countries the hardest.
